Ever wonder about how our communications have changed since “back in the day?”
As a young boomer, I have already seen tremendous change in how people communicate. When I went to college, there was no such thing as a personal computer, the internet or cell phones! Imagine…no cell phones and no texting.
My college age sons still can’t really get their heads around that one…no texting.
How did we Neanderthals communicate back then? Continue reading
My parents lived in their home long after my moving out. But when my father died, my mom did finally move out of my lifelong “home”.
At the time of my mom’s move we sorted through her and my dad’s life, getting rid of all the collected stuff of a lifetime. She moved away from long-time neighbors and nearby friends, from a 3 bedroom home to a small single bedroom apartment. I remember how emotional it was for her.
Now, I am sitting in my own home of some 23 years. My older son lives in an apartment a day’s drive away; my younger son still in college, but not really around much. My husband and I have a 4 bedroom home. It is a big house with a large yard.
My husband was the first to bring up the idea of downsizing. “We no longer need the space,” he said one day. “If we downsize to a less expensive area we can retire early,” I heard over and over again.
Then, one day it seemingly started to make sense…
I haven’t written for a while as my professional (aka: PAID) writing has taken off…yeh…so I’ve been too busy to do personal blogs…But, after a particularly long week of writing about others’ lives, I thought I should sit down with a glass of wine and tap into my inner self a bit…it has been too long…
I just went and watched my older son graduate from college. Truly a proud moment.
…took a lot of photos, hugged and kissed him, and then flew back home with the family. The younger son joined us, flew back with us and is staying with us for the summer. He’ll then return to college. When he moves out at the end of this summer, my husband and I will once again be in empty nest mode.
Thank God.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love my sons. But after the initial gut-wrenching sadness of having them both gone…and it truly was gut-wrenching, I have the therapy bill and prescriptions to prove it…well, after all of that, something happened.
The empty nest became a lovely respite.
Remember When We Didn’t Have The World at our Finger Tips?
As I often do these days, I catch myself reflecting on “life when I was young” compared to that of my sons and young relatives. And as we sat at dinner one night, with my niece and nephew busily on their iPhones…researching basically any and every topic that was brought up during dinner (“Who was that British guy in that spy movie?”…”What was the name of that song in that commercial…?”), I couldn’t help think of my family’s prized Golden Book Encyclopedia set. Remember those?
Imagine, everything from A to B in a single encyclopedia.
Was the world that simple then? Or were we?
What happens when your child grows up – but is still in college – and brings home the perfect spouse? And you wonder…is this type of serious commitment good or bad at such a young age? Today’s technology-centric world even complicates this question further, as I recently found out…when I met the perfect daughter-in-law… Continue reading
The other day I made a photo album as a gift for a special friend. She has been a friend of mine for over 30 years; we met as next-door college dorm neighbors. I had a lot of photos to choose from, many were taken pre-digital era, of course…so had I not had the photos I could have still dug out the negatives and made prints (well, assuming there are places in the world where you can still make prints from negatives, I suppose). I think about the young people today, with their total reliance on their smart phones for photos…what will they have when they get older and want to look back at their youth? Continue reading
The other day my 21-year-old son was in the kitchen, and when I came downstairs an awful stench hit my nose. As I rounded the corner, he was throwing something sealed in a plastic bag into the garbage. He had the most disgusted look on his face. He almost shouted to me, “This is the worst smell I’ve ever experienced in my life, rotted Kale…nothing could be worse.”
So are all the parents out there laughing??? Oh, the smells of parenthood…WE all know that there are a LOT of things that can be worse than the smells of weeks old Kale… Continue reading
I just went into the bathroom and found the small garbage can there overflowing with the plastic covering from some of my husband’s dry-cleaning. Ok, so maybe that doesn’t sound like the biggest issue in the world, but the garbage piling up is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the very serious ailment that my husband and kids have, “IENDOINM” syndrome. So very sad…maybe members of your family have it, too…
Legalize Pot or Not?
At the risk of being classified by my kids as totally uncool and not with the times…yet again…
I decided to come out of the closet and admit…that I did not vote to legalize pot in California in the last election. Surprised? Me TOO, actually! I’m pretty liberal and I also am a firm believer that people should take responsibility for their own actions and health.
But with my kids still under 21, my little “momism warning antennae” went up, I guess…the idea of sending the message that “pot is ok” to young teens just seemed wrong…what do you think?
Years ago, in my continuing quest to figure out parenting, I actually took a 6 week-long parenting course from an organization called, the “Parent Project”. It was a great program, and if you are having issues with pre-teens or teens, especially related to behavior and attitude, I promise you that you will get at least one extremely helpful thing out of it. After taking the course, I wrote the following poem, which uses some of the terminology specific to the class…but you’ll get the idea…(and no, I still haven’t figured parenting out and probably never will…)
Obsoleted Soccer Mom 