No Stress At All

I just read Dr. Helen and she talked about how stress on the job affects your health. I tried to comment but had some trouble and since stress everywhere directly affects my blood pressure I thought I might comment here. First let me get the stress of weight gain out of the way. I MUST get a grip -- so far 5 of 6 pounds have crept up on me it depends on which scale I sneak onto. TODAY I march against weight gain. I know exactly what it is all about. Start of season. More wine more food more more more and less walking.

My first real job was teaching and I did that for one school year. I absorbed every pain and trauma those kids had. It was 6th grade and it was 1965. There was a ton of trauma but thank you there were no cell phones, sex in the hallways or gang bangers. The closest we came to anything sexual was when BG stood on her head out on the playground. All girls wore skirts or dresses so there you have it. She knew and loved the attention her lollipop undies got. I stapled the skirt between her legs and off we went. Couldn't do that today. No girl in 6th grade wears skirts or dresses anyway. Sigh.

That job had me crazy. I stayed at school way past the closing time preparing for the next day. I brought papers home to grade and lesson plans to write. Most of my friends were teachers and they never had all the junk I had. They were free every weekend and evening and were home by 3pm to work on their lives. I don't know how they did it but I didn't and it wore me down and I left after that year and went to work in the corporate world. I wanted a job from 9 to 5 and when I left the office it stayed there. I brought nothing home to work on or worry over. That worked for a while and then came the promotions. For 30 years I stayed late and went in on week ends and you got it!!! It's not the job it's me.

I have since retired and am locked into a family mess that one day I will write a book about. The stress is never ending but I keep recalling a discussion with a doctor years ago. My period was so irregular I thought I must have some dread something. Too young for menopause I went to the doctor and he asked a series of questions. Any stress in your life. I answered no and then he chatted with me about my life of late. Well, I said, my husband committed suicide several months ago. He had no insurance and had what I now see as manic depressive personality. He charged up a storm before he went and I had to pay off all the bills. The bill collectors, they were calling. I owed money to the funeral home. We had sold our home in another state and basically just paid the mortgage off and had enough to pay the mover. I was living in my parents home while they were in Florida for the winter. All my furniture and boxes were piled in two rooms. I had no real job. I was waiting for a transfer to come through from the place I worked out of state to the state I was now living. Major corporation, the job will come sooner or later but at the time I was a Kelly Girl. No. No stress in my life.

Imagine I didn't see any stress. It doesn't hit all at once. It drip drip drips on to you and accumulates bit by bit day by day until you creak under the burden but you are so used to it you don't even fell it any more. Your body does however and your spirit does and your mind has those little cubby holes where problems lurk and ....


I pray every day for those that burden me and for those I burden. Please Lord, just enough stress to make it interesting. Use the painful scrapings of problems to polish me like a stone in the river. Give me the strength to know when I should not resist. Keep me in the palm of Your hand and widen my horizons. I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Lazy Post

OK so I know what I said yesterday but ... here I am and not in the mood to post anything least of all the uncles' WWII stuff. I will say this about the Uncs, they all served. One was in the Air Force, he was a paratrooper. He jumped on Corregidor. Lost for six months. Another served on a submarine and three others in the Navy as well. Another 2 in the Army. Lots of Uncles and all served. My father was not in the service. My mother said he had me to thank for that. I was born just in time to move him further down the draft list.

My husband was in the Air Force and would sign up again right now if he could. We fly the flag proudly and love our country, respect our President and are disappointed in the House and Senate. What can I say? We're from Massachusetts and are particularly embarrassed when our Senators are named. Memorial Day is a day to be proud of our troops and history. It is also a day to go to the cemetery and put flowers on the graves of loved ones who have gone home ahead of you. I did. My mother is proud. She has a beautiful box of blooms in front of her stone and Dad's. I also brought a pinwheel with an angel on it. She loves that kind of stuff. Love you Mom and Dad. Later

Happpy start to the Season

It has been so long since I last surfaced and wrote anything. I have been here and I have been verbal, I just have not sat and typed. Happy Memorial Day to all! At this time of year, in my neck of the woods, every one is here and opening their summer places. The restaurants that are seasonal are open or opening and there are so many options that were not here a week ago.

Memorial Day is the opener for the summer season. Wear White!! Yikes, how great is that? Used to be that patent leather was ok from now on too. Easter was so close that Patent leather of the black variety was ok. Now. I hear. Patent leather is an all year round kind of thing. How grim is that? No fashion rules at all and I find that to be chaotic. About the only fashion rules I ever knew about was the no patent leather until Easter and the wear white from Memorial Day until Labor Day. What is happening to the civilized universe?

I am too old to keep all my rules and regulations to myself. I am at that age when I must impose my nonsense on everyone around me. I must go forth and Miss Mannerize....... I will post more tomorrow since I am calling in well and taking one more day of this loooooong week end. I look back on the recent demise of Mom and Dad and Brother one and Brother two and I have to say that my entire immediate family checked out at a rather early age. My mother and father didn't, they were both 87 but the brothers.....each were 66 and here I am .... 63. If I only have 3 more years well then .... hell and all..... I am going to relax and enjoy things. My luck though.... I will be more like the mother and the father.

Did I ever tell you about the Bay of Pigs incident? There I was, a sophomore in college with a test of some sort, probably a midterm the next day. There was, on TV my absolute heart throb of the moment, Andy Williams. My choice was, watch Andy or study. Then I hear of the possibility that the world as we knew it would probably end. Everyone on my dorm floor was lining up to use the phone and call home to say good bye, I love you to the fam. Yes, in those days we did not have phones in our rooms or in our pockets. Payphones in the hallways shared by the whole floor was the order of the day...that may explain why we are all, at our age, able to stand in line and wait our turn. At any rate, I chose to watch Andy Williams since we would all be dead tomorrow. Why study? I talked to my mother every ten minutes so why wait in line to say any more than I had already said. Off to the lounge where the TV was. Yes, we had no TV's in our rooms. Only one in each dorm and it was in the community room....how deprived were we? Well. The next day...you know we were all still alive and DAMN!! That was the start of all the wrong decisions I have made for lo these 63 years. Nevertheless....I love it here and I will probably live like I won't make that 87 thing and I will spend what little money I have saved and stay out of work to linger here rather than go back to the winter house and not sell the winter house because I love it and and and ......

O I am so happy that summer is upon us -----Happy Memorial Day! Tomorrow I will write of my uncles and their service experiences..... that's during the big one....WWII

Sad Time of Year

When isn't it a sad time? I guess when I'm not sad.

May 9th, 1999, Mother's Day, Mom died. Life has never been the same. But then, life has been changing every day for the past 62 years. Life always changes. Things are never the same. God planned it that way. Everything changes but God. He is eternal and everlasting