Demi Gods Among Us

DemiGods We all know several of them. We detest them. We PRAY, we aren’t one of them. Who are they? Those among us who “know it all”, who have the attitude of “My Way or the Highway”. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of being a DemiGod, when you are in a position that gives you even a slight bit of power – when you have the ability to “force” your thinking and will on others. Several years ago, I had a delightful young lady who due to a divorce, was having to sell her home as a short sale. We found a young couple who really wanted the home and was prepared to take it “as is”. The young lady actually moved out of the home early, and gave the buyers permission to go in and make the corrections and repairs to the home that the municipality was requiring be done prior to the couple being able to get an occupancy permit and move in right after closing. Once the couple finished the repairs required by the municipality, I asked the municipal inspector to come back for his reinspection, as is required. First, "THAT inspector didn’t like anyone else to reinspect after him”, and since he was on vacation, we would have to wait till he came back for our reinspection. Our pleas that the home was a short sale and we had to close within the window that the bank had approved, or we couldn’t close fell on deaf ears. The supervisor wasn’t about to cross the inspector, even though other inspectors were available. Next, when the inspector finally got back and came to reinspect, he was HORRIBLE. The couple had done EVERYTHING on the list he gave them from replacing the hot water heater, to painting the chain length fence. The inspector, however, wasn’t satisfied. The couple had scraped and painted the exterior of the home where the paint was peeling and repainted those areas. Not good enough - the inspector informed us that while he hadn’t written it down that way, that was what he had meant and we were supposed to KNOW that. The couple had paid for a new hot water heater to be installed in a home that they didn’t own yet. They had gotten a permit, as was required, and the installation had been approved by STL County. Not good enough, the inspector (who had been out of town when the hot water heater was replaced, informed us that HE had not personally checked the permit and inspected after the work was done (even though he wasn’t a plumber and didn’t have the expertise to know if it was properly installed or not! Then we got to the backyard. The inspector had cited us because the chain length fence had vines growing on it and needed to be painted (which everyone involved had thought a bit much – paint a chain length fence???), but the couple had done it. Unfortunately, the vines turned out to be poison ivy and everyone who helped pull them off the fence came down with a bad case of poison ivy. But even as sick as they were, they had gone out and painted the chain length fence after the vines were removed because they inwspector had it on his list. He cited us because the vines that were pulled off the fence had been piled up in the middle of the yard and were waiting for someone to get rid of them. The ONLY WAY, we were able to close within the bank’s timeline, was because the couple’s grandmother paid the municipality several hundred dollars to give the couple a temporary permit allowing them to move in and then finish the work the inspector was requiring. ABSOLUTELY no reason for the inspector to make us go through all that. No reason for him to treat us that way, other than the fact that the inspector was a DemiGod in his own mind and he wanted to be sure everyone of us knew that HE had total power over us and over getting the house closed on schedule. It gave me great pleasure about a year later, to have the Mayor of the town the building inspector worked for, tell me he had been fired for abusing his power.

