THE PURPLE ROOM

     I just redid one of the rooms in my house.  I suppose you would call it a family room but we called it the red room since the carpet was red.  That carpet was 29 years old and was overdue for being replaced but I loved that carpet.  About a dozen years ago I redid that room but the carpet stayed.  It is a large room and my new carpet that I just installed cost $1,500 so that played a big factor in why it took me so long to replace it but the other reason is, it is now very hard to find red carpet.  When I say red, I mean fire engine red!  Even when I got it installed in 1987 it was a color that needed to be special ordered.
     One would think that if I am a kind of person who can jump right in with a red carpet, I would be a person who is not afraid of bright colors.  Sometimes there is moment in a person's life where they realize that they have lived trying to make people happy and they have lost their true selves.  I had that epiphany a few years ago.  That red carpet was the one bright spot in my home but I really was just copying the red carpet in my mother in laws family room.  That made it acceptable.  Later on before my son was born I didn't find out if he was a boy or girl ahead of time so I did have a yellow room for him.  It was a wonderful bright yellow but I always knew that I was going against what my in laws thought was acceptable.  I had been decorating my house with muted colors for years and I got more and more nervous about branching out.
     As my two girls got older they wanted to have a say in what colors we would use.  We have a summer home and it needed to have the walls painted and they wanted their room to be orange...bright orange.  I complied because after all, it was their room and I should let them have a say.  They think that I am unhappy with the orange but in reality I am thrilled with it.  I probably wouldn't pick orange but it does look good to me and more importantly they have not been influenced by outside opinions!  Maybe I am living vicariously through them.
     It is not a good feeling to know that I allowed myself to worry so much about pleasing other people.  It is hard to realize that in the past I have decorated my house to try to get people to like me but that is exactly what I did.  It was a slow process because first, many years ago, I took down a lot of decorations that were considered "arts and crafts."  If you walk into my in laws houses that is what you will see and that is what I did in order to fit in.  When I realized that I didn't really like it and it was becoming old fashioned, I got rid of it all.  For many years I had hardly anything on the walls until my kids came home with artwork and I hung that up.
     What was really brewing in my mind was that epiphany that I needed to be myself.  It probably seems silly to other people but it is exceedingly difficult to override that sense of being judged.  For other reasons, I have chosen to stop having a relationship with my in laws.  I guess this issue is symbolic of my reasons.  I tried to be acceptable by changing myself but it never worked.  Once I gave up trying to please them, it has been hard to figure out who I am.  It makes me more sensitive to other people's judgement as well.  For me that is a lot to overcome.
     My favorite color is purple so it made sense to paint the room purple.  In my mind it would be a glaring color that no one would like but me.  It seems rather ridiculous now to have worried about that but it was important to me to overcome those feelings and I did it!  It really is just a lavender that is peaceful seeming.  I love my purple room, not only because it is my favorite color but also because people don't paint their family rooms purple...but I DO!

GARDENING HAPPINESS

One thing that has always given me happiness is gardening.  It is hard work and it often tires me out but it is a good tired.  For the most part I come away with a sense of satisfaction.  I am actually a horrible gardener and for every success there are at least a half dozen failures.  I am not sure why I keep doing it other than maybe it gives me a sense of hopefulness.  These are my zucchini plants from this past summer.  How does a person kill zucchini and how does my garden bring me happiness?  By the way, those pictures were taken mid summer not in the fall and it wasn't a particularly dry summer but it was a particularly unsuccessful summer.

Each winter I start imagining next summer and this winter is no different.  Usually I will read something that someone else has written about how great their gardening method is and be inspired that, yes, I can do that too!  It never seems to end well.  But my hopefulness has never wavered and that is what keeps me going back for more.  I wonder if there is anyone out there like me that fails over and over and just keeps happily plugging along.  Stay tuned for next summer!  I kind of wonder if I ever am successful, will it be a let down?!  Will I somehow be disappointed that I am able to grow things prolifically?  This is making me laugh since thinking about how maybe someday I can be successful at gardening is all part of my hopefulness.  It's probably never going to happen but maybe someday... 

