Why It's Great Being A Woman!

Live in each season as it passes;

breathe the air,
drink the drink, taste the fruit,
and resign yourself to the influences of each.

~Henry David Thoreau~

I love being alive and a woman! Every day presents a new possibility with endless choices. Today is the beginning of a hectic week, but I am excited to have the opportunity to experience it with a fantastic family. Here is a list of reasons why I think it's great being a woman:

• We don't have to apologize for crying.
  
  
• Men happily hold the door open for us to pass through first.
  
  
• We can spend as much time getting ready and it is just expected.
  
  
• All we have to do is give "the look" and everyone listens.
  
  
• It is A-O-K to get a pedicure.
  
  
• We have no problem matching our clothes.
  
  
• Mowing and the garbage is not considered our normal duties.
  
  
• The world stops when we get hurt.
  
  
• Ooohing and aaahing over flowers and babies is acceptable.
  
  
• All hair lengths are acceptable - short, medium, long and longer.
  

Take a few minutes to contemplate the joys of being a woman and being in YOUR life.

YOU ARE SPECIAL!

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How To Be Happy

Being rich, famous and beautiful?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, happiness is enjoying or having a feeling of well-being, satisfaction, or contentment. There is also the chemical aspects of happiness which includes the pleasure chemical in the brain (dopamine) being released. What I find even more interesting was research that indicated 50% of our happiness is a result of our genes (Britain's Proceedings of the Royal Society B - Founded in 1660 and is the oldest and leading scientific society in the world). The breakdown is like this:

• 10%-15% socioeconomic status, health, marital status, income
• 40% actions taken in the effort to find happiness

How do you see yourself? Is the glass half empty or half full? I have come to accept that I cannot always "make" changes happen and that no one else can "make" me happy. THAT was a VERY hard lesson for me to learn. I can, however, change me. I'm the only person that I can actually control. Control freaks, if you didn't know that, you can now freak out. I'm right there with you. There are a few things that I have found that will build confidence and thus boost your "comfortableness" with yourself and this will elevate your happiness level:

• Develop a positive attitude


• I create a motivational thought that I circulate at work to "motivate" my peers and brighten their day with a happy thought. This isn't required of me, but it also helps to uplift my attitude for the day too. If being happy isn't easy for you, then step out of the box and do something to help other people have a happy experience or moment.
  
• Every time you have a negative thought, tell yourself you must now say three positive things about yourself. You can't repeat the same positive in a day, so this will help you break the negative thinking cycle pretty fast.
  
  
• Surround yourself with positive people who care about you


• The old adage of "If you lay down with pigs all you get is dirty" really is true. Miserable people want other people to be miserable too.
  
• Caring people have positive things to discuss and say nice things to you and about you.

• Smile


• Whether you realize it or not, smiling will change your mood and attitude.
  
• Smiling signals to others that you are pleasant and draws them in.
  
• Having a smile boosts your confidence!
  

• Let go of the past and your "bumps" in the road


• We are not perfect! Don't be so hard on yourself! The past is THE PAST! Look to the future with a sense of adventure.
  
• Forgive yourself and others. It takes a lot more energy to hold on to anger and grief than it does to cultivate foregiveness and a positive attitude.
  
• Find activities that reduce your stress
  
  

  • I hate to say it and I hate to do it, but exercise really does reduce your stress. I can just hear my family as they read that line...laughing hysterically. Exercise includes more than just going to the gym - when you are not alone, park at the back of the parking lot, go up and down the stairs at work or home more than necessary, walk and walk some more.
    
  • Read. Get lost in a book and forget about your own problems.
    
  • Watch a good movie.
    
  • Get involved in a hobby.
    

If 40% of our actions taken are geared towards finding our own happiness, fill your life with all the things that make you feel great about yourself and the future. Keep looking up and forward. Invigorate your mind and your relationships. Happiness is based on positive action.

In the words of Aristotle, "Happiness depends upon ourselves."

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Just Treat Me The Same As You Would The Queen And Everything Will Be Fine

I get up early and start making my list of the things I have to do today.

• Strip the bed and wash the sheets
• Clean the bathroom
• Vacuum
• Dust the furniture
• Write the grocery list
• Buy the groceries
• Write a posting for my blog
• Peek at my email at work
• Fold the clothes I didn't do yesterday
• Buy Turtle some food (yeah, the turtle's name is Turtle)
• Work on Alyssa's prom dress

And then I hear it.

A small sound.

Familiar.

"Mo-om"...two syllables.

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry."

Ah. Alyssa is getting better.

She doesn't want breakfast food and she is starving. Great! I still have the homemade chicken soup from yesterday and that does the job nicely.

Now I'm back to my chore list and figure that I will actually start doing things instead of making myself depressed with an even longer list.

Strip the bed.

Check.

Wash the sheets.

Half a check because they are still turning around in the washing machine.

Clean the bathroom.

Check.

Again the same sound from earlier in the morning.