Time is Relevant

Time is so relevant. Years ago, my oldest son was given a pair of sandals by his grandmother. As expected, he outgrew the sandals, but I held onto them for his younger brother to grow into. A few years later, I put the sandals on my younger son. He thoughtfully looked at them, then asked me why there was a “worm” on the side of his sandal? A worm? It took me a few minutes to realize that time had passed us by and the picture of ET on the side of his sandals, to a 3 year old who had never seen the movie or heard any of the “hype”, looked like a worm. When I was in grad school, working on a Master’s in Dietetics, I took a required cooking class. While I had gotten my Bachelor’s about 10 years earlier, a young man in my class was not only going straight through getting his Master’s right after finishing his Bachelor’, he had obviously, never been taught to cook anything and really struggled with the class. As a result, the women in the class, who would invariable finish up what we were fixing quickly, would tend to go over and help the young man so that the food he was supposed to be fixing would be finished before the class ended (after all, we didn’t get to eat until everything was finished). One day, as I was helping him, he tried to make “polite conversation” to fill the void. So he asked me if I liked music, then started telling me about a “GREAT” band he had recently heard. Almost every other comment was that it was a “REALLY OLD” band, but it was “REALLY GREAT” and he was sure I would enjoy the band if I heard them. Even though they were “REALLY OLD”, they were great. When he finally finally got around to telling me the name of the band, it was the “Moody Blues”. Unfortunately, I then crushed him, when I simply said that I had danced to “Knights in White Satin” at my wedding many years earlier. He was silent for the rest of the class. Most of today’s young people have no idea what using a “party line” phone was like, or how to use a payphone and ask an operator for help. They know how to text, but use a manual typewriter? Much less what to do if you made a mistake and had to correct it before IBM came out with a Selective 3 that could type BACKWARDS to cover a mistake (I could type backwards faster than forward when I was in college). Just as our generation often didn’t truly understand the references that framed our parent’s and grandparent’s generations, our children and children’s children won’t understand the references that framed our generation. I was speaking to an older veteran recently and she lamented that many of the younger people she runs into have no idea what WWII was all about. As the WWII generation (of which she is a part) dies off, current generations don’t understand the lessons that were learned and how their history was impacted by the war. They know about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but many don’t even understand how the Vietnam War impacted our country. I pointed out that some of the recent movies are helping that, but she responded that the young people she has talked to see those as entertainment, not as history. While we often tell people to learn from history, rather than to repeat things that didn’t work, we fail to take into consideration that our history is seldom completely known by those around us. Our personal history shapes our views on life; our understanding of not just the world around us, but of the reactions of other people to things that are going on. If we have never experienced famine, how are we to truly understand someone who has? It is with an open heart and a willingness to learn from others that we are able to truly move forward and understand the world around us

The Evolution of Christmas Traditions

The first Christmas that Mike and I were married, we were living in Columbia MO, with both sets of parents in the metro St Louis area, so we went home for Christmas. First we drove to my parent’s home, in West St Louis County, to drop our bags and go to Christmas Eve service with them. Then we got in our car and drove an hour to his parent’s home in Jefferson County, for Christmas Midnight Mass. Then we drove an hour back to my parent’s home to spend the night.Christmas morning was with my family, then we drove the hour to his family’s home for Christmas Dinner, then we drove to Shrewsbury (another hour away) to spend late Christmas Afternoon with my older sister Pat, at her home. Then we drove an hour back to my parent’s to pick up our bags and start the drive back to Columbia. I swore I’d never do that again. The next Christmas we were at Malmstrom AFB, in Montana, so we didn’t have to worry about which family to visit when, instead we started to form our own traditions. A freshly cut tree with white lights on it with the ornaments I had collected at after Christmas sales as a teenager. The next year found us heading to Korea in November, so we passed through St Louis to leave our cars, dog with her puppies and a few other things for the year we would be gone. In the process, we celebrated Thanksgiving and an Early Christmas with both sets of family before heading on to California to catch our flight to Korea. Christmas in Korea was very different. Between 1910-1945, while Japan had occupied Korea the Japanese had cut down the majority of the trees in