HAPPINESS...OR NOT

Lately I have been reading a lot about happiness. It is definitely the new buzz word. It seems to be everyone's goal. As with anything that seems to be overworked, I am getting a bit sick of it. I think that we all should try to find a life that we can be happy with but it seems that too many people are taking this idea to the extreme. I get the feeling that many people think that they need to wake up happy and go to bed happy every day. This is not possible and I think that the danger in feeling this way may result in feeling like a failure when we feel unhappy. Life is full of unhappy moments as well as happy moments. Whatever happened to grinning and bearing it? For me, some days just seem to go wrong. I'm okay with this and I just try to survive those days and hope for a better day tomorrow. There are phases in everyone's lives that are not happy. I am no exception. We can go months or sometimes years where we have bad times. The goal is to find joy once again but we certainly should not feel like failures. Only when we accept difficult circumstances as part of life can we move on. With this new push on happiness, I wonder how many people are feeling worse thinking "why can't I be happy?"

I'm sure that there are people who can wake up and feel joy and happiness every day. I am not one of them. My goals in life are to feel many moments of joy and happiness, to experience as few moments of unhappiness as possible and all the other days? Those other days, I want to LIKE what I am doing...or at least not DISLIKE it.

HEADED OFF TO RPI

Today we bring Thomas to college. He is my first so it is kind of weird. What's even more weird is I no longer have those sad feelings of knowing I will miss him. I am still worried that he will be experiencing home sickness and all those usual unhappy freshman year feelings but I feel peaceful otherwise. I know along with the unhappy feelings he will also experience all the happy feelings. I think I realize that this is just a natural progression and I can sit back and enjoy it. I also see that he is happy. He seemed to be getting really excited last night. It's nice to see, when it comes down to the wire, he has joyful feelings. It seems as if the anxiety has been pushed to the side for now. He never really seemed super worried; I think because he is pretty independent about a lot of things. Through high school he has learned to handle the day to day tasks and decisions. He still lets me pamper him by doing his laundry and making him Koolaid but he takes care of the big stuff, mostly having to do with school. He doesn't need his parents to organize and plan his day at school. Other than helping with proof reading he doesn't ask us for help.

When we went to RPI for orientation, we were told that we know our own children. If we feel that in general they make good decisions and were generally responsible, we didn't have to worry about them. Chances are, they would be fine. If we were worried about them, chances are we needed to worry about them! I'm not worried about Thomas. I also felt really good when they asked all the parents to raise their hands if their kids did at least an hour of homework each night. There were few parents that raised their hands. They explained that was because these kids were the smart kids and good grades came easy to them so they would just coast through high school. Although many things do come easy to Thomas he has always studied a lot and done a lot of homework. It was comforting to know that he would not be one of those kids that had a rude awakening in college as far as the time commitment. I cannot really tell what will happen with his grades. Will he be able to keep all those A's? I have warned him that there may be times that he is disappointed with the result of his hard work. Only time will tell.

ONE MORE POST....GOALS AND HAPPINESS

I think I may end up being somewhat caught up on my life if I write just one more post! I am happiest when I have a goal. Last spring my goal was to get in good enough shape to hike to the summit of Mt. Washington in North Conway, NH. I started out in very poor shape. Huffing and puffing up even small hills. I guess because of my personality, I didn't get discouraged. My only fear was that my health problems would rear their ugly head. I had spent the previous fall and winter struggling to get my thyroid back on track with two medication increases. My iron level seemed to be okay but my migraines had increased. I was afraid that if things started to go bad again, I would not be able to tackle Mt. Washington. I love walking and hiking so most of the time, I went with happiness and a positive energy.

At the end of July 2010, I met my goal!! It took longer than we thought and it was almost dark when Thomas and I got back down the mountain but our entire family reached the peak! Thomas and I have knees that allowed us to hike back down. Tom met us at the bottom after him, Erin and Sarah took the shuttle down....their knees not so good.

