Grammy School

My friend Sally in California announced she is expecting her second grandbaby this year. How exciting! My friend Audrey in Memphis welcomed her first grandbaby last month. I have certainly enjoyed my three grandchildren tremendously. Not only have I enjoyed them, I have been taught by them. Taught by a baby? A toddler? A kid? Yes! "Grammy School" doesn't just mean Grammy is teaching the little ones. It means Grammy becomes the student! Here's what I have learned from being a grandmother:

1. Sharing. Not between the kids - I mean my sharing with other adults - the other set of grandparents. Here's a major difference in having kids and having grandkids. Grandkids automatically come with another set of one or two grandparents. All of a sudden, I am not the one of two parents; in my case, Ed and I are two of five grandparents! Time to share, certainly. Time to recognize that as these children grow up, these other adults will hold just as special relationship with them as we do. What is it that they say about joys and sorrows? With love, sorrows are halved and joys are doubled? More grandparents means more joy for the children! Each grandparent brings his/her unique qualities to the child's life we're all adding to their cache of memories.

2. Patience. Oh, this lesson starts while the grandbaby is still in the womb. Patience to find out the gender, patience to be reassured of good health, patience to let other grandparents have their time, and patience to wait between visits. And patience leads to...

3. The necessity of butting out. I have to remember these are my grandkids, not my kids. I am not their Mama, Ed is not their Daddy, and their parents set the rules and have the last word in everything. This is the proper way to raise children.

4. Priorities. As my grandbabies grew, they began helping me with priorities, starting with my first grandchild, Caroline. Every interaction reminded me of people over things. Then when we started downsizing and simplifying, I had to reexamine my priorities, as I was bringing a toy or book to the girls on each visit. What was I showing them about consumerism and "stuff"? Could my presence actually be the more important thing than the presents? Now I concentrate more on making memories. The toys will be lost and forgotten, but their memory of Grammy playing hide-and-seek will last forever. And that brings me to....

5. The importance of playing. With your own kids, you are too busy sometimes raising them, keeping house, earning a living, etc., to spend a lot of time just playing. When you're visiting grandkids, though, that's the whole point. You're free to be a kid again. You get to smell and use those crayons and Play-Doh, try to assemble buildings out of blocks, get in a small tent and pretend a bear is outside, make a puppet show, read fairy tales, make things with glue, glitter, construction paper, stickers, and pipe cleaners, sing silly songs, look for bugs under a log, chase each other around the yard! It's easy to forget I'm 56 years old (until the next day when the more physical aspects of play wreak havoc on my old body!).

6. The legacy of pictures. Rachel and Matt grew up in the film age, and we really don't have as many photos as I would like because film and developing it was expensive, and we were having trouble making ends meet sometimes. But my grandchildren are growing up in the digital age - and that means digital pictures! Thousands of digital pictures! And yes, I am taking advantage of that. I have 26,864 digital pictures in iPhoto - how many do you think are of the grandkids? Hee hee!

7. Awe. Every moment is awe-inspiring, from the first time I cuddled with them to the times I watch them soak up the world like sponges. Watching them develop into their own personalities has been fascinating. And, of course...

8. Anticipation. What does the future hold for my little ones? My youngest, Joshua (7 months), has already won me over with his smile and laugh. I just know he has much to teach me in the future and will develop into a wonderful young man before we know it! My Charlotte (5) will spend the night with us next Friday for the very first time and I know will keep us entertained. My Caroline (7) is always surprising me with her knowledge; so much of what I try to teach her, she already knows! What's next with her? What's next with all three of them? So much to look forward to! (Not to mention sometime in the next few years, I may be calling Sally in California to tell her Matt and Sarah will be having their second baby too!)

Grammy is always a student as well as teacher. As a tribute to Grammy School, here are a few past blog posts where lessons were learned. (Most of these are from Caroline, as she has been here the longest and I had been able to document more visits with her, especially as she and her family lived with us for a couple of months when they were between houses. I expect great lessons to be learned from Charlotte and Joshua in the years to come!)

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2005/05/precious-dandelions.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2005/06/its-perfect.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2005/07/toenails.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2007/08/guest-blogger-today.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2008/05/poor-people-project.html

http://simplicityexperiment.blogspot.com/2009/06/room-upstairs.html

Abe, of course!

I don't know if I ever took the time to blog about my hero, but since today is you-know-who's birthday, I'm going for it.

Those who know me well, even some who have known me briefly in passing, have had to deal with my obsession for our 16th President. Now, I probably know more details about the Civil War than the average person, but my interest in Lincoln was not really politics or war-related. I was always fascinated with him as a person.

It started, I think, when on a family vacation, our parents took my sister and me to Lincoln's birthplace in Hodgenville, Kentucky. Family vacations created the foundation of some of my best memories. Dad would use profit-sharing from the bank where he worked, and every summer, off the 4 of us would go, taking in as many parks and historical sites as we could in two weeks. To be able to afford these vacations, we took along a cooler full of ice and shopped local grocery stores along the way, where we would buy things like Vienna sausages, bread, baloney, milk, pork and beans, cheese, chips, fruit, juice, and Cokes for the next leg of the trip. We went everywhere, and each new place fascinated us.

Those trips instilled in me a love of history, and especially a love of Abe Lincoln, starting with his birthplace. Years later, Ed and I took our kids to the exact same monument. I assumed they would be just as passionate and excited as I had been, but, of course, the picture above says it all - if you look at Rachel. Matt, bless his heart, would have been excited to watch paint dry. Even Ed was barely tolerant. As we walked up the steps to the cabin, I was doing my usual thing of spouting trivia. "Did you know there are 56 steps here? One step for each year of his life." And what did Ed say as he huffed and puffed his way up? "I wish John Wilkes Booth had gotten to him sooner!"

Back to my childhood. We at various times visited Ford's Theatre, the Petersen House (where Lincoln died), the Lincoln Memorial, all in Washington, DC; boyhood homes in Indiana; New Salem where Lincoln lived as a young man in Illinois; Springfield, his home as an adult; Gettysburg; and, of course, Dearborn, Michigan, at the Henry Ford Museum, where you can see rocking chair in which Lincoln sat when he was assassinated. So you see, Lincoln is all over the place, and we did our best to cover the territory.

At East Elementary School in Memphis, every time we had a vocabulary lesson and had to use the assigned words in sample sentences, I made sure Mr. Lincoln was mentioned in every sentence I created. It probably drove my teachers crazy. In study hall at East High, I rarely did homework or read novels. Instead, I gravitated to the Carl Sandburg collection - 6 volumes of Lincoln's biography, and devoured every word. (One day, thanks to some generous friends, I finally owned the hardback collection myself.) I had a greater-than-lifesize poster of Abe on my wall at home, complementing my sister's pictures of Davy Jones and Bobby Sherman. I read every book about Lincoln I could find, and would occasionally even write the authors (and a few times received replies). When we had to memorize a poem in English class, I picked Lincoln's favorite ("Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"). When I worked at a hospital in Memphis, my sister baked a stovepipe-hat shaped cake for me and my coworkers on February 12 one year. Basically, everyone knew I was addicted and seemed happy to be enablers.