Korea (the rest being cut down for firewood) and taken the lumber back to Japan. While the Koreans had replanted their forests, by the time we got there in 1977, the trees were still in very defined rows and cutting one down was a major offense, so Christmas trees were no where to be found in country. I don’t remember if we had shipped a tiny artificial tree or my parents sent it to us, but we had a small artificial Christmas tree that year with a few Korean decorations I found at the market. At the time, we were living in the married enlisted quarters, because while Captains and above were issued a room with a kitchen that was shared by the room next to theirs (so a married couple could end up with 2 rooms and a kitchen), we were only Lieutenants and Lieutenants were housed in open bay barracks. The quarters for the married enlisted personnel consisted of 2 small 1 story buildings with 12 small bedrooms and a shared common room for a living room. The 12 couples shared a small kitchen (1 stove and refrigerator) and there were 2 shared bathrooms cut out of the common room space. One was for the men, the other for the women. We were in the “upgraded” building – we had walls around our bathrooms, the other building only had curtains. The individual bedrooms each held a bed and a dresser. Because we were both officers, we were given 2 dressers. The couples sharing our building with us, didn’t hold our ranks against us and we celebrated Christmas together with them with a Secret Santa exchange that year and our small Christmas tree. A few weeks later, we moved out of the enlisted quarters to a small walled compound in town where we had the second floor and another couple had the first floor. That year started my “tradition” of working Christmas Day, since as the Base Food Service Officer, I was responsible for the big Christmas Feast in the Dining Hall each year and if my personnel were working, I felt that I should be also. (A few weeks later, we moved out of the enlisted quarters to a small walled compound in town where we had the second floor and another couple had the first floor. In Nov 1978, we flew back to the States. We briefly visited with both sets of parents and had another Early Christmas celebration, then Mike headed to the West Coast for his next assignment, while I went to Blytheville AFB in Arkansas, where I spent the first few months living in visiting officer quarters since I was 7 months pregnant, and not eligible for family housing until the baby was born. Once more, I worked the holiday, overseeing the holiday meals at the dining facilities on base. The following year, Mike was still on the West Coast, and I was still at Blytheville, now in family housing with a 10 month old baby. Right before Christmas that year, the Services program had a “consultant” visit from one of the top Enlisted NCO’s from our headquarters. He was having trouble getting the junior enlisted to talk to him, so I ended up inviting all the personnel who worked for me and the NCO to my home to help me “decorate for Christmas”. Everyone helped me put up a tree and decorate it and in the process, the NCO got a chance to talk to the troops on a “casual, friendly” basis. I made stuffed Christmas decorations that year, so that my cat and baby Brigham, could play with them and I wouldn’t have to worry about breakage. The following Christmas found us at Hahn AB in the Hunsruck Mountains in Germany with a toddler, living on the German economy in a small town called Morz. Our German landlord and his family introduced us to many German customs including their Christmas traditions like putting shoes outside the front door when you went to bed the night before St Nicholas Day (Dec 6th). If a child was good, he would find a small toy and maybe some candy in his shoe in the morning from St Nicholas, while a naughty child would have some sticks or a lump of coal from Krampus (a half goat half man creature who accompanies St Nicholas on his rounds). The Germans spend Christmas Day visiting friends and relatives (sometimes receiving small presents during their visits) but they open their main gifts on Jan 6th when the Wise Men were said to have arrived in Bethlehem to see the Baby Jesus. In Sept 1981, we moved from Hahn down to Ramstein AB in Kaiserslautern Germany (at one point in time, the Kaiserslautern American Community in Germany had more American citizens residing in it than any other location outside of the Continental United States (ie, there were more Americans in Kaiserslautern, then in either Hawaii or in Alaska). We moved RIGHT after the Red Army Faction Terrorists bombed USAFE headquarters at Ramstein on Aug 31, 1981. We lived in a small town next to the base called Mackenbach. It was from the Mackenbach Forest between the town we lived in and the base, that the bombers had watched the bomb detonate. Here we lived in a small house where our heat came from a tiled stove in the middle of the house, with a section protruding into the living room, the dining room and hallway. During the day, we’d close the dampers and keep the heat downstairs and at night we would open them to heat the upstairs before we went to bed. The tiled stove got so hot that a fabric Santa decoration I sat on it got scorched and turned black from the heat. We didn’t realize when we put up