Since Thomas and I have the real hiking bug we've made a new goal this year. It's not quite so lofty as last year but still quite a challenge. We plan to hike up Mt. Wittenberg in the Catskills. We've gone for a couple hikes in the snow so far for our training. We had wanted to hike up Mt. Tammany at the Delaware Water Gap in the snow/winter and we did that when he had a half day of school this past Thursday. It was an unseasonably warm day so we were able to wear just a couple of layers and be comfortable. Fortunately there are plenty of other hikers that think it's fun to hike there in the winter so the snow on the trail was packed enough to walk on. We went in our trail sneakers and our feet only got a bit wet. It was warm enough that they weren't cold though. Thomas had wanted to hike up to the knob down in Milford in the winter as well. We did that a couple of weeks ago but had a bit more trouble with the snow. Not as many people hike there in the winter so we were happy that we had worn our boots. They don't make for the best hiking footwear but at least our toes were dry and snuggly!

It's nice because although the stress of the previous six months had led to my inactivity, I was not as out of shape as last spring. This has been so encouraging to me that I've made an individual goal separate from Thomas. I would like to be able to "run" in the 5K run/walk that we participate in every May. I "ran" last week for the first time just to see how I would do. It was how I made my decision whether this was a goal I should make. Initially, I had thought I would try just a half mile and see if it killed me. Once I began, I realized that I could actually do a mile. Mind you, I put "run" in quotes for a reason. The fact that I was able to move at something more than a walk for an entire mile made me positive that I would at least attempt to run the 5K. I think I will be able to run without stopping and depending on how my training goes, I will probably make a time goal of doing it in under 45 minutes. Well, after consulting with my trainer (Thomas - smile) he says that after numerous calculations and contemplation, I should make a goal of running it in under 40 minutes. I'm not sure if I that should excite me or scare me! Well, for now I think I will just go do laundry...unfortunately there is not much muscle building in that.

DONATING, VOLUNTEERING AND BEING GENEROUS

My daughter is on the local Relay for Life of the American Cancer Society. Her and her friend have started a team and because they needed a chaperone, I am also on the team. Sarah and Thomas have joined as well. Each teammate needs to raise $100 with a goal of at least $1,000 for the team. I am pretty good at fundraising and have raised almost the entire $400 for our family. My approach is to ask people who I feel are generous but in a no pressure kind of way. I have been pleasantly surprised that almost all the people I've asked have donated. Many of them have donated $25 or $50! This has not only given me a sense that people are good at heart but it's also made me want to be more generous as well. It's made me feel even better about offering my time and effort for this event. My observation has been that the people who are generous, are also happier people. Being happier is always a good thing! I'm glad to be sharing in that happiness.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

It's hard to believe that it's been so long since I've posted. The above painting was done by Sarah in celebration of Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for but sometimes I need to remind myself of those things, so Thanksgiving meant a lot to me this year.

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

HIKING

During the past four years, I've slowly turned into a big marshmallow. Mind you, I've been a marshmallow for many years but now I am a big marshmallow! I used to be in pretty good shape as far as my muscles were concerned but then all my health issues started. First my thyroid went kaput. Then my brain decided migraines were a good thing. My iron became depleted. Physical activity made me feel worse, much worse. So I sat, and sat and sometimes laid down to rest. I've gotten really out of shape and can no longer do the things I've always loved to do. Well, at least not as much as I've always done. It's hard for a person to get older and realize that each year your body slows down but for me the slow down from my health issues was fast and drastic. It's taken me a long time to get my health back on track. I'm still not totally there because I just had to change the dose of my thyroid medication in December (2009), I still sometimes get migraines and I constantly have to be careful to keep my iron level up. I know I am feeling better but to some degree, I've learned to ignore the side effects of these health issues. I've been able to increase my activity level. I had planned to do it slowly but sometimes I've tended to overdo it.