"Mo-om."

"I'm thirsty."

I'm happy to get the poor girl something to drink, but I'm thinking, is this the same girl who told me a few months ago "I'm grown up already"???

Inwardly laughing.

Mission accomplished. Liquid nourishment has been delivered.

Back to the list.

Write the grocery list.

Well, this requires rummaging around in the kitchen and that makes me want to clean out the refrigerator. Have you ever noticed how no one else can tell that the refrigerator needs cleaning out?

"Mo-om."

While walking to her room I'm thinking that I am getting plenty of exercise today.

"I'm hungry again. I want a fat sandwich."

Easy enough.

One fat sandwich coming up.

Very easy recipe.

Chicken-Ala-Mom

1 pkg of skinless chicken cut into strips (if frozen, zap in the microwave for a couple minutes so that you can cut it)

3 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan on medium-high heat

3 teaspoons minced fresh garlic (I keep a huge container in my refrigerator)

3 teaspoons Mrs. Dash original

1 teaspoon black ground pepper

Put it all in the pan and cook on both sides until brown.

The sandwich was a huge hit.

With the list still looming in front of me, I continue.

Peek at email for work.

I peeked. It felt like a million emails wanted me to read them.

Check.

Just remembered the sheets that have long since been washed.

Put them in the dryer.

"Mo-om."

"I want ice cream."

Alyssa is REALLY feeling better.

Breyer's ice cream was on sale last night and Tom purchased Chocolate and Buttered Pecan.

Looks delicious, but I'm on a roll with my chores and I don't want to stop to eat any.

Ice cream delivered and Alyssa is happy again.

Walking out of her room I started thinking...

Teenagers are funny. They are so independent when they want to do something and helpless when they don't want to do something or they are sick. If I ever doubt whether she is grown up or not, all I have to do is to look around her room.

Posters on the wall of various guys.

And directly under all those posters...

An old stuffed toy pig.

So where am I on this list of mine.

Vacuum.

Check.

Ugh. Start folding the clothes.

I gotta laugh because I hear the familiar sound of Queen Alyssa.

"Mo-om."

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Audrey, Sister And Friend

I can't believe how fast the hands on the clock move. It is pretty simple to figure out which child in the photograph is me, so by default the other child must indeed be my only sibling and sister Audrey. The picture was taken at my grandmother's home - Mama Nell (my Dad's mom). Looking at the photo I can remember the smell of her perfume, Channel No. 5.

I remember being young and telling my parents over and over again that "I want a sister." So when my sister was born, they told me that she was "my baby too" and boy did I run with that one. They let me name her even and since I was a very unusual child, I watched movies far beyond my years and just loved Audrey Hepburn and that is why my sister is named Audrey.

We were inseparable. I believed she was better than any toy I had ever owned or could ever own. Audrey was a fantastic baby and the only drawback I ever saw as a child was that she wanted to sleep too much especially when I wanted to play.

Audrey was a mother's dream. She didn't cry and wanted to sleep fourteen hours straight. She had such a pleasant disposition, big smile, chubby little legs, and perfectly beautiful round head. I remember her laughing all the time.

As Audrey became a toddler our sisterly relationship flourished and I have many memories of our younger days. We also had our little routines. When I was returning home from school in the afternoons, Audrey would be ready and waiting. She could hear the bus coming down the street after it had stopped at the bus stop on the corner. It would start back up making that big engine bus noise and head towards the cul-de-sac where it would drop me off. Our home had hardwood floors and her crib had wheels. Audrey would stand in her crib and rock it until it rolled to the window. Upon reaching the window, she would pull back the curtains and squeal with excitement at seeing the bus go by knowing that I was about to be home. Meanwhile, on the bus by the window, I would watch with great anticipation to see if Audrey was awake and ready to play.

Those were such delightful and carefree days of lady bugs and dragonflies. We played outside every day and there always seemed to be a million things to do. One day when it was really hot, we made a "tent" out of an old sheet in the middle of the garage. The large garage door was open and the screen door leading to the backyard was open. I spent hours drawing and coloring paper to look like food - pork chops, peas, bread, beans. It took forever to cut out the peas and Audrey has never been known for her patience, but she jumped around and eventually sat and watched me. I couldn't really draw pudding, so on that sunny summer day, I took one of my plastic toy cups and went outside in search for "pudding". I put some dirt in the cup and added a little water from the spigot on the back of the house. Then I took the tiny little white plastic spoon and stirred until the mud became the consistency of pudding. During this whole process, Audrey was right there beside me watching me dig for the perfect dirt and stirring until it became smooshie. Eventually we went back into the garage, into our little tent, and piled food on our plates. Audrey watched me pretend to eat the paper pork chop and she copied me. Then she watched as I struggled to keep the peas on the very tiny white plastic toy fork and pretend to eat them while saying, "Yummy peas" and she would copy me. The exciting moment of dessert had arrived and with great pride I scooped some of the mud pudding into our cups being sure that they were equal (I was nerdy like that). We both picked up our cups and I distinctly remember saying, "This is our pudding" and took a spoonful and PRETENDED to eat it. What do you think Audrey did? Yeah, she took a spoonful of mud pudding and stuck it in her mouth and said "Mmmmmm". I, of course in a total panic, screamed for my mother who thought the world was ending by the way I was hollering. Mom came running out, assessed the situation and took Audrey in the house to clean the mud pudding out of her mouth.