Every once in a while I tried to pull the kids into my world of Lincoln, but it was rarely successful. For instance, when Matt was about 7, he was in a historical costume contest at school. Of course, I wanted him to be Lincoln, and I bought an Abe Lincoln costume pattern, cardboard stovepipe hat included, and sewed it up. We had no extra money for a fake beard, so I painted one on him with a marker. He was so cute. Unfortunately, Lincoln was a famous, popular figure, and Matt was just one of many Lincolns that day. Another boy Abe won the contest. He had bought the fake beard, darn it. I then knew what to do if that situation happened again. I would make the same suit, ditch the hat, ditch the beard, add a mustache and pistol and he'd go as John Wilkes Booth. I bet he'd be the only JWB. (This was before school security when one could take a toy pistol to school.) This incident just illuminated the frustration of having a popular hero. He's everybody's hero. Sigh. Why couldn't I have been more like my Dad, who formed a club in honor of a more obscure president, Chester A. Arthur?

Back to my past. As years went by, my fascination with all things Lincoln just increased. When we bought a house in Maine, we landed on Lincoln Street. (Coincidence, I promise!) My sister gave me a baby oak tree descended from the big oak at Lincoln's birthplace. It had a plaque and everything. Unfortunately, we had to leave it in the yard at the old Victorian house when we moved out.

I also had a cardboard standup of Lincoln that I enjoyed displaying at Halloween. And a fantastic rubber Abe mask. I think my family might have reached the limits of tolerance, though, with the salt and pepper shakers that were miniature replicas of Lincoln's tombstone. What's not to like about that?

There are many other stories about my love of Lincoln, but there's not enough time or space to write about them. Through the years, friends and family have made special efforts to present me with Lincoln-related gifts, and I have appreciated every one. Abraham Lincoln now is a part of me and I guess always will be.

I leave you with a Valentine card that I have on my desk. I have no idea where I bought it, but I loved it so much I couldn't bear to use it, so here it sits. It comes with a red envelope, and has a cartoon picture of a woman holding a white envelope, a smile on her face, hearts hovering around her head, and says, "I cannot let this season pass by without expressing my love and admiration for a wonderful, wonderful man." On the inside, it says, "HAPPY LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY!"

Missing flaps

Some of my most precious memories involve reading books to my granddaughter Caroline. She learned to read at any early age, and now 7 years old, she is still in love with books and reads voraciously. But back when she was little, it greatly pleased her to sit with Grammy and share in the reading experience together. Like most children, she never got tired of reading the same books over and over. That drove me crazy, though I always obliged.

One of her favorites is pictured above - "Where's Nicky's Valentine?" It's a board book about a cat named Nicky who delivers valentines to his friends around the neighborhood. Each page shows another friend receiving the heart-shaped card, and on each page there is a flap for the child to lift to see what is behind it. "Who's there?" one page reads. Then Caroline would open the door flap to reveal an elderly woman, who takes the Valentine, smiles, and pets Nicky.

As with all children's books, time and tiny hands had taken a toll on its appearance. The pages, being board, had held up pretty well, but one of the flaps had been torn off on the page that says, "Who's hiding?" and you were supposed to open the flap to reveal two happy kids in bed clutching their Valentine. Except there was no flap. You could see where the flap was glued originally, but the flap itself was gone.

Now, as Caroline loved this book, we read it a lot. Each occasion presented us with the same scenario. I would read the book, and when I got to the page of "Who's hiding?" Caroline would emit a small gasp, look up at me with grave concern, point to the missing flap, and say, "Uh oh!" Then we would turn the page and finish the book without missing a beat.

I have often thought how wonderful it would be if we had the gift of acceptance that Caroline had with this book! Each time, she saw the problem, acknowledged the problem with an appropriate response, then she let it go and moved on. She didn't pretend that the defect was not there. She didn't throw the book across the room in disgust because the missing flap ruined her reading experience. She didn't even try to figure out a way to fix it. She just responded with "Uh oh!" and then proceeded to enjoy the rest of the story.

Dieting experts tell us, for instance, that people with an "all or nothing" attitude may start out well on diets, then the first mistake or dietary indiscretion throws them into a tizzy and they throw up their hands and figure they have blown it and might as well eat everything in sight. Or someone misses a few days of exercise, then, despite their previous commitment to better health, gives up on even trying. The same can be said for any attempt to change bad habits and build new ones. It can be true for MTs who get a bad line count for a day or even a week and fall into depression because they think they'll never be good enough. It can be true when life hands us any unexpected challenge, when we fail to live up to expectations, especially our own - whenever a rough patch appears and our instinctive response is to say, "What's the use?"

What if we used Caroline's example? What if we acknowledged our disappointment, allowed ourselves a moment of frustration or sadness, and then moved on to enjoy the rest of the book...the week...the trip...the holiday...the semester...the story - our story?

Sometimes all it takes is a toddler to teach us how to really enjoy life.

The Menu

Now that Rachel’s vegan-bound,

We’re looking for some common ground.

In browsing through our family tree,

Here is what pops out at me.

Veggies are a vegan “yes,”

Which sounds OK, nevertheless

They can’t be touching Rachel’s fork

If they are cooked with ham or pork.

My son-in-law enjoys the sweets

Hard to live without his treats.

Not so fond of tofu dishes;

Tasty food is what he wishes.

My son’s disgust with greens is true,

Lettuce trauma through and through.

Black-eyed peas at New Year’s fling?

Nope - brings his lunch from Burger King!

The veggies he can do without,

The meat is what he’s all about.

Sarah’s got her diet plans,

I’m not sure what she eats or bans.

Her regimen's not so off-beat,

Except she doesn’t like thick meat.

Ed and I are different, too.

We have some things that we eschew.

Avoiding carbs is our big goal,

Omit the pasta from our bowl.

Each of us is on a plan

Of which the other’s not a fan.

What will thus our menu be

The next meal for our family?

This is so hard! This is so new!

What will we cook? What will we do?

On second thought, there’s never been

A time, to my bemused chagrin,

When our illustrious varied brood

Ate every dish and every food.

We’ve always had our little quirks,

And compromised to learn what works.

I can’t predict at this point whether

Our next big meal we eat together

Will appease our every taste,

Or look to some like toxic waste.

But then, who cares? To each his own!

We eat together, not alone.

We may have more from which to choose,

Finding out whose dish is whose.

But what’s the thing we ne’er debate?

Love is served with every plate!

A vegan? In our family?

I never majored in sociology (almost did, but chose music). However, I am always interested in reading about what's going on in our culture. I can't help but notice that more and more people are shying away from marriage, even to the point of having children in an unwed/nonlegal relationship, and the divorce rate is still about 50%. Now some folks will immediately delve into the morality of all this, but that's not what I'm interested in. I'm intrigued about why marriage is so difficult. I will have been married for 37 years this August, so I have a little experience on my side here.

