“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” Martin Luther King
I just don’t have any words today, so we’ll just go with a question.
How do you keep calm / claim peace when all around you seem to be losing their minds?
Monthly Archives: January 2021
Keeping Fit
My mom (Nonny) is a jock. She was very active as a kid and played many sports when she was in school (basketball, field hockey, tennis). She got my dad interested in tennis after they married and they played consistently until his death. She even played tennis the night before my baby sister was born. Doubles and she was happy to tell everyone that they won against the other team.
So imagine Nonny’s disappointment when all three of her daughters turned out to be complete non-jocks. I cycled fairly seriously for a couple of years (way before YA was born) and my baby sister runs occasionally, but for the most part, we are couch potatoes. Of all seven grandchildren, only one has any spark of jock-ness: YA. Swimming, gymnastics, running and weight training have been part of her regime over the years.
Santa brought YA a 10-pound weight, so now she has two. I noticed a couple of days ago that she has set up a “gym” in Nonny’s room upstairs. She has her yoga mat, her weights, a big yoga ball and some kind of exercise bands. This morning she had music playing on her phone while she worked out.
I admire her get-up-and-go. While I’m doing the stationary bike at the gym occasionally (translation: every 4 or 5 days) and walking the dog occasionally (translation: if the sun is shining), I wouldn’t say that exercising is my top priority these days. If would be nice if YA’s commitment to working out would rub off on me, but I’m thinking if it hasn’t happened yet, it probably won’t.
Have you ever had a “favorite” exercise? If you could have your own In-home gym, how would you like it set up?
Standing Firm
Our grandson is 2 1/2. His parents are good about keeping a steady schedule for meals and naps and bedtime. Prior to our visit he suddenly started a period of change into a new developmental level, and he became disorganized and his schedule became disrupted. His appetite decreased, he didn’t want to nap, and he did everything he could to delay going to sleep at night.
A typical bedtime would see Son or DIL getting him ready for bed, reading the requisite three books, and putting on music to lull him to sleep. In the past it only took one song to do the trick, but during our visit it turned into multiple requests for “one more song”. Many times after it was quiet and we thought he was asleep, we found him with his light on and his bed full of books. “I reading, Daddy” he would say with an impish grin. Then came multiple requests to use the bathroom, usually with no results. Every time he got up, he also needed to be tucked back in bed. They wisely have a baby gate in the doorway of his room so at least he has to stay there and can’t come out at will.
Son and DIL took our advice to put duct tape over grandson’s light switch so he couldn’t turn on the bedroom light. He has a night light. They also found longer songs and stories to play continuously so that he wouldn’t keep asking for one more song. They even agreed to stand firm and not go up to his room when he made his stay-awake ploys once he was in bed and was supposed to be going to sleep.
On Saturday night after he had been put to bed after several attempted diversions on his part, I walked past grandson’s room His door opened, and he looked at me with big brown eyes and he said in a very plaintive voice “Oma, will you tuck me in?” Well, of course Oma tucked him in! That sort of plea is impossible to resist. I am happy to report that his plea to me was the last of the evening, and he slept for twelve hours despite my failure to stand firm.
How are you at standing firm? When is it hard for you to maintain your resolve?
A New Year
January 1 is a big day around here, although not for the reasons you would think. I am a calendar person – I love calendars. Right now I have my daytimer calendar (which lives in my bedroom), a handmade 6 x 6 calendar (also in my bedroom), a Cobblestone Way calendar on the fridge, a Lighthouse for the Blind calendar in the breakfast room, a birthdays only calendar in my studio and the new addition, a Sandra Boynton calendar (also in my studio). I do keep a few things on my phone’s calendar and when I was still working in my cubicle, I had a calendar there, not to mention my Outlook calendar on my computer.
Most of these calendars are just for show. Probably the most-used calendar is the birthdays only calendar in my studio. It has one page per month with all the dates, but no weekly/day layout so it doesn’t have to get changed out every year. I use it every month when I’m getting the birthday cards ready to go. The Sandra Boynton calendar is just for fun – January 4 is listed as World Hypnotism Day.
Not sure where along the line I got hooked on calendars; I suppose it’s been ramping up as the years go by. I don’t think it makes me any more organized, just a personality quirk I guess.
But it does make the first day of each month exciting because that’s when I change out the calendars. And January 1 means not just moving to the next page but moving to a whole new calendar (except the birthday one, of course). Tell me that this doesn’t make me a sad and pathetic being.
What have you got on YOUR calendar this month?
The Yellow Box
Several years back, Teenager wanted to take a jewelry class at a local bead shop. We took the class together and it was fun. Part of the cost of the class included a couple of tools and, of course, we purchased some more items afterwards. For a couple of years, I did the occasional bracelet or earrings; the craft didn’t catch on with Teenager. I put the tools and assorted wires and beads into a yellow tool box and eventually drifted away from beading.
In May, I found a jewelry kit on sale online from a company I knew; since I was officially looking for ways to fill time during shelter-in-place, I purchased it. Most of the items I needed were in the kit but I did need one of my tools to adjust the bracelet size. The yellow tool box was not in the first place I looked. Or the second. Or the third. I spent quite a bit of time over the course of a week, looking and re-looking in what seemed like natural spots and then the unnatural spots. I’ve done a lot of tossing/donating the last couple of years but I was SURE I would remember if I had gotten rid of the toolbox. And I couldn’t imagine that I would do that either. Eventually I gave up, assuming I’d gotten rid of the box, and re-purchased the tool I needed.
Last week, I decided to do some organizing and cleaning in the attic; when I had brought the holiday decorations down, I had promised myself I would do this before the boxes when back up. YA came up to help me and we ended up really clearing out some stuff and generating a large bag of trash. At one point I was putting a plastic bin away and realized I didn’t know what was in it. You know where this is going, right? As we dug through the box, we found items from last year’s stocking gifts (which I had vaguely missed) and…. drum roll please… the yellow tool box! Because it was inside the bin, when I had searched the attic in May, I hadn’t seen it.
I can envision how everything else in that plastic bin ended up there, based on my normal habits, but I have no clue how that yellow box ended up there. Nothing in the box was irreplaceable but I’m happy to have found it, if only because it means I’m not crazy!
Anything you’re still looking for? Do you have trouble finding things you’ve “put away for safe keeping”?
Tree Trouble
For my entire life, I have put away the holiday decorations on New Year’s Day. This season I felt like I wanted to jump the gun and it took me a bit to realize that New Year’s has always been a day off. This year with pandemic and furlough, every day is a day off. So we decided to put everything away a couple of days earlier than usual.
We both like a live tree. But even with constant watering, six weeks (plus whatever amount of time between cutting and the Bachman’s lot) is just too long for a tree to stay supple and resilient. Taking the lights off always means a mess, especially since I like to “bury” the lights, but as should have been expected for 2020, it was much messier than usual this year. In addition to the little sprigs of greenery all over the floor, after I took the tree to the curb, the front porch, front steps and front sidewalk were covered with the tree detritus.
Broom, dust bin, trash bag and vacuum just to get started. Then, of course, dusting is needed on all the horizontal surfaces that have been covered with assorted holiday décor. Everything is now all put away and cleaned up; the living room and dining room seem empty, sort of naked.
I wish that cleaning up the holiday was a great metaphor for the coming new year. While I’m hoping for the 2020 dumpster fire will be extinguished, I think it will take longer than we would all wish for. In the meantime, at least the house is clean.
Live tree or artificial? When do you like to put the holiday decorations away?
Trail Baboon 