Tag Archives: age

“Live your life and forget your age.”

2 Mi Familia, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, , , , ,

“Live your life and forget your age.”  -Norman Vincent Peale

This is what women do: they criticize their looks and age and weight and everything about themselves all.the.time.  Don’t ask me how I know.

When I first saw this huge image pop up in a sneak-preview of the wedding photos, I thought, “Well there are the bags under my eyes.  I was still in my sweats.  I didn’t have my mascara on” and etc.  Dumb.  I know.  Very vain.

My mom saw it and said to me “Who is that old woman with all those wrinkles?”  She is 73 and has yet to recognize her loveliness.  Tredessa had already told me that she loved the intensity of the lines on her grandma’s face, the clearness of her features.

And all I could think in response to my mom was, “I so want to be like that woman.”  I love her!  I love her vivaciousness and love for life and picture-taking and horses and her family and her encouraging ways and deep-felt love for people and the belief in the best of them all.   And if the lines on her face were a type of braille, they would read of her unwavering belief in me and love no matter what since the day I was born – even before.

We attack ourselves.  We speak badly of ourselves.  We wouldn’t let first-graders talk about each other the way we talk about ourselves.  Stupid. Waste. of. Time.

Me and my mamala…

me and the momma

I have her nose.  I have her blue eyes.  I even have two, deep, furrowed  lines between my brows exactly like hers.  And I wanna be just like her when I grow up.  I do.  She is the most beautiful to me.

Life is for Learning

Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

“What [a person] knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is not the knowledge of formulas or forms of words, but of people, places, actions—a knowledge gained by touch, sight, sound, victories, failures, sleeplessness, devotion, love—the human experiences and emotions of this earth and of oneself and of other men.”

 

~ Adlai Stevenson, two-time Democratic nominee for President of the United States

This was in my inbox this morning.  Thanks, John Maxwell.

 

Transition

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

I doubt it could be any more beautiful a day if I’d put in my very own order.  A warm, bright sun with the gentlest of breezes sweeping periodically through adorns my world.  The grass is brilliantly green, something you have to work for during the summer months, but comes easily these early fall days.  The tomato plants are loaded (I have a pan in the oven roasting as we speak – remember last year??)  and the annuals are enjoying a resurgance of color before their final farewell over the next few weeks. 

The sedum (from one near-dead clearance plant about 4 years ago) have gone from their hot-weather chartreuse to the light pink of a couple of weeks ago to a blazing cranberry, dotting the yard here and there in at least 12 places, growing ever larger and more glorious, the current social centers of the honey bees’ universe.

In between.

The disarray of the pool midway down, being dried and packed up for the year is rather unsightly and the shadows and sunlight dance differently now across the fences and gardens.  As the year has gone on, I have learned to let some weeds co-exist with desired produce and have let the grass enroach where I had earlier ordered it not to.

The shorter days are bringing into focus the beauty of each one, the fleeting nature of the minutes and hours that create the lives we are leading.

At 1:10 am yesterday morning, having just dozed off not long before, I was awakened abruptly and fully by an acute sense of my mortality.  At exactly 1:10 am, I realized I am closer to my death than to my birth.  I am past the middle, maybe way past.  Who knows?

I hope my colors are becoming more brilliant and more defined, less rigid and controlled.  I hope the shortened days bring more focus and appreciation for the beauty of each one.

Today she waxes melancholoy – as always, when autumn arrives…Jeanie

It has happened before… (melancholoy re: fall, I mean)…

pictured: google image, but not far from where I live

I’ve Been Around the Block a Few Times

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

 

I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.   I’ve been, as they say, around the block a few times and here are a  some things I know:

  • If it is going to rain only one day this week-it will be the day they throw the Penny Saver in the driveway.
  • You spend a lot of years pursuing the Presence, thinking God is elusive and even at times withholding Himself because you’re in some kind of unconfessed sin or that you just are not measuring up.   Then you find out you had it all wrong: He has been pursuing YOU!
  • “One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.”   So said E. B. White.
  • A scoured and polished kitchen sink will go looking for dirty dishes.
  • If some one says, “Smell this,”   don’t.
  • If some one begins a sentence with, “No offense, but…”, brace yourself,  they are about to offend.
  • If that boy is right for my daughter, God will tell me.   Believe it, girls.
  • People are way less enthusiastic about receiving my advice than I am  in giving  it.
  • The life you lead is the life you’ll someday leave – with your friends and family and specifically your children.   So make it a good one.   Live with the end in mind – leave the right legacy.
  • “From the cradle to the grave – clean underwear comes first.”   I read that in the comics once and it rings true.
  • There IS a peace that passes understanding!   That always surprises me.
  • And – there IS a right way to place the toilet paper roll – my way.

This is gold, people, pure gold!   Most of it is really, truly and actually stuff I think and say.   Ha!   I won’t  claim any of it is original, though, because everytime I think I am posting some super-original thing, I google it and find out some one else had it before me.   Bother.

Just wanting to share the wealth…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:   Devote time to learning the secret to marrying fabulous shoes (think high-high heels)  AND pain-free feet.   This may be my ticket to wealth!

pictured: me in my cousin’s tree, age 4  – at their house where there was no indoor plumbing – YES!   I am that old; me more recently, a bit worn out from having circled the block so many times – with the 5 amazings; google image of proper toilet paper installation.