Two people have a mutual attraction, and decide to commit the rest of their lives to each other. When you think about it, that's one of the most major decisions you can make, except for becoming a parent. Why is this hard? Because both partners grow. They change. They become in some cases totally different people. The hope and expectation is, of course, they will both grow together in the same direction. The hard part is when they don't.

For instance, I got married at age 19. I am now 56. I can honestly say I am 80% a totally different person than when I got married. My beliefs have changed, new wisdom has (I hope!) influenced me, I have a different level of patience and priorities, I have adopted several hobbies/interests that I did not previously have, I have developed new fears and anxieties, and habits, and I eat differently. My taste in clothes, living environment, and a host of other things has changed. I certainly do look different.

Meanwhile, my husband Ed has changed also. He was 27 when we married; now he is 64. He used to drink excessively until he got sober in 1984. He used to smoke cigarettes when we met; now he smokes pipes and is trying to cut down on that. He too has changed his way of eating, the kind of clothes he prefers, and how he chooses to spend his time. And, yes, he does look different too!

I am not the woman he married, and he is not the man I married. Things never stay the same. How can a 19-year-old girl know enough to commit the entire rest of her life to one person?

This is why they say marriage is hard work. The work comes, I think, not just because two people living together are bound to get on each other's nerves, but because the two people grow. They grow as a couple, true, but they grow as individuals. Some couples grow apart; others grow closer. Some partners are excited to watch the changes in their chosen mate; others are apprehensive or even aghast to watch their life partner morph into a stranger. The key is to give your loved one the freedom to grow and change and the hard part is honoring your commitment to be there for a lifetime.

No wonder 50% of marriages end in divorce. This is a hard pill to swallow. And I can totally understand the fact that so many marriages don't work out, because sometimes people do grow apart, so far apart that they have nothing in common anymore. I am not here to preach morality - just to try to understand reality. Lord knows I would never be able to hold my marriage history up for moral inspection and I'm not about to do that to anyone else!

What started me thinking about individuals in a marriage changing this week is that our daughter has progressed from omnivore to vegetarian to vegan. She is married to a meat-eater and she is the family cook. Her poor husband - he didn't marry a vegan! But he's married to one now! He's probably frantically going through their marriage vows, trying to find out where he promised to "love and cherish in tofu and tempeh."

I didn't marry a preacher (but he became one), I didn't marry a pipe smoker (but he became one), and I certainly didn't marry a man with gray hair and beard whose body shows as much signs of aging as my own. I married a cigarette-smoking drunk. I was fortunate that he changed. I hope as well he thinks that most of the changes I have gone through have been for the better.

It's not just our spouses who are changing. Our kids change and grow before our very eyes. As they do, each one becomes an individual, unique, and whatever that is, we deal with it because that is the commitment we have made. We may not have made it knowing that autism or cerebral palsy or drug addiction or leukemia or even vegan versus omnivore would become part of the bargain, but we made the commitment all the same.

Change is not always good, not always bad, but it will happen as assuredly as there will be over 20 inches of snow on our ground by tonight. Today I am praying that we are all equipped to cope with changes - in ourselves and our loved ones both - and that sometimes means being more observer than reactant, with both sides willing to compromise and see another point of view - because it is almost always the case that both sides have something worth teaching, and staying open-minded is imperative.

Happy veganism, Rachel, and good luck, Chris! You are only reaffirming the adage that life is always an adventure and you never know what's around the corner!

Enriching

My sister in her job receives queries from authors who are writing articles for magazines or books, and if one looks particularly applicable, she passes it on to me. This week, an author is looking for women to write about a woman who had an impact on their lives. As I tried to put my specific story in writing about my late best friend, I thought of all the women and men who have impacted my life. People who think of themselves "self-made" might be wise to consider the probability, no, the certainty, that that particular feat is impossible. We are obligated to acknowledge the help of known and unknown people who have made it possible to live our present lives and be the person each one of us has become.

Even millionaires and billionaires could not have been financially successful in business were it not for the person who had enough confidence to give them their first job, the banks willing to loan them money for an idea, the employees willing to work for many times low wages, the customers who bought their products, the companies who advertised for them and developed slogans and images, the lawyers who dealt with copyrights and trademarks, etc. Yes, maybe they worked long and hard to achieve their success, but that wasn't enough without help. (And if you earned your beginning wealth through inheritance, I don't need to say anything more about having help, now do I?) To say anything different would be arrogance.

From the very first teacher who taught you to read to the mentors who guided you through your career - everywhere in your past, you find those to whom you owe gratitude. Parents, siblings, and other relatives who taught you ethics and patience and faith and commitment - friends who encouraged and supported you and helped you along the way - all these were ingredients to the final product of you.

One of the author's suggestions was to write about someone who has "changed" your life. That can be hard to quantify, sometimes, but I prefer to use the word "enriched." Enrich has gotten a bad rap in recent years because of enriched bread - yes, the old Wonder Bread was one of the originals - taking the whole grain out and then putting back vitamins and calling it "enriched" which does the word no justice. The definition of enrich is to "improve or enhance the quality or value of...add to the cultural, intellectual, or spiritual wealth of..." Ah, now that is a different story!

There is not enough paper or web space to talk about all those who have enriched my life. Starting with my wonderful family - my parents, sister, husband, children, grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and now grandchildren - then moving on to teachers who taught me to read and write, teachers who taught me to think in an expansive and creative way, teachers who introduced me to the beauty of French, teachers (not necessarily at school) who taught me skills such as sewing and quilting and cross-stitch, authors who got me interested in Abraham Lincoln, my spiritual guides, the woman who taught me how to play piano, the man who taught me how to play the organ, the woman who hired me for a transcription position basically on faith, the wonderful people who married my children - these are all people who enriched my life. Even people in short-lived situations have to be added to the list - such as the kind young man who brought back my PC computer when it crashed a few years ago, the woman at church who let me borrow her Celtic harp which resulted in my falling in love with the instrument, the folks with the Instant Text software who allowed me to participate in the beta program and taught me so much - they too enriched my life.

I have to add to the list people whom I have never met: The anonymous donor who paid my fee for a church youth group trip to NYC and DC when I was a teenager, the doctor who took care of my pregnant mom and then delivered me surgically 56 years ago, the physicians who invented the vaccines that kept me healthy and well all my life, the inventors who made strides with photography that allow me to watch home movies of my dad holding me decades ago, the scientists who harnessed electricity and invented computers and programmed software to allow me to video conference with my son so I can see my little grandbaby Joshua - all these strangers have enriched my life by their contributions in their chosen fields.

No, no one can be arrogant enough to claim he/she is self-made. You can be the most talented musician in the world, but someone nurtured you in music. You can be the greatest thinker that ever lived, but those before you wrote and published books and essays that fired up your mind. You may have talent, God-given abilities, knowledge, strength, courage, and a whole slew of attributes that have guided you through life - but it hasn't happened on your own and it hasn't happened in a vacuum. It has been interaction all the way.