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Alyssa Has The Flu

The past two days have been a whirlwind of activity.

Apparently, Alyssa had been incubating the flu germ and last night it was born! The poor girl threw up all night long. Her temperature was over 102° and that brought on a headache and body aches. She finally fell asleep at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon and woke up at 9:00 p.m.

I washed and dried the laundry continuously throughout the day, but was too tired to fold the mountain that now sits in the rocking chair. I did, however, get paid a handful of lint and a quarter for all my efforts.

Homemade soup was also on the agenda in hopes that tomorrow she will be able to eat solids. Mom doesn't like my chicken soup and prefers the red label Campbell's Chicken Noodle. Yeah, we all think her tastebuds are crazy. Alyssa loves it though and I have a HUGE container just waiting for her to get better.

Right now Alyssa is living on crushed ice with 7-Up and occasionally she eats a Popsicle. Ibuprofin has helped with the temperature too. We all hate the body aches most of all. Alyssa has had ice packs on her head, neck and back and I've rubbed and rubbed her aching muscles. Actually I rubbed her until I fell asleep and while I slept I bet the flu germs crawled all over me!

Now that we have her temperature under control with the medication and the ice products, she is feeling "better" which means Alyssa wants soup. Having lived through this whole sick thing so many times with Brittany (my neice), I know that if I feed the flu she will be throwing up again tonight.

As the night progressed, the hungrier Alyssa felt and the more she whined for soup. It isn't funny, but it is funny because it reminds me of Brittany whining when she was young. Brittany and my sister lived with me from the age of two and up until she was twelve. During that time I think she caught every possible flu and cold germ. She also had a problem with her temperature rising too fast and going too high. It took a while and many visits to the doctor, but I eventually was able to help her without panic. Confidence when treating your child's illness goes a long way in their attitude and belief in your ability to help them when they are hurting and scared.

When Brittany got sick I would turn the air condition down to 60°. She would be burning hot in a thin little nightie and I would wear sweats, a jacket and wrap in blankets. We watched the "Wee Sing" and "Sing-A-Long" videos over and over again for hours on end. The dark circles under her eyes looked even darker against her translucent pale skin and shocking orange-red, long curly hair. Day would turn to night and night to day in a hazy blur of medication, thermometers, Popsicles, videos, and personally freezing to death, but I would have stood on my head if it would have helped her to get well faster. Brittany was really a great patient and only got cranky when she was "almost" well, but not well enough to eat solid food and that's when she whined just like Alyssa is doing now. I hear her calling me from her room now, "Mom, I'm hungry." It is going to be another long night.

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The Recipe Box

This year I gave everyone a recipe box with our family recipes printed on handcut cards that I decorated with scanned pictures and clip art. The Banana Bread recipe is one of my families favorites.


My husband sanded and stained the recipe boxes that we picked up at a craft store called Ben Franklin's. It included a little wooden insert that you could drop in the "frame", but I thought it looked stupid and told everyone to put a picture of their choosing in it instead. One of the great things about it is that there is a little piece of wood on the lid that has a goove in it, so you can either prop the recipe behind the wood block or place it in the groove to stand up.


I think they were a big hit and the personal family stories and pictures of the family added that "little extra" touch I wanted to make them special. Tweet

Mom Lost Her Job

The economy is taking its toll on my family. About six months ago my Uncle Billy, a tugboat captain, was let go because the company no longer had work. Now my mother (Teresa), a dental lab technician, has also lost her job. I have watched the news night after night as the unemployment rate continues to rise. Today there were rumors at my job that a "big announcement" would take place on May 15th. We already have been encouraged to take two weeks off unpaid to alleviate the financial strain on the company. My brother-in-law-to-be (Terry) also works at the same company as I do and he is manager in a large production plant. I'm worried for both of us. Where is the end of this chaos?!

Mom is so beautiful and talented. When she makes a porcelain crown, you can't even tell it didn't naturally just grow out of your gums. It has always amazed me that she is able to make a "tooth" from a bunch of porcelain powder in little bottles. The other aspect of building a tooth is being able to see colors in the teeth. I don't know about you, but a tooth is either white, yellow or rotting out of your head. Mom is able to see EVERY color in the teeth...it is like a crayon box full of colors...purple, blue, yellow, gray, etc. Mom finds her work to be relaxing and challenging while most people think it is not only boring, but also impossible to do. I'm so proud of her accomplishments over the years. Keep your chin up Mom and don't lose hope and remember you are not alone.