our Christmas tree that it had a dual trunk, causing it to be much heavier on one side then the other. That resulted in the tree falling over, breaking many of the glass ornaments I’d put on it. We put it back up, tying it to heavy curtain rod to keep it upright. That year, I switched from white tree lights to colored. I still worked all the holidays, while Mike and Brigham would join me for Christmas Dinner in the Dining Hall. Later I would fix a second big dinner at home for all of us. 2 years later, in 1983, with another baby in tow, we went back to the State, or so we thought. We moved to Homestead AFB in Miami, Florida, where we lived in an area known as “Saga Bay”. In many ways, we felt like we had moved to another country, rather than back to the States, as the culture was often very Cuban and Spanish. Here live trees were extremely expensive and tended to look very much like “Charley Brown’s Christmas tree. The first year, we bought a cut tree, the second we used a small Norfolk Island Pine in a pot and then planted it in the yard afterward. The next year we gave up and bought an artificial tree. While the Santas at the mall spoke Spanish rather than English, we had the fun of having an English speaking Santa and Mrs Claus arrive in an F4, at the Squadron’s family Christmas parties. With inquisitive children and a small house, we finally had to ask our neighbor (who was in Mike’s squadron if we could hide Brigham’s Christmas bicycle in his garage. He politely refused his garage, and offered us his living room instead. Seemed his garage was full between his pontoon boat, car and other “big boy toys”, but he had no furniture in his living room. A few years later, Mike transferred back to Ramstein, while the boys and I remained in Miami for another year. I had gotten out of the service by then, and was working at Dade County Public Schools in their Food Service Dept while I finished my Masters. That Christmas, the boys and I joined one of my colleagues for Christmas Dinner at her home with her sons and mother. When the boys and I rejoined Mike, we moved to a small village called Rothselberg. Here our German landlady, her sister, their boyfriends and our German neighbors and friends made sure we participated in the German customs, which the boys were now old enough to understand and enjoy. Rothselberg, essentially means village at the bottom of the Red mountain. One of the local customs was for the volunteer fire department to “host” a Christmas event on St Nicholas Day on the mountain. We would all walk up the mountain carrying burning torches and flashlights, then St Nicholas would hand out small presents to the children (that the parents had given the volunteers earlier in the week). Afterward, we would eat hot fresh super large pretzels and drink hot beverages as we mingled with the other families from the village and walked back home. The night before the boys would have put their shoes outside the door for St Nicholas or Krampus to fill as well. Since I was no longer in the Service, I would fix a big Christmas dinner with all the trimmings each year. One of my favorite German customs is a New Year’s Eve custom, where everyone steps outside at Midnight and wishes their neighbors well for the upcoming year. (And if you see a chimney sweep on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, it’s an especially good omen for the coming year!) As the boys got older, we would travel over the Christmas Holiday, often going on skiing trips with the Ramstein Ski Club. While we wouldn’t be able to bring all the gifts with us, we would normally bring the filled stockings and several small presents (often things that could be used on the trip) with us for the boys to unwrap on Christmas morning. Typically, the ski resorts we would stay at would have a special Christmas meal (sometimes their adaptation of what they had been told the American’s expected at that meal were very different from what we actually expected) and activities while we were there. We would also visit the Christmas markets and village festivals that were going on around the holidays. For our home, we would cut down a tree and decorate it with colored lights and decorations from the States, Germany and Korea as well as other countries we had visited (Mike would often joke that I had enough ornaments for 5 or 6 trees and probably didn’t need all of them, much less to buy more). I had started collecting a special ornament each year for each of the boys, so they would put their ornaments on the tree along with the ornaments they made at school. Because of the cat, I tended to avoid tinsel, and instead used crystal icicles I bought at the Kathe Wohlfhart Christmas market - bringing home pyramids and small wooden ornaments and all sorts of treasures. I spent a lot of money at Kathe Wohlfhart’s. We would fill the stockings with oranges, nuts, toothbrushes and small gifts, and pile the wrapped presents around the base of the tree along with a wooden nativity set we had gotten in the Philippines. Christmas morning, one of the boys would be selected to wear the Santa Hat and hand out the presents. The rule was one present at a time. Everyone would watch the person receiving the gift as they opened it, then we’d OHHH and AHHH as appropriate (and I would write down what came from family