Of course, with me as with everyone, it is a work in progress. People are continually enriching my life. There are those who have enriched my existence for years and are still involved, and there are those who will remain strangers, but they are adding to my life all the same, from the man who held the door for me, to the cashier who flashed a genuine friendly smile, to the mighty fine folks who let me publish my little musings free on this blog site - there's a lot of enriching going on. As well, I hope that I have been and continue to be an enricher as well as enrichee. I can't ask for more than to be in awe that so many have positively affected my life, while at the same time trying to remember that I too can be part of the process that makes the world a better place. It ain't Wonder Bread - but it is certainly Wonder.

Blue Skies Smiling at Me

I didn't take this picture, but it reminds me of an experience I had last week. While I was driving home under gathering storm clouds, I noticed a peek of blue in an otherwise gray blanketed sky. I remember thinking how strange that looked - and unexpected. The more I considered it, the more I became aware that it is never a case of gray cloudy sky versus bright blue sky - that at the same exact moment we are seeing the gray cloudy sky, the blue sky is there all the time! I always pictured the weather changing forms in a linear-time fashion - one minute clouds, then the sun comes out and you have blue sky - except that's not reality. The sun doesn't stop shining just because I am seeing gray rain clouds up above; it is just hidden, as the blue sky in this picture peeked out from its hiding place - just as the moon is hidden by the brightness of the sun, even while it still exists simultaneously in the atmosphere.

This whole epiphany reminded me of Dorothy's shoes in The Wizard of Oz. She was amazed to hear that all along in her adventures, she had the power to return home - and didn't take advantage of it because she didn't realize it. Simultaneously existed the troubled journey and the power to heal the fear and trauma. Simultaneously the blue sunny sky and the dark gray clouds. It's not either/or - it's both.

We tend to think of Time as linear - past, present, future in what we consider chronological order. But apparently many physicists believe that many timelines are happening simultaneously on different levels, in different dimensions, and our way of thinking limits us when we try to understand this. Ed used to preach that Time for God is nonexistent, that it is always Now. You are simultaneously to God a newborn, a 4-year-old, whatever age you are now and whatever age you will become, and all the ages in between. When we focus on one aspect (especially a negative such as a cloudy dreary sky), we fail to see that simultaneously happening is the blue sky behind it, temporarily hidden.

The purpose of great affirmations is to convince ourselves that we do indeed have the power within us, at all moments, whether we see it or now. When we look up and see only gray clouds, we can't picture the blue sky behind it - but it's there. All we can focus on is looking forward to the day when it's a sunny, beautiful day again, and not entertain the thought that it's already a bright sunny day here and now, this very moment, if we allow ourselves to see it.

And that's where we need the Second Sight - the Internal Sight - the Eyes of the Heart, to give us the ability to focus on things beyond our immediate troubles or situation. The light is not at the end of the proverbial tunnel - that is the linear way of thinking - but it is in the tunnel itself, temporarily invisible to us. My goal this year is to be able to see beyond what is evident, to be constantly aware that whatever I need is already here, not far off and unobtainable, and certainly not something relegated to some vague future date. The realization of power within, available for the taking, is what drives people to great things, to empty their spirits to the world in compassion and love and incredible sacrifice, to attain lofty goals and to do the "impossible." One of the saddest remarks I ever made was, "Wow! I didn't know I had it in me!" - when I had those Ruby Slippers on all the time....

New Year Thoughts

If you ever want to feel useless and unworthy, have I got a plan for you! All you do is take one of your hobbies or talents and compare yourself to those who have mastered those skills and can do everything better than you can. Look at how much time you waste, then compare that to folks who are organized and productive. Consider your present situation, then see how much other people get done despite having many more stresses and adversity to overcome. Check your appearance out against others your age who look younger than you, notice people with better figures than you, better cell phones, better brains, better temperaments. Don't reflect on your accomplishments; just stew over the great things others have done and focus on your own failures. Don't rejoice at how far you've come; just agonize over how far you have left to go. Be obsessed with how fast the clock is ticking and be paralyzed with the impossibility of doing everything you want to do in this short life.

I guarantee that the above will bring you unhappiness, discontent, and disillusionment. I know at one time or another, I have fallen in the trap of doing those exact things.

For instance, I read a lot of sewing-related blogs. One lady reviewed her past year of sewing and here is what she made: 24 dresses, 7 cardigans/jackets, 3 pair of pants, 3 tops, 3 skirts, 1 twinset, 1 vest, and 8 pieces of doll clothes. What clothes have I made this year? Two blouses that I had to give to Goodwill because I didn't realize I had to make a major fitting adjustment before I cut them out. Two simple skirts. One blouse correctly fitted but not put together yet, and one jumper for 7-yo Caroline that I absolutely have to finish before I see her on New Year's Day. Yes, I do work outside the home full-time, but I have no children living with me and my husband does all the cooking. I have a good sewing machine and serger, a cutting table, some lovely pieces of fabric and many patterns, and several reference books. So why am I so lousy at getting my sewing done? Compared to that blogger, my efforts are ridiculously ineffective. It makes me feel quite worthless.

Now, if I took that information about her productivity, and instead of using it to beat myself up, use it to provide creative inspiration, yes, that's where things change. There's a major difference in "If she can do that, what's wrong with me?" and "If she can do it, I can at least do more than I'm doing!" One paralyzes; the other energizes. Even better, I take the inspiration from her report, file it away in a corner of my mind, then only concentrate on myself. The word "inspire" means to breathe in, so I breathe in their accomplishments, and then the only step left is to breathe out my own accomplishments. In the end, it's all me - my plans, my joys, my life the way I want to live it - because others can provide inspiration, instruction, advice, and help - but it's ultimately my decision and commitment to create my own unique experience.

You can't compare yourself to others because every decision in life is a trade-off. Very few people are what we can Renaissance people who are geniuses at everything. If you want to be a concert pianist, you have to devote hours a day to practicing the piano - and therefore have to give up other things you might have used those hours for. Those trade-off decisions make life tough. As I've heard, you can have anything you want - just not everything you want.

I find at this time every year when I get introspective and reflective about what I have done in the last 12 months and what I want to accomplish in the next 12 months, I find it tempting to focus on everybody and everything except myself. True introspection is a nasty business, as it can lead to clarity, and clarity can be mighty upsetting. I get disappointed in myself, and I get frustrated when my specific weaknesses make themselves too apparent to ignore, and I ultimately know in my heart something needs to be done about them, and it's all up to me.

Yet, I persevere. I can see that I indeed did accomplish more than I thought this year - I made a baby quilt for Joshua, I renewed my Certified Medical Transcriptionist certification by completing the CEU requirements, I finally learned the pattern adjustments for my body type that will enable me to sew perfectly fitting clothes, I've learned how to eat for health and energy and have reached and maintained my goal weight, I've participated in my first software beta program and had a ball working with it, I've been more productive at my job, and I'm sure I have other things to my credit that I have momentarily forgotten. Once I satisfy myself that I am indeed getting things done and learning new skills, I am finally ready for the new year ahead and more goals and challenges.