Besides gardening, one of the things that I've missed is hiking. I think my whole family has missed hiking since I was always the one who got us in the car to go explore a new trail. In February and March I started by getting back to my walks around the community. We have some moderate hills where I would get out of breath and feel my heart pounding. I wondered if my iron level had dropped but I kept it up. After awhile I saw some improvement. "The Knob" that overlooks the town of Milford is accessed by a rather short but steep hike. I've always wanted to hike it but have never gotten around to it. That was my new goal. At the beginning of April, just before Easter we went on the hike but got sidetracked and I never went to the overlook. The perfect reason for hiking it again the following week! Although I had never made it to the overlook on the first hike, something even more important to me happened. I got back my hope that I really would get back into shape. I began to form an idea. I want to hike Mt. Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire!

Quite a few years ago I had made the statement that one day when the kids were older we would hike up Mt. Washington. I'm guessing that was at least six years ago. Thomas will be 18 years old in September so he would have been 11 or 12 back then. Old enough to be excited and looking forward to the hike. It's been a long wait but now Sarah is 13 years old and old enough to make it....I think. So we've started to get in shape for a trip to NH towards the end of July. What I've discovered is that Sarah is in much better shape than I thought and I'm in much worse shape than I thought!

I'm in the worst shape of the family and although Tom is much, much better than me, he is next in line. It's hard to say if Erin is better than Sarah or vice versa because they are pretty much the same. Thomas, of course, is the best. He could hike the mountain tomorrow without a problem. Actually, everyone could hike the mountain tomorrow except for me! I think everyone except for Thomas would really be hurting if they hiked tomorrow but they could at least make it. Yesterday, Thomas told me that he thinks I would be able to make it right now also, but I have my doubts.

Since April, when I told everyone that I wanted to hike Mt. Washington, we have been trying to hike every weekend. Thomas and I have gone on a couple extra hikes - me to catch up to everyone and him for encouragement! He can be quite an inspirational motivator! I also think my new found gardening energy has helped me build some muscles. I've joked with everyone that I'm not sure how heavy everyone is breathing because I can't hear them over my own gasping!

Our goal as a family is to get strong enough for everyone to be able to make it without being in agony. We know it's still going to be tough but if everyone were in agony we would more than likely turn back. I think my individual goal may be slightly different than everyone else. I would like to be able to just make it, agony or not. What a satisfied feeling I would have! Unfortunately, I know that there is always the possibility that I won't be able to do it. Sad but always a chance. I cannot control certain things in my life and my health is one of them. I do know that barring a major setback, I can at least start the hike with everyone. It's important to me to face my reality because acceptance of these facts helps me move on. I guess I'm trying to live in the moment.

So, we've (I've) made some major strides. Pun intended. Yesterday we hiked around 4.5 miles through the steep inclines of our area. We took a rather long route to end up at Dingman's Falls. We had been surprised to discover that it was a back route to the falls. We hadn't known that is where we would come out and had walked about 2.5 miles to get there. We had quite a laugh to discover that when we followed the creek back to our car on a more direct route, it was only about a half mile away! Ha ha ha! The entire 4.5 miles took us about 2 hours. The distance is about the same as the hike up Mt. Washington but the elevation change is not the same. The hike up Mt. Washington should take between 3 and 4 hours one way so that can give you an idea how steep it will be! It's hard to get a hike that is near the equivalent.

So it's nice to have a new and exciting goal and especially exciting for it to be a goal involving physical activity!

MEET DOROTHY

Scarecrow compliments of Erin and Sarah. I love the grass ponytails! Last year they made Dr. Phil.

GOOD GARDENING MAKES UP FOR CRUMMY FIDDLE HEADS!!

The fiddle heads that I finally collected tasted awful. I hated them! Tom and Erin liked the first few and Thomas actually ate quite a few before he realized they weren't that great! I don't know why they tasted so good when I was a kid????

So, although this has been a week where I haven't felt so great, I've manage to still get a little gardening done. On the easy side I picked a few more beans from the plants on my window sill and now I'm up to 235 grams. I also thinned out my tomato and pepper seedlings that I started a couple weeks ago. I will still have to thin some more of the peppers and the impatiens when they get bigger. WOW, I just found out through spell check that I've always been wrong when I spelled it "impatients!" You learn something new everyday!