and friends for the Thank You letters that the everyone was required to write before they got to play with that gift. One year, Nathan decorated the tree with his GI Joes in little vignettes (mainly battle scenes). When I tried to rearrange them to make the tree “more balanced”, he knew I had moved them and they ended up getting put back the way he had arranged them. The Christmas after we returned to the States, we spent in California, visiting my older sister, Pat in Oakland for Christmas, then going skiing at Lake Tahoe. After Nathan died, it was many years before I wanted to do anything for Christmas. The first year, with Brigham coming home from his Freshman year at college, Mike insisted we put up a tree and have his parents over, I remember throwing a few decorations at the tree and walking out of the room because it was so painful. Later things got better, but it was still difficult to do a tree. We often received boxes of oranges and grapefruit from Florida and typically the box would contain a small pink flamingo toy. One year, not wanting to put up a tree, I threw the flamingos onto a large potted ficus tree that we’d been given when Nathan died. When Brigham got home and saw it, he said “Tiki Bar Christmas, I like it!” So that became the staple Christmas tree for several years. After Brigham moved to Germany and wasn’t home for Christmas, we started putting the gifts around a poinsettia rather than setting up a Christmas tree. The year Brigham came home briefly before going to Afghanistan for a year, I put up the Christmas tree and put all the decorations on it. As a family, we made an Apfel Strudel and enjoyed being together. It was the first year I had wanted to really celebrate Christmas since Nathan had died. I grew up shopping the after Christmas sales as a teenager. As an adult, I would often buy decorations and small gifts that could be used for future stocking stuffers and gift exchanges, or those last minute presents when you need something small and funny. I keep an eye out for the animated singing and dancing toys, as those work well at White Elephant gift exchanges. These days, I sometimes decorate the house with the animated toys and some of the decorations until I need to gift them. Mike enjoys them and often sets them off as he walks through the house. For several years, while we were taking care of Mike’s Mom, the focus would be on her. We would have a nice breakfast (often with Mike making his famous Overnight French Toast), then go join her, first at the farm house Mike had grown up in, then later at the dementia facility she was moved to, for Christmas Dinner. Often, I would put up more decorations in her room, then I put up at home. Dinner when we were taking it to her at the farm, would be picked up from a grocery store, then reheated at dinner time, rather than my trying to fix dinner and get out to see her early enough in the day. Now, with Brigham grown, we are starting a new tradition – going somewhere with Brigham for the holiday when his schedule allows. The first year, we went to New Orleans, renting a condo a block from Bourbon Street and a block from the streetcar stop so we could park our car and walk everywhere or take the streetcar. We visited with Mike’s cousins briefly, then spent the rest of our time exploring New Orleans (The WWII museum is fabulous). I still take our stockings with us, along with the Santa Hats and a few presents, but being in each other’s company is really all the presents we need. When we can’t get together with Brigham, Mike and I spend a quiet day at home. I grew up shopping the after Christmas sales as a teenager. As an adult, I would often buy decorations and small gifts that could be used for future stocking stuffers and gift exchanges, or those last minute presents when you need something small. I keep an eye out for the animated singing and dancing toys, as those work well at White Elephant gift exchanges. These days, I sometimes decorate the house with the animated toys and some of the decorations until I need to gift them. Mike enjoys them and often sets them off as he walks through the house. In fact, these days, some supposedly Christmas Decorations stay out year round – the brass angels from Korea, some of the German pyramids in the curio cabinet, the many Rodney and Rhonda Reindeer toys that use to be given out in the children’s meals at Burger King when we lived in Florida, and now cost a fortune at Hallmark build a pyramid of their own on top of the Grandmother Clock from Taiwan. A 3 ft tall elf that I got at Schnuck’s at an after Christmas sale (marked down even more because the seam in his shoe was coming undone) sits on a speaker year round in the family room, while another smaller elf is perched on the floor lamp. In my china cabinet, I have both a Lladro Nativity set that Mike brought me from Spain and the Hummel Nativity set that my father brought my mother from Germany when I was a girl. Other things, like the large Christmas rug that I bought at the church rummage sale, get brought out in December, along with a snowman themed fireplace screen I found at Schnucks one year, Christmas pillows from I received in past Christmas gift exchanges and some stuffed Santas and snowmen. Traditions evolve. Never stagnant. Ready to be adapted to whatever life hands us.