One of the hardest things in life is to find that balance - of feeling good about yourself, yet realizing your past mistakes and the never-ending attempt to improve, learn, and prioritize, because the hopeful part about life is that we have indeed been given more time, even if it's only today. So, my advice to myself and my friends on the journey:

1. Don't compare yourself to others - it can be intimidating. Whether you pour all your efforts into many resolutions for self-improvement, or you just want to survive 2011 emotionally and physically intact, focus inward, not outward.

2. Prioritize. (Right now, we have a very sick baby Joshua and everything else pales in importance.)

3. As I said last week, this too shall pass.

4. Fly the Serenity Prayer as a banner above your head: Accept the things you cannot change, change the things you can, and have the wisdom to know the difference.

5. "Waste" is an evil word - whether you're wasting money, time, talent, or some other precious gift. Less waste in 2011 would be a worthy goal for all of us.

Welcome to the Great Adventure of 2011! We are travelers on the road together. I wish you safe journey.

This Too Shall Pass

Our inheritance from our mom (who is still going at 87 years old) consists of many intangible things - her faith in human nature, her insistence that milk of magnesia cures all ailments, and her many aphorisms. Among the latter is "This too shall pass."

I must interject here that my immediate and extended family is coming off of a bad week: Unexpected financial difficulties, a lovely dinner not ready in time, being late for the kindergarten Christmas program, strep throat, broken glasses, excruciating tooth pain which necessitated two dentist visits and will result in an expensive out-of-pocket root canal, a Christmas present backordered, a fall down the steps, and a flat tire right before leaving to take the kids to school - just to name a few of the setbacks. This is one of those weeks that I have to keep repeating to myself and others: This too shall pass. It will get better. As my dad used to say, "Things will lighten up after Christmas."

Throughout my life, I've depended on "This too shall pass" to get me through the hard times. Today, though, just a few days before Christmas, I am reminding myself that the role of "This too shall pass" is not solely applicable to the stormy days. It's also good to remember during the happy, carefree times.

Yes, a lot of us are in financial straits. Yes, a lot of us have had bad news. Yes, things have happened that we would love to turn around and change. And we can be comforted by saying "This too shall pass." That's true.

But do you know what? Other, happier moments are fleeting as well. This is little Joshua's first Christmas. Soon it will be a memory. The years will go by quickly, and we will look at pictures of Joshua at 4 months of age and say, "It's hard to remember when he was that little!" Charlotte and Caroline will be teenagers one year, going on dates, getting their first jobs, and we will say, "How time flies! Remember when Charlotte was intrigued with her first personalized video from Santa? Remember when Caroline used to love to play in the attic?"

The key to life is remembering "This too shall pass" - the difficult times, and, yes, the wonderful, amazing times you want to last forever. That is what being in the present moment is about. The smiles and cries of a baby? That toothless grin of a first grader? The wide-eyed wonder in the face of a kid listening to Santa? Hold them closely to your heart and savor them. This too shall pass.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Goodbye soon, 2010

We are fast approaching the end of 2010, and I have just opened my new calendar for 2011. This annual task fills me both with apprehension and excitement. As I turn the empty pages, I can't help but wonder what is to come. What new experiences are waiting for me? What adventures and accomplishments will be filling these days? How much of it will I have control over, and how much of it will be beyond my ability to direct? Of course, with the good must come the bad - the sorrows, pain, and regrets. They will come as surely as winter follows fall. The whole next year of my life is a blank canvas for me and those I love.

I, of course, have my expectations. I make a resolution list like most people. I have hopes of making some clothes, finishing Matt and Sarah's quilt, learning some new sewing techniques. I'm looking forward to spending more time with my family, watching Caroline and Charlotte develop and grow, and enjoying my first wonderful year with my new grandson, Joshua. I have goals at my job, too - speed, accuracy, and furthering my medical knowledge. As is always the case, I want to remember my priorities, my desire to simplify, finding meaning in life, choosing love over intolerance, hope over pessimism, and staying healthy to make the most of my time here.

That's a lot to ask from 2011. The pages are still blank, and Father Time is still silent on what is to come. I don't have a guarantee that I, or any of my loved ones, will still be here this time next year. But this I do know from my 56 years of living: I am blessed, and 2011, regardless of what it holds, will hold more love that I ever could imagine, more adventures than I ever could plan for, and more amazement at the beauty of this earth, the beauty of life itself, the gift of family and friends, and the ability to weather any disappointments. I want to go into this new year as a child at Christmas - with wonder, expecting miracles around every corner.

Thank you, God, for giving me the chance at writing another year's story in my existence. I'm looking forward to it with great anticipation!

Privilege

What do you think of when you think of a life of privilege? Being wealthy? Being famous? Being born with a silver spoon in your mouth? Being high up in society? Having the best of everything?

Sometimes I don't consider my life a life of privilege, but when I think about it, it truly is. Of course, I lead a middle-class existence, but in this country, middle class can be called privileged, because, after all, I have a roof over my head, all the food I want, warmth in the winter, and a car to get me to work. Plus extras, like cable TV, a computer, a sewing machine, and many other things add niceties to my existence.

Today, however, I'm thinking of privilege in a different way. While we had our 7-year-old precocious granddaughter Caroline over this past weekend, I marveled that I have been privileged to have the opportunity to know my grandchildren, privileged to see my children get married, privileged to have lived long enough so far to watch my nieces grow up. You see, many of my high school classmates did not make it this far, even to my relatively young age of 56. Kathleen Capon White, Mark Williamson, Debbie Henrich, Debra Boone, Woody Phillips, Debbie Kaplan, James Galey...they died too young. My dear cousin Mike McDonald, a few years younger than me, died just a couple of years ago. Cancer, murder, heart disease, hepatitis, auto accidents - for whatever reason, they are not here and I am. Mark never got to see his only child reach adulthood. Kathleen, who adored babies, never saw her kids marry and never got to cuddle a newborn grandbaby in her arms. All of them were kind, smart, talented people - yet they are gone, and I am still here, enjoying life with those I love. There is no reason for this set of circumstances, and it is beyond my power to control. Yet I can't get over the fact that they are gone, and I am still here.

My wish is that I never take for granted the precious time given me on this earth. I live for those whose lives were cut short. I live for all the experiences they missed, all the grandchildren without their kisses, all the sunrises and sunsets and snows they didn't see, and all the Thanksgivings and Christmases, weddings and births and graduations that they didn't have a chance to participate in. I pray that I live my life as I know they would have lived theirs - with dignity, compassion, and joy.

There are no guarantees. Death comes unannounced and it comes for everyone. While I still breathe the air of this good earth, though, I realize I am indeed living a life of grand privilege, a life of wealth that has nothing to do with money, and a life of remembrance of friends and family who left us too soon.