On the more difficult side, I was able to spend 2 or 3 hours working outside in my garden. I had dug a wide trench a week or so ago in order to do my pared down version of double digging. Yesterday I was able to add a couple of inches of decayed wood chips to the bottom and then made a good mix of peat moss, cow manure and the original soil to fill the rest in. I spent quite a bit of time mixing it all together. I plan to plant my carrots, beets and possibly swiss chard there and hope for the best. I have this nagging feeling that I will be extra disappointed when they don't grow well. Maybe reverse psychology will work. If I'm sure that nothing will grow maybe I'll be surprised when it's successful??? Reverse psychology seems to be working at least a bit when it comes to my migraines. Did I mention that I could be getting a migraine any minute now? If I keep saying that maybe I won't get one...oops that's being a bit too positive, maybe I should just say that I don't hold out much hope of this reverse psychology thing working! Well, at least if I'm a bit negative and skeptical of my new gardening bed, I won't be so disappointed if it fails to grow anything.

Anyhoo, I am quite proud of my new bed it's all fluffy and fertile looking! When I work so hard at something it gives me a very satisfied feeling. I hope to get out there today and work a bit more but it's supposed to be quite hot. Erin said it may get up to 80 degrees! EEK!

SARAH THE ARTIST

Sarah loves to take pictures and I get to see the world through her eyes. Anyone can take a picture of a beautiful flower but it takes a real artist to see beauty in what others perceive as ugly

SARAH'S BUGS

....and because one of Sarah's favorite photography subjects are bugs...

MORE FROM SARAH

This is a battle that Sarah captured on film. A spider and ant fighting over the body of a dead comrade. Eventually the ant gives up and lets the spider have his friend.

SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME...

I usually go on the computer first thing in the morning. If I feel the energy and the motivation I start to form a list of things that I want to do that day. At the end of the day it's nice to have that tired but satisfied feeling of a day filled with activity. I think now that I've had so many days where I don't feel well enough to do anything, I appreciate it all the more. I try to ignore the nagging feeling that I may never be able to do as much as I used to. I find sometimes I'm nagged by the fact that I don't have as much motivation anymore either. Sometimes this lack of motivation is due to not feeling well and sometimes it's due to being so out of shape compared to what I was.

So the funny aspect to all this is that I come up with this list that is a mile long, expecting that I will be able to do at least a half mile of it, only to accomplish an inch. It seems to be the story of our household. A story that we've learned to get a chuckle from. Just the other day we were laughing at the fact that we were discussing whether it took Tom two years or three to build the new closet in our bedroom. I figured in order to match that time frame, I would need to take my time at putting all our stuff back into the new closet! I'm not sure if it took me one or two months! It's not that we don't keep busy. Tom especially. He is a person who constantly needs to be doing something. I think it's really a function of our expectations. Once we had kids we didn't factor in the idea that we needed to spend time doing things with them. Of course we would not miss their childhood for anything. However, some where in the back of our minds we still think we can get as much done as in our pre child days. I think the reason that we are able to laugh about it is the fact that we still are able to get an incredible amount done. When I look at the "barn" (AKA shed) Tom built last year, as well as, the potting shed he helped Thomas build I am amazed that he was able to accomplish that along with the usual family vacations and just hanging out around here with the family. Oh yeah, and that little thing called a full time job! The amount that I accomplish is much less than Tom but I think I can give myself credit for the fact that I end up doing at least some things because it takes a lot of time to run a household...or at least in the way that I want to run it. I place a lot of value in being involved with my kids. I only have this time once. I know that we will all look back and be happy with how our lives went.

BOOK REVIEW OF THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BY EILEEN FLANAGAN

Eileen Flanagan is a Quaker that tries to live her religion. This book is for the religious person, as well as, the not so religious person like me. I never felt as if she was trying to judge me or make me follow her religion. She's truly written for everyone. For me it was a slow read only because it provoked me to really contemplate what she was writing. Every time I sat down to read I came away with a good feeling about life. It seemed as if each paragraph was filled with things that made me really think! A feel good book!

Click here for her blog.