Putting Ourselves First

When my oldest son was born, I was an Air Force officer at Blytheville AFB in Arkansas, running the military dining facilities, with husband stationed on the West Coast. I went from a day working with troops whose average educational level was 5th grade, home to a baby. One day, I realized I was going to the Base Thrift Shop several times a week, not because I needed anything they had to sell, but because it gave me an opportunity to talk to the women volunteering there and actually have an adult conversation! I realized that I had been so absorbed with work and the baby, that I wasn’t taking care of myself. My “wakeup” call made me re-evaluate my life and decide I needed to pay attention to myself. Kind of like when the airline stewardess gives her safety briefing at the start of a flight and tells you, if the oxygen masks come down, PUT YOURS ON FIRST. If you don’t, you will most likely pass out before you can finish helping the people around you put on theirs. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won't be able to take care of someone else. For many of us, that’s really really difficult. Especially for women. We were taught as children to put others first. We put our families first, our church, volunteer work, friends, but very very seldom do we ever put ourselves first, and when we do, we feel guilty about it. It takes a real effort to change our perspective and learn to put ourselves first, but when we learn to do that, we learn that acknowledging our own self worth by putting ourselves first, is often the first step in learning that we have a voice and that our opinions and action matter.

Finally, Wise Enough to say "Enough"

When I was a little girl, my sisters and I went to school with pencils that said: The Stephenson’s An Air Force Family Serving God and Country We were raised knowing that we were to serve and to take care of others. In our minds, that translated to taking care of others first, and ourselves last, which often meant taking care of others first, our families second and ourselves last. To add to this, we were the generation that went through the feminist movements of the 60’s and 70’s - we KNEW we were strong women who could do anything we set our minds to. We were “Super Women”, who could take on any challenge. And then, of course, we were perfectionists. Everything had to be done correctly, and we would word and reword and reword a simple business paper 50 times, until we thought it was perfect before sending it on (and this was in the era when we didn’t have computers, we were typing everything and having to backspace to correct mistakes (I could type faster backwards then forwards back then)). Lida’s degree was in library sciences – running elementary school libraries while her 3 children were small, while being very involved in her church and community to the point that she went to Russia with a Presbyterian delegation on a peace mission in the 70’s. My mother use to say that Lida was burning her candle at both ends and was going to burn out if she didn’t slow down. Lida was always the most social and popular one of us. Pat – Pat was always an overachiever. She worked her way through college in 3 years, started as a Math teacher in Wentzville, moved onto the world of corporate finance and at one point worked in New York and was responsible for the finances of all the Sheraton Hotels worldwide. If Pat told you, you needed to be somewhere on a certain day and time, when she informed you, she would also tell you which plane flight would be the best (and back when times were different, she would have already made your reservation for you), with no regard for your personal schedule and desires, because she had figured out the optimum flight, period. She not only dotted the I's and crossed the T’s, she was the supreme perfectionist. I was the “good little girl”, the “homemaker”. My degree was in Food Systems Management Dietetics (slightly “more” than just a degree in Home Ec). Since I could not compete with my sisters’ and “win”, I followed a path that neither of them had taken, joining ROTC at Mizzou when it first opened up for women. (I was the first and only woman in ROTC at Mizzou for awhile). When I went into the Air Force, however, they put me in admin rather than in dietetics or food service. It took volunteering for a remote in Korea as a Food Service Officer that