The In-Between

Most of the time I don't enjoy being out in nature (bugs, heat, cold, wind, sunburn, etc.) but I love taking photographs of nature - especially Nature at her finest. The blue ocean bay at the height of summer with the sun glistening off the tide; the amazing fall foliage; the snowstorm that brought 2 feet of snow, with the evergreens hanging onto what snow didn't make it to the ground. I appreciate beauty, and I love to document it. At various times, I have been know to stop the car so I could take a picture of a scene that took my breath away.

I don't do that much in November, though. November is not a beautiful month. The trees, who a month ago sported their incredible fall colors, are bare and lifeless. The grass is dead with no pure white snow to cover the landscape. On top of that, it gets dark so early that I wouldn't have much time after work to take a picture anyway. November is the in-between season. Nature in-between her beauty, intermission between acts, while she's changing clothes to get ready for the next scene. Mother Earth can be extraordinary at times, but in November, you can just drop the "extra" out of that word. That leaves ordinary.

I think it takes a little extra effort to see the beauty in ordinary, but it's there if we are open to it. I look back on my photo-taking life. There are the usual photos - the Christmas pictures, the birthday pictures, the graduation pictures, the new baby pictures, the vacations, the zoo visits. I have found, though, that some of my most treasured pictures are ordinary, taken in the in-between times. On the surface, they aren't special. The ones above are examples. They were taken after I had gotten married and moved out of my parents' house, the only home I'd ever lived in. I had an extraordinary emotional push one day to capture the scenes of my everyday life, that one day I would not have my beloved parents anymore, and I wanted to remember them, not just in posed pictures on important occasions but in the in-between times, the un-special times, the non-holiday times. Here are two of the photos - Mama holding Mike the cat in her lap, as was her habit, and a picture of Daddy just coming in the door from work. These pictures derive their beauty from their sheer ordinariness. They're Mama and Daddy, as I remember them, in familiar surroundings, doing familiar things, in the familiar house in Memphis.

If I really think about it, some of my most joyous times have been the in-between times - giving or receiving an unexpected gift "for no reason," seeing a deer on our street on my way to work at dawn, laughing at my DVD "Lancelot Link Secret Chimp" when I'm feeling blue, or hanging out with my adult children and watching them interact with their own kids. Sometimes the love in my heart just explodes at the beauty of life. Yes, even in the in-between times. Maybe especially in the in-between times.

So before we know it, the snow will fall and Mother Nature will put on her usual spectacular show. In the meantime, though, it's November - and it's beautiful.

It's a gamble

I like doctors; I really do. I just think they spend a lot of time guessing.

My journey to simplicity encompasses all facets of my life, and that includes my health. I enjoy keeping things simple. I've gotten my eating down to an art form, for instance. I eat the same delicious low-carb breakfast every day of the week that I go to work, and those days I enjoy the same big delicious salad for lunch. Yummy.... I've been repeating this routine since February this year, and I'm still not bored with it, and I still look forward to my breakfasts and lunches. I try to make healthy decisions and I'm at my ideal body weight.

But part of my health still lies in the thoughts and advice of the established medical community. Of course, I can clearly state I'm glad it does. With two C-sections under my belt, if the medical professionals hadn't discovered how to do those eons ago, I would be dead. Heck, I wouldn't even be here at all because I was born by C-section myself 56 years ago. And last year when my thyroid formed a growing nodule, a skilled surgeon excised it and now I'm on medicine to suppress my thyroid activity because pathology showed the nodule was the type that could have advanced to cancer. Thank God for medical science.

There are parts of medical science, though, that are just statistics, and stats are fickle. Researchers do their thing, have these studies, try to do them right, publish their findings, and regular family doctors read the interpretation and make their decisions accordingly. Of course, studies are always flawed in some way, because there is no perfect study. Maybe most of them have been done on men, and you're a woman. Maybe most have been done on folks in their 40s, and you're in your 50s. Maybe the starting assumptions were flawed. Maybe even the study was backwards - in other words, are the findings there because of some other reason and therefore correlate as a result of the problem and not the cause?

By now you are probably aware of the calcium study, which is making a lot of physicians tell their female patients to quit taking calcium supplements and only get calcium from their food. This is quite surprising, of course, since for years the same docs have been telling us to take calcium supplements for our bones. It turns out it is not getting in our bones; it is getting in our hearts instead, and the calcium from food doesn't have the same heart risk result. So I've quit taking calcium pills.

I don't fault the medical community for that turnaround. New studies, new data, and WHAM - new advice. I like progress. I'm glad we aren't subject of "blood letting" for every disease under the sun. I'm glad they grew out of that, I'm happy that they acquired more knowledge.

But in the end, it's just a guess, isn't it? "Right now, today, November 13, 2010, at 6:30 a.m., we think ________ is the right thing to do. Tomorrow it may be different." This is the message from the medical community. It's not their fault; it is just the way life is.

Everything in life is a gamble. Forget the casino, the lottery, and the stock market - those are just gambling's poster boys. Every decision we make, we weigh the options and decide whether to take the risk. Should I marry this person? Should I sell this house and buy another one? Should I have kids? Should I take this job? If I invest money in buying this dress pattern, fabric, and notions, will I have the skill to make it? Should I follow my doctor's advice or listen to my gut instinct? Place your bets, folks!

I once read a definition of insurance - life insurance, house insurance, car insurance, medical insurance - you name it. Paraphrased, it said insurance is something you hope you never have to use. By buying it, you are betting you'll need it. The insurance company is betting you won't. You hope they win and are paying them to think that way!

This is why all the studies in the world can't explain why a smoking, drinking man lives to be 100, while another man who follows the medical straight and narrow dies in his 60s. The stats just don't add up. Then you have to crunch more numbers, decide on how much genetics is worth, how important attitude and psychology are to longevity, accidents, and just fate. We can't explain everything, and neither can doctors and researchers. It's all a best guess and that can change on a moment's notice.

The gist of all this is that I've been asked to go on two statins because my LDL is too high, although advanced lipid testing shows that the LDLs are type A and are the good, fluffy, benign particles, and my triglycerides are low, low, low, HDL is high, high, high, all of which is great, great, great. The doc is looking at the studies mainly done on men about what causes heart disease and the current thinking on what all those numbers mean and the current advice on what to do about it. He has years of experience, many studies with acronym names, and he has crunched a multitude of numbers. In the end, though, he admits reluctantly that it is still a best guess. Worse, it's unprovable in the end. If I do take statins and live a long, healthy life, is there any proof that without the statins I would have died early? No. You can't prove it one way or the other. I would just be another uninterpretable statistic.

My lipid specialist doctor is intelligent and trying to do the right thing. I, however, am ultimately responsible for my own body and health decisions. I am choosing at this time, I think, to wait on any kind of medication. It's a gamble to think I don't really need it and that the side effects would be worse than the benefit, but it's just another example of the gambling we each do on a regular basis. It's just a little scarier.

Questions to Ponder

I don't have anything deep or insightful to blog about this week, but I do want to throw out some puzzling questions that I have never been able to quite figure out.

1. If the normal body temperature is 98.6, how come when it's 98 degrees outside it feels extraordinarily hot? Wouldn't it be neutral if the outside temperature matched the inside temperature?