ALWAYS MORE GARDENING TALK

It seems that I never tire of gardening talk. Last weekend I managed to prepare the area where I wanted to plant my peas. Then I gave it a heavy dose of fertilizer. On Monday I was able to spend an hour planting the seeds just before it started to rain. I was so happy all week because I had been able to complete my goal! I think they will be slow to germinate because it's been somewhat cold ever since.

Yesterday I went to the store and bought a 3.8 cubic foot bag of peat moss, a 40 lb bag of pellet lime and ten 40 lb bags of cow manure. By the time I loaded it all onto my cart, I was huffing and puffing. I was sort of hoping that someone would take pity on me and help. I didn't feel like searching someone out to ask them for help. It all weight well over 500 lbs. I could barely push the cart up to the register. Again, I didn't fell like asking for help, I just hoped it would come my way. Nope. I pushed it out to the truck and loaded it in. One time my husband was loading stuff into the truck and two young guys thought they'd help the "old" guy with gray hair. Apparently, everyone figured I was young, healthy and rugged. I surprised myself when I was able to heft the bag of peat moss into the truck. Not only is it bulky, but I think it probably weighs 50 lbs. After driving home, the only thing I unloaded was the pellet lime in case it rained. Everything else is still out there waiting to be unloaded and carted up to the garden. On the way home I stopped at the local yard where you can buy wood chips, decorative rocks, topsoil, etc. I asked about the price for getting a half load of top soil in our truck and was told $15 so we will probably be getting two or three loads this year. As always we will also be buying at least a couple of full loads of wood chips for $25 each.

The green beans that I planted inside are doing great. They have a lot of 1 and 2 inch skinny little beans growing. It's so exciting but I will be happy when they are done. They have tons of little fruit flies or something similar flocking around them. I blame this on the fact that it was dirt that I had left in the pots out on the porch for months last summer/fall. They must have laid eggs in the soil and hatched out once they were inside. Now they are on their second hatching and it's just worse! Well, hopefully it will end up being worth it! Even if I don't get enough beans for a meal, the kids like to eat them raw.

It's much colder this weekend than last but hopefully I will still get out in the garden and get my hands dirty!

GEESE AND MORE GEESE

Last spring I noted that I hardly heard or saw any Canadian Geese flying north for the summer. I wondered where they all were. This year I realized I just wasn't in the right place at the right time. On March 15th I was driving towards Scranton when I saw some geese over head. THOUSANDS OF GEESE!! First I saw one huge flock, then another and another until I realized that the flocks stretched for farther than the eye could see! I only had a chance to look south and not north because I couldn't believe my eyes! Finally all I could make out were tiny black dots in the telltale V format. I'm sure if I had turned and looked north I would have seen the same. As Sarah always says "I love nature!" and "I love living in Pennsylvania!"

SUCH A GOOD DRIVER

Thursday we reached a new milestone. Thomas got his license! He passed with flying colors. Thomas like all teenagers was quite nervous. I hadn't been worried until I got out of the car and the tester got in. Thomas went to drive off and forgot to put it in drive. ROOOAAARRR! The tester's window was open so I tried not to laugh or say out loud "LORDY, this is NOT going to go well!" Thomas told me that he let out a "PHEW!" and calmed himself down and after that everything was perfect. He had been practicing parallel parking in a 22 foot space so he easily pulled into the 24 foot space they provided. I guess once he got it out of park the tester was impressed enough to tell me that Thomas seems to have a good head on his shoulders. The tester said he didn't even mark Thomas off for that his little mistake at the beginning.

So as for Thomas, he now can go anywhere he wants...if it wasn't for the fact that he'd rather stay home. As for me, in June Erin gets her permit and I will have to start all over again. Oh yeah, and soon I will be teaching Thomas to drive a stick shift since we plan to let him drive our pick up to school next year.

GIANT SNOWBALL

We had fun playing in the snow yesterday. Thomas, Erin and I made this huge snow ball. It was actually more of a wheel but it tipped over. We spent about half an hour trying to get it back upright using boards but we finally gave up! We got about a foot of snow with more to come today. They are predicting at least a foot maybe even two!

This year I've decided that I will not agree with all the people who complain about the snow. I LOVE a huge snow