put me on the path I thought I wanted to be on. I was not only a perfectionist, I was bound and determined that MY unit would excel and I succeeded with have the Hennessey Trophy awarded to one of my units. In the process, I was always consumed by work to the point that my children’s birthday parties were always late. One day I opened the refrigerator door, shut it and relooked at the birthday party announcement on the door. My children had a birthday party to go to that afternoon and I had forgotten about it. I knew my boss’s schedule, my schedule, and other pertinent base schedules, but I didn’t remember my children’s. My younger sister, Nissa, was always the rebel, and as a result, she never quite fit in with the people around her. A preemie, she could read soup cans (without pictures on them), before she went to school. As a result, she was bored in school and didn’t pay attention. No one discovered until she was in about 5th or 6th grade that she was also dyslexic. She ended up joining the Air Force as an enlisted troop (I was an officer) and rising to the rank of Senior Master Sergeant (the second highest enlisted rank). Now she works in a Civil Service job for the Air Force and rescues feral cats. Nissa never worried about being a perfectionist, she just “did”. But I can so clearly remember once when she told me that she needed a warmer coat, I sent her one and she promptly gave it away to someone she felt needed it more. That was always how Nissa was. The older 3 of us have learned the hard way that being a perfectionist wasn’t worth it. No one lauds you because you stayed at work for 18 hours in order to get the job done. No one gives you a medal for missing your children’s activities in order to “serve the higher good”. The unit may win the Top Award for something because of what YOU did, but by then, you have been transferred on and don’t even get the satisfaction of receiving it or being able to put it on your resume. You are Burned Out, Tired, Irritable and Just Plain discouraged. But you succeeded in being Super Woman, if only in your own mind. Your family doesn’t know what you look like, but that’s ok, You were serving the higher good. Your health is dismal because you haven’t taken care of yourself, but that’s OK, you accomplished things, even if no one will remember you were the one who did it, 6 months later. And eventually you realize that it’s not enough and you are a failure, because you are so Burned Out, Tired, Irritable, and Just Plain Discouraged that you aren’t doing anything right. That’s the point when you stop and realize that if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone or anything else. It’s taken a very long time, but my sisters’ and I finally learned that “It’s OK” to say “NO” when someone asks you to take on another volunteer job, or additional responsibilities. “It’s OK” to say “NO” when someone wants something done immediately – esp when the person who wants it done is headed home to their family and dinner and won’t look at it until morning anyway! “It’s OK” to take some time for yourself – and for your family. “It’s OK” to stop and smell the roses along the way. To have another cup of tea while chatting with a friend. To take time to look at the world around you and instead of seeing the guy who cut you off as you were trying to get to work on time, seeing the blue sky and feeling the warmth of the sun and listening to the birds and feeling grateful that you can see the sky and feel the sun and hear the birds. “It’s OK” to take care of yourself – to eat a healthy diet (and to have that occasional piece of chocolate or concrete at Ted Drews), to get enough sleep, to take time for yourself to meditate and to tell God that the world around you is wonderful. “It’s OK” to let people see that you are vulnerable and that you need help. “It’s still OK” to be that person who is there for others. To be that person who others can count on in a crisis, but “It’s NOT OK” to put work and being a perfectionist and dotting all the “I’s” and crossing all the “T’s” first, before GOD, yourself and your family. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else. We are no longer failures, we are women who are wise enough to say “ENOUGH”, and to take time for what is really important and it’s not dotting “I’s” and crossing “T’s” and taking care of the everything but what we should be taking care of.

This Too Shall Pass

Yesterday, anticipating the “shelter in place” order that is coming, I went out into the petri dish of our current world to gather a few items that might be needed while I’m housebound and to collect up essentials from my office since I’ll be working at home for the foreseeable future. The cashier at Costco made a comment to his colleague that today’s customers were much better behaved then the customers the day before and what a wonderful difference that made. I wondered as I watched people walking by with laden carts, how much of what was being purchased would end up being returned (provided the time to return it hadn’t expired by the time shelter in place is over), would spoil or would be donated to a food pantry when things return to a more “normal” scenario. I acknowledged to myself, that I was buying both things that were staples and would last for a long time, and emotional comfort items that I really didn’t need. Both Schnuck’s and Costco had signs limiting the number of some items a family could purchase, and both were out of the kleenix I am starting to run low on. As I struggle to figure out what this next new normal is like and how to behave, I wonder where God is in all of this. Then I step outside, where the Tulip Magnolias, red buds and other trees are blooming. I look out over the dogwoods with their petals still a yellow color since they haven’t opened up all the way yet. The forsythia is in bloom along with a few bushes I can’t quite name, while the crocus and daffodils are defiantly waving their heads in the breeze. The birds are building nests in my birdhouses getting ready to lay their eggs. And I realize that all around me, God is saying, this too shall pass and Life shall go on. I look around again and see neighbors shopping for neighbors who are more vulnerable. People coming up with ways to entertain others (artwork in the yards, pictures in front windows, etc) to bring a smile to neighbors walking by, similar to what is happening in Italy with people singing from their rooftops and windows and hanging signs out with rainbows on them saying: “andra tutto bene” which means Everything will be all right” or “don’t give up” and the Chinese are using the phrase “jiayou” which means “don’t give up” or “hang in there”. The next few weeks or perhaps months, won’t be easy on any of us, but together, with God’s help, we will weather what is happening and come out stronger and more unified then we were before.

Retirement and the Next New Normal in Our LIves

5 more working days, but who’s counting, till my husband retires (again), and I have to come up with another “new normal”. I have reinvented myself so many times over the years as we’ve moved around the world to new bases, gotten new jobs and responsibilities, made new friends, had to learn new communities and cultures. We’ve had year long separations in the past and then had to re-learn how to live with each other and who will take over responsibility for what (I loved it when he went to Germany and the boys and I stayed in Miami for a year – he told me to send him “any bills I didn’t like”. I didn’t like any of them, so I sent most of them to him). But this time, will be “different”. While he still intends to spend a lot of time working at the family farm in Jefferson County, he’s also going to be home a lot. With my job as a Realtor, there are times when I work from home in the morning, typically at the kitchen table – talking to clients, doing paperwork, setting up appointments, etc, then go to the office in the afternoon. I’m use to it being QUIET when I do that. While I can hear the birds singing out the window, I don’t have people walking into the room and wanting to start a conversation or making noise getting something to eat or drink. More importantly, I don’t have people turning on the TV or the stereo in the other room. Now my husband likes music and I understand that, but what I don’t understand, is why he feels compelled to turn on the TV in every room when there’s a football game on, so when he walks between rooms, he can keep watching it. Worse is his turning on the stereo and then going downstairs to his home office and turning on different music there since he can’t hear the music he turned on upstairs when he’s down there. He keeps telling me that he put CDs that I would like in the upstairs stereo, so it’s not “HIS music, it’s mine”. I keep telling him if I want the music on, I will turn it on myself, but he still persists in turning it on then leaving the room. I like QUIET. I like talking to myself in my head as I work through the pros and cons of different issues or when I’m drafting out something in my head before I sit down and type it. I like hearing the birds, they remind me to be calm and thoughtful of my surroundings. This is going to take an adjustment on both our parts. I’ve started giving him a “Thou shalt not” list: 1) No forwarding junk emails 2) No planning on my being the one who is home for contractor appointments (I have conveniently scheduled the HVAC fall checkup when he will be home to deal with it) 3) No planning on my being the one who sits at the DMV every time the license plates need to be renewed. 4) No automatically assuming I have nothing planned that day, he should ask me first if he needs me to be somewhere at a certain time. 5) I’ve told him to keep in mind all the things that his newly retired friends started doing that he rolled his eyes at and NOT DO THOSE THINGS. We’ll see. I figure it will be January before it really hits home since there are things planned for Oct-Dec that will keep him busy.