2. How come a "career politician," i.e., a politician with years of experience, is automatically considered undesirable, yet when we need a surgeon, we demand one with years of experience, the more the better? Why is knowledge of how things work and experience derided in the first instance and acclaimed in the second?

3. How is it that in school you can get more than half a test correct, i.e., 69%, and fail, yet you can be elected governor with only 38% of the vote?

4. The final question that Ed and I have been pondering, in honor of Daylight Saving Time "Fall Back" this Sunday: With DST, you lose an hour in the spring, and gain it back in the fall. If you die sometime between spring and fall, you would lose that hour forever, never having lived to recoup it. Is there someone your heirs can sue for that on your behalf?

Ah, logic!

Defect

Ed and I had a most enjoyable day with Caroline. We took her to her violin lesson, and in turn she accompanied us on our many errands in Bangor, since when we have to travel and hour and a half to get somewhere, we only make it every 2 weeks or so and tend to cram as much on our "to do" list there as we possibly can. After a pleasant lunch, the violin lesson, some boring (for her) shopping, we ended up at my favorite store, Jo-Ann Fabrics. I knew she would enjoy the store because it has a large craft section which included scrapbooking necessities, markers, art supplies, etc., and she loves that sort of thing. I told her to pick out a few inexpensive items and I would buy them for her.

She's always drawn to the paper. In rows of shelving, they have single squares of all kinds of scrapbooking paper - shiny, glitter paper of metallic colors - smooth, satiny papers in rich jewel tones - whimsical printed paper using all colors of the spectrum. Her first choice was satiny silver paper. When she showed it to me, I could immediately see the defect in it - a place where the coating had scratched off. I said, "Honey, pick another one. This has a defect." Caroline, who will always ask what a word means if she doesn't know it, looked up at me and said, "What's a defect?" My quick answer was, "It's something that's messed up, not right, and keeps something from being perfect." She chose another one without a blemish and we checked out.

Caroline was content, but I was not. I realized I had been uncomfortable teaching her that word. One reason was that defect is a very powerful word. It comes with a lot of baggage, and if you invite it in, it can end up staying with you your whole life and generally making a mess of things. Secondly, I don't like to teach Caroline new words of which I personally cannot explain the meaning adequately. What exactly is a defect? Why do we always want things (situations, appearances, things we create, relationships, public servants) to be perfect without flaw? And when we find one, is it a real flaw or just a defect in our eyes?

As my dad was a philatelist, I always love stamp stories in the news, and my favorite stories are the ones where the stamp with the defect ends up being worth lots of money. From this week's news:

A rare sheet of 10 stamps depicting Audrey Hepburn fetched euro430,000 ($606,000) at a charity auction in Berlin on Saturday, two-thirds of which will go to help educate children in sub-Saharan Africa.

The mint-condition sheet of 10 stamps featuring Hepburn, a coy smile on her face and a long, black cigarette holder dangling from her lips, brought a profitable outcome to a botched stamp series that should have been destroyed years ago — and evokes Hepburn's starring role in the 1963 thriller "Charade," in which the characters chase a set of rare stamps.

Some stamps have defects because a plane was printed upside down or some other such printing error. In this case, as her son said, "In the original photo, she's got sunglasses hanging from her mouth, but they had flipped the negative and replaced the glasses with the cigarette holder." In any case, there was an objection and the stamps were supposed to be destroyed with one sheet saved for the archives and another for a museum.

Nevertheless, some got away and were circulated. Now those few stamps are worth much, much more, because there's "something wrong, something unusual, something messed up, something rare."

My wish for society is that we take the lesson of the flawed stamps and apply it to our lives. I'm talking especially to perfectionists like me, whose eye focuses more on the flaw in the quilt (or my body or my husband or my job) than on what's right with it. In the end, the flaw might be what makes it priceless - but at least it makes it of this world, not perfect without blemish, but human. And human is not an insult, as in "I'm only human!" It is a compliment. It is what we are meant to be. It is a child of God. It is possibility. It is perfect in the sense that it is "whole." And our very existence is worth much, much more than we seem to think.

The Case for the Human

Don't expect anything original from an echo. ~Author Unknown

Anyone who can be replaced by a machine deserves to be. ~Dennis Gunton

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau

"Do your work as though you had a thousand years to live and as if you were to die tomorrow" so they [the Shakers] used to say. Work was an intrinsic part of their spiritual lives, thus its integrity was part of its appeal.

What is it like to think your job could be replaced by a machine? That scenario has become a reality to millions of people through the ages, starting as soon as the first machine was invented. After all, think of the many chores that have been eased for us as a society for which we used to have to labor with great difficulty. I can tell you with deep sincerity that I'm thankful I don't have to sew a dress completely by hand, that I don't have to wash dishes by hand or wash clothes by hand. But even in machines there are human brains behind them.

Let's take a washing machine, for instance. In the first place, a human had to imagine the existence of such a machine when there were none to see, and then the inventor would have to try over and over, with succession and failure, creating various prototypes and learning from them what works and what doesn't. Human brains even had to build the machines in the factories which helped produce the washing machines in great quantities. After all this human work, the washing machine lands in my house. I still have work to do. Sure, I only have to push a few buttons, but decisions are made by my human brain every step of the way. What items are going in? How are they separated? Considering the fabric, what cycles should be used? Hot or cold? Long or short? Heavy or delicate? What kind of detergent? Are there stains that need special attention? Should I take an item out to line dry or put it in the dryer? So far, at least, a washing machine has not reached my house that, when I dump a basket of dirty clothes on the floor in front it it, the machine sorts the items, makes all these decisions, opens its own door, sucks the laundry in, and cleans everything according to directions. My brain is still involved.

....As it is with medical transcription. It tickles me when non-MTs, upon questioning what I do all day, say, "What's the big deal? You just type what you hear." Oh my, if that were the case, there would be some very strange and incomprehensible medical records! Frequently the dictator will misspeak, and just as frequently my ears will hear something erroneously that the dictator did not say. The focus one must have for this job is incredible. The MT is driving along, sometimes down a familiar road, sometimes a totally new and unfamiliar one, and every second the MT is looking ahead to envision what is around the corner, at the same time looking in the rearview mirror to make sure everything was OK on that end, simultaneously trying to block out visual and auditory distractions as well as brain waves that would rather think about her personal grocery list or what to get her nephew for his birthday. And believe me, for most MTs, this car is speeding crazily down the interstate, not ambling down some lazy country back road.

If a machine can truly duplicate my job in a perfect way, then I'm not doing something right, because my human brain is my greatest asset in this job. As long as I never fall under the rule of "verbatim," a ridiculous (in my opinion) instruction to send the brain on vacation and type exactly and only what you hear, no matter how wrong you realize it to be, I am happy in this job. (Fortunately, I've always been allowed to use my gifts and my brain is always an active participant.)

