Over 50

I received an email from a friend yesterday that is priceless. It really does reflect what life is like for people who are 50+

Life has changed so much in the last 50 (okay almost 60) years. I guess since the end of the second world war. Before that there was change.. electricity, automobiles, airplanes, but not so much technologically as in say the last 30 - 40 years.

Some background. When I was 5 we got our first telephone ever. My parents couldn't afford it but one of my sisters had been left standing waiting for a group from the church and no one showed up. The leaders couldn't reach my parents to tell them the event had been cancelled cause we had no phone. So they stretched the budget and got us a phone - a party line which most of you younger ones have never heard of. It wasn't like 1-800-Lavalife, it wasn't really a party. We had to share our phone line with someone else that we didn't know. Of course that did make for interesting listening if we picked up the phone to make a call and they were talking. Of course it wasn't a portable phone or a cell phone. It was a phone with a receiver that weighed about 10 pounds and you prayed that none of your friends would have a 0 in their phone number!

We didn't own a television until I was 10. It was a used black and white thing with rabbit ears and poor reception. By rabbit ears I mean these:

Not these

My mother didn't have a vacuum. We had hardwood floors so she used a dust mop and she had a carpet sweeper for our accent rugs in the livingroom/diningroom. She finally got a second hand canister vacuum when my parents were finally able to afford a modest home in 1960

She eventually got a more modern Hoover but still used this in the basement until the 1980's when her basement flooded.

Our car was a 1929 Model A Ford which my dad had owned since about 1939. He kept it up on blocks in the winter and drove it in the summer to get to our cottage and back. It didn't have GPS, it didn't even have a trunk. We 3 girls had to balance ourselves on the luggage stacked on the back seat.

I don' have a photo of the original but ours was green where this one is tan and it had those skinny rubber tires.

I could go on but enough... I just wanted to show the contrast between what I grew up with and what the world is like today. So here is the email.

Over 50

I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating" You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered,..... No, but I do toot a lot."

My gratitude for today. I'm grateful that I have email friends who send me things like this to help me start the day with a giggle.

Who Turned Up The Heat??

Remember a week or so ago I commented that the furnace was running when I got up in the morning? Okay, maybe I didn't blog about it, but it was. End of June. We had the worst, coldest, wettest (sp) spring on record. Yesterday we had a beautiful day. Today we're pulling out the portable air conditioner and all the fans. It's 90F here today. We're right near the ocean so we have cooler temperatures than inland. My parents-in-law are living in 106F. Luckily they have a trailer down in Sumas, Washington so are able to get out of the condo and down to where it's a bit cooler among the trees... but not much cooler. Streets on Vancouver's East Side are being patrolled handing out bottles of water to the homeless.

People don't have central air conditioning here cause it's never really hot enough to need it. By the weekend they're expecting rain again. I hate to say I'm looking forward to it after complaining so much this Spring... but I've changed my mind about heat. I like warmth, I don't do well in heat. Luckily my sewing room is on the bottom level of the house and it stays cool down there even in this heat so I may have to go nose around down there and see what I can do. Don't feel like sewing but I could fondle my stash or something *LOL*

DH has been working hard fixing up the boat he bought. He can't just buy things and enjoy them, he has to tinker. A lot of tinkering was necessary on this one, which is why we got it so cheap, but he always overdoes so insisted it needed new seats. The new ones do look more comfortable I suppose. It is a 1976 original, which come to think of it our daughter is too although I think she fared better than the boat over the years.

Here are before and after photos. He's painted the floor too.

He also fixed the wiring and sanded and shined up all the aluminum parts.

And named it. Caelig is Scottish Gaelic for Young Lass

Now if we could just put it in the water it would be great. Especially on a day like today. It's supposed to go back to being hot next week so hopefully by then. If you're wondering about the flag in the background it's the Newfoundland Flag plus some mildew from hanging outside in the workshop for a few winters. The center stripe is supposed to be white.

Today I am grateful for fresh drinking water straight out of the tap. There aren't many places aside from North America where our tap water is safe for drinking.

Name That Bloom

I was going to call this post Name That Bug but my daughter was over last night and knew what it was. I have no idea how she knew, I sure didn't teach her and DH didn't teach her cause neither one of us knew what it was. He did, however, notice that there were 3 of them on that poor plant. The other two were smaller. Closest I could come on Google was a Colorado Potato Bug but we're in Canada so it either wasn't a Colorado bug or his radar got messed up. So here he is:

That's a New Guinea Impatiens he's sitting on so he was large - about 1.5" Apparently he's a 10 striped June bug. Don't know what they're doing here in July and don't know what they're doing here period. I thought June bugs were an eastern thing. However the Weed Man people called last week and said white grubs had been spotted in the area and did I want them to add that to our spray. I said okay and now I know what the white grubs are he's talking about. June bug larvae. The grown ups are probably up on the hanging basket cause they don't want to be on the lawn with the pesticide (actually it's an organic pesticide that Weed Man uses, their weed killer is organic too).

Now I need the help of blog friends who know about houseplants. See I bring things home, water them sometimes - usually forget about them and ignore them - and if they live I love them. I've had this one for quite awhile now. I need to dust it's leaves, poor thing. But yesterday DH noticed this bloom type thing on it. There's only one. The leaves seem to be purple underneath so that's a clue, and it's turned out to be kind of a vine idea. It also lives in our front hall which faces North and gets no direct sunlight, mostly gets dim light. Anyone know what this is?

I just fertilized it cause that's a kind of neat bloom. Actually it looks kinda gross if you look at it the wrong way.

Went out and power washed most of the deck this morning. We still have summer so what the heck. Things get so filthy here cause we're near a coal port, farmland, and things are so wet here in the winter that things turn green.

Now I'm off to the roadside market to get some fresh local corn for dinner.

Today I'm thankful that I'm still healthy at my age and can do things like powerwashing myself rather than having to hire someone to do it.

Summer!

It's here! It's here! Summer! And it's going to stay all the way until Thursday. And if we're lucky maybe after that too. Now I wish I was a gardener. You would not believe the smell when I walk out onto our deck. Our neighbour is like a master gardener and the smell from her garden drifts over on the breeze and it's heavenly. I love the smell of summer.

DH was getting frustrated trying to put the seats in the boat so he asked if I wanted to go sit outside at the deli have a coffee and a piece of carrot cake or something. Well sure I did. It was so nice. As I said in my last post I love people watching. We had to go to the one on the east side of the street though cause even though the sun is shining it's still cool in the shade.

I'm feeling much better today. I think it's because I've finally gotten over the early morning on Friday and I have more energy. The sun doesn't hurt either.

Haven't done much quilt wise. Yesterday I did trace out some of the pieces for the free quilt pattern from The Rabbit Factory that I got the fabric for last month.

DH has lost his sense of smell. Apparently it can happen. He's even been to a specialist and there's nothing that can be done. So today I have to say I'm grateful for my sense of smell because with the garden next door I can sit on our deck, close my eyes and get lost in the smell of summer.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope all my American friends are having a good day. We're having apple pie for dessert in your honor and will see if we can find a place locally to view the Fireworks display from Pt. Roberts, Washington.

I've been feeling lost today. I'm still very tired from Friday. On days like today I have to constantly remind myself of the positives in my life. But you know when we're having a bad day we can't order ourselves to buck up, tell ourselves that it could be worse. Whatever we are feeling is real, whatever our issues if they are affecting us negatively we need to acknowledge them, not stuff them down. Stuffing our feelings down will make us sick. It can cause dis-ease.

Once I acknowledge my feelings then I can see if there is something that I need to do personally. If I am in pain emotionally, grieving, etc. then I need to allow myself to heal without being so hard on myself.

But today all I am suffering from is the "blues". The only thing I can do about that is look around me and think about all the positives in my life.

We decided to go out for dinner last night so I wouldn't have to cook. I love having grown children. You get to do things like that, there isn't as strict a schedule when it comes to mealtimes, nutrition, etc. So we went for Ribs at a place that has tables and umbrellas outside so we could enjoy the fresh air and watch life go by. We were sitting next to the nicest young men and one of them struck up a conversation with us. He's a long shoreman but there are parts of his day that he has down time so he reads 3 newspapers a day and is well versed in what is going on in our world. He's a natural clown too and kept us in stitches so it wasn't a doom and gloom type thing.

Now I knew that Greece was in trouble financially, and I knew that Iceland's bank had closed (my neice's mother-in-law had quite a bit of money in the Icelandic Bank and lost all of it). What I didn't know, because I read newspapers so seldom, is that now Spain and Portugal are suffering financial difficulties too. I don't notice what's going on because here in Canada we are seemingly flourishing. It came as quite a shock to me to realize that basically what's going on means that Europe is flailing and that there are going to be changes in the World order. There have not been changes on that grand a scale in my lifetime.

So today I am thankful that I live in Canada where there is peace and stability. I don't have to wonder where my next meal will come from or where I'll sleep tonight. I feel safe.

Life Lessons and Choices

I missed posting yesterday cause our internet was down most of the day - and so was I *LOL* So I will post two things I am thankful for today.

I'm thankful for life lessons. It used to be I would berate myself because I'm not a morning person. I felt "less than" those who could bounce out of bed at 6am or even 7am. Not anymore.

I'm thankful that I've discovered that I am who I am. My body clock does what it does and that's okay. Trying to "bounce" when I'm not ready for it puts me out of commission for a couple of days. And that is "allowed".

Yesterday my husband had to go to hospital for a test - routine, his dad has cancer and the sons have to be tested occasionally to make sure they haven't picked it up genetically. Thankfully these tests always come back good. However sometimes his appointments are scheduled for 8am. He's a morning person. When he makes appointments he makes them so he can get them over with early in the day and have the rest of the day free. Getting to this hospital from here requires leaving home at 7am to get there by 8am. This makes getting up at 6am a necessity, especially for me cause even by 7 when we leave I'm still a zombie. I have to go with him to drive him home because they usually give him a sedative. He could have taken a taxi and I could have picked him up but for me to go in with him even paying for parking is cheaper than a taxi. So I go.

And the above leads to my thankfulness that I have choices. I didn't used to realize that it was okay if I didn't dust or vacuum on schedule. Even if I was exhausted I had to get it done. Not any more. Friday is my vacuuming day. Because I was so tired from getting up so early I had a 3 hour nap instead. The crumbs will still be there when I've recovered enough to vacuum.

Realizing that I have choices is so freeing.

Over the last couple of days I've made 4 placemats for the Fall Bazaar.  I'm doing one thing a week. The fabric they have is not always good, it's all donated. These turned out nicely I think except for the poly fabric they gave me to use as a backing and which I also used to make the bias binding. But they look okay and I've never been to anyone's house where I've turned over my placemat to see what the back looks like *LOL*

I didn't crosshatch both ways because it was too time consuming and I think this holds the layers together well enough.

Someone else, Patricia I think it was, said she watched our Canada Day celebrations on TV. So did we. I love the Queen. I always have loved the idea of the Royalty... however I didn't pay taxes in her time so don't know what it would be like to still have her as our Queen. The thing I really don't understand is if she is no longer our Queen, and the Governor General was the Queen's representative when she was our Queen, why do we still need a Governor General? But I don't understand politics.

We did turn off the entertainment portion part way into it because they were using French singers. Guess most of our English ones who are any good have gone to the States. And we don't understand French. The singers were very talented and the music was nice but I like to know what the words are saying.

So I can't be grateful I live in a unilingual country cause I don't and it is a bee in my bonnet.

HAPPY BLOGGERS

I've been thinking. I said I was going to do it and here we go. I thought July wasn't a good month, but is there a month that is a good month? Maybe January after all the letdown of the holidays and the bills that are rolling in, but there's no time like the present.

For the next month I'd like to ask all my fellow bloggers to post a positive thought a day. There are no rules. I know that sometimes it's more helpful to list a complaint and then list something positive. If that works better for you that's fine, but the purpose of all this is to focus on the positive, and there are always positives. You can post it at the beginning of your post or at the end.

I'm grateful that I live in an area where I can hear the songbirds sing all day long.

In other news.

I finished my Gifts of Grace block for June. I kind of had to force myself cause I'd rather keep quilting on my daughter's quilt but I want to get these and the Red Brolly catalicious blocks done so I gave myself a few breaks here and there. I always say "This is my favorite". They're turning out very pretty when you see them in person. This one is also very appropriate because Kindness is what we want to spread with our positive posts.

Our weather is definately not July. I don't know where our July went.. actually there were only a couple of June days and a couple of May days as well..  has anyone seen our missing months?

Today is Canada Day and for the first year it sure doesn't feel like it. It's no weather to be having a BBQ or a picnic in. Our low last night was 10C.. which is 50F! Actually our furnace is running right now. DH is cold. He just got back from a very nice, not to mention warm, week long trip to San Diego and Palm Springs with his father and brother. Guess the switch from 105F to 50F is a bit of a shock to the system. 

Off to do some sewing. I did manage to make 4 placemats for the bazaar the other day but now I have to make some bias binding to go around the edge.