I've heard that the Shakers had a philosophy of doing their work with integrity and to the glory of God. No matter if they were washing a plate, making a chair, or cooking a meal - they knew the integrity of what they were doing, and the importance of what they were doing, no matter how simple or how mundane it appeared to be. They used the same heart and soul and intent when they weeded the garden as they did when they designed a beautiful cabinet. The brain was engaged, the heart was engaged, their whole beings were engaged. What a beautiful attitude!

Changing the Thoreau quote above for my career, "It's not what you hear that matters; it's what you interpret." It's logic, it's experience, it's ear training, it's brain training. The letters, words, and sentences flow out of my fingers through my brain, through all my life experiences, every book I've read (even non-medical ones), every person's voice I've heard in my lifetime, nuances of speech, my education in French - and it all adds up to much more than a machine throwing back echoes. Through my complex brain storing my life experiences and learning, through my dependable quick fingers which follow the flow, through my heart which aches for the dying, celebrates with the newly born, and follows the courses of patients with their personal challenges and fears, through my very being, my job unfolds. I would like to think, yes, I do think, that that cannot be totally and in true essence replaced by a machine. I only hope the medical world realizes that and makes its decisions accordingly.

Pinned down about sewing

I only know one person who sews clothes - and she lives across the country in California. My sister owns a sewing machine, but the only thing she sews anymore are curtain-type things or cushion covers. Nobody I work with sews. Every time I used to shop at a fabric store in Bangor, I wondered how they could stay afloat. People just don't sew anymore, I thought. One of these days all the fabric stores will close after the sewers like me die, and sewing clothes will become a quaint craft found only in history books.

I really felt in the minority until I discovered a web site where sewers review patterns and teach techniques and share photos of their current projects. From there, I linked into sewing blogs and other sites and all of a sudden I felt less an anachronism and more a person on the cutting edge (no pun intended). I think that's one great thing about the Internet - it has connected people who think erroneously that they are isolated in their interests or hobbies.

Of course, we all can find fellowship for our specific passions on the Internet. Apparently there are groups for people who can't get sexually aroused unless the blowing and popping of a latex balloon is involved. If I felt disconnected, just think how they feel. What are the odds of finding someone with the same emotional requirement in your own neighborhood?

But I digress, of course. When I discovered the sewing community online, I finally regained hope for home seamstresses (and the future of my local fabric store). There were actually young people who were excited by the idea of creating their own clothes, possibly energized by TV shows such as Project Runway.

I don't think they teach sewing in the schools anymore, at least not that I know of. When I was in school, every girl took at least one year of what was called Home Economics, which supposedly encompassed sewing, cooking, and learning things like what to look for in a really good piece of furniture. I enjoyed the sewing, learned nothing about cooking, and the only thing I remember about buying furniture is to look for dovetail joints. When I started Home Ec, I had already learned some basics of sewing from my mother, but not much. It took my teacher, Mrs. Ray, a tall, lanky woman who made all her own clothes, to lead me into the world of sewing. (Sorry, Mrs. Ray, I never became a good cook, but luckily, I compensated by marrying one.)

Back then, patterns were 25 or 50 cents (now they can be priced as much as $16 and more), fabric was cheap, and the clothing style in fashion was minimal, so sewing was the obvious way to go. When I got my first job, my supervisor was sewing all her own clothes, and she was such an inspiration to me. Decades later, when I asked her why she quit sewing, she said she had only sewn to save money, not for the pleasure of it, and when she could start buying clothes cheaper at Walmart than she could make them, she put away her sewing machine. That made me question my motives for sewing.

They are, I have decided, manifold. Certainly, part of it is saving money. Clothes can be outrageously priced these days, and it doesn't take much money to sew a short lined plaid wool skirt as compared to buying one for $80 (LL Bean's current catalog).

But it's more than that. It is fit. Very little read-to-wear fits me. I have a weird body, and I know I'm not alone. For one thing, I'm short, so have to have a petite sizing, and that's not always an available option in ready-to-wear. I'm studying hard these days, with the help of my online communities and some books, to master the art of adjusting patterns to fit me. It's an ongoing process.

But it's more than that. It is control. I don't have to go to Eddie Bauer's catalog and be restricted to 3 colors for a skirt I admire. I have the whole JoAnn fabric store (and online retailers as well) to choose from. I choose the pattern, I choose the fabric color and feel, and I choose everything from buttons to whether it has a shallow or deep hem. It's one of the few things I can control in this world!

And finally, it's even more than that. It is creativity. It is the pleasure of making something with my own hands, something unique, something useful yet lovely. This is the reason that outweighs the others, the reason there seems to be a growing community of (mainly) women who feel the need to express themselves in a new way. We may not be in the majority, but we are a dedicated bunch.

So today I am thankful for my friend, Sally, who inspired me to get back into sewing clothes after years of only making quilts (I'm still quilting, too - have two in the works). I'm thankful for the ordinary working women, housewives, mothers, and grandmothers who blog about sewing, who provide pictures of their creations for inspiration, who share their frustrations and, yes, their failures, and who take time to answer questions and teach new techniques. I may spend the rest of my life without someone locally who can sew with me, but a whole other world is as close as my computer, and I am still eager to learn. I like to think Mrs. Ray would be proud.

The Reuben Philosophy

I enjoy most foods, although I draw limits at things like escargot, eel, oysters, squid, and octopus. Then there are things that I could eat if I had to, but I just don't like. For instance, I detest rye bread, swiss cheese, and corned beef, and sauerkraut isn't my favorite either. A few years ago, however, I tasted a Reuben sandwich for the first time, and I immediately fell in love with it. Now tell me, how can I hate these four main Reuben ingredients individually, yet when you put them all together, my taste buds rejoice?! It just doesn't make sense, but I swear, it's true. Who knows why? Is it the addition of the thousand island dressing? Is it the grilled bread? Is it the chemical reaction of the various components? Who knows?

As I ate my half a Reuben sandwich last week in our hospital cafeteria, I again questioned how it could be possible that I can't stand the ingredients on their own, but could find so much pleasure in their combination. In reflecting, I started wondering if my Reuben paradox could be applied to life.

Would it be possible to take days where so much goes wrong and end up with a day that is saved in some way? Is it possible to endure the miserable things of life and come out with something to make you smile? To take experiences that, individually make you shudder and nevertheless combine them into days, weeks, months, and years that bring contentment?

My daughter believes that everything happens for a reason. I don't personally believe that, as my life experience runs more in the line of "crap happens for no reason," but I can compromise with her in this way: Regardless of why the crap happens, something good can always come out of it - whether it's a lesson learned, a new direction or calling in life, a new empathy for others who are suffering, a determination to improve, or even an opportunity for humility to take effect. It starts with the attitude that, although I might wish to change the circumstance, I will use it to my benefit in some way, and by gum, I'm not going to be beaten down and I refuse to surrender my power in the situation. I'm not willing just to tolerate the crap; it's actually going to make my life better!

Dealing with crap is one of the very definitions of life as a human. One thing is bad enough, but two, three, four things you hate descend upon you? Don't automatically give up. Start with a good attitude, embrace what you can't change, add some more ideas, try something new, and what you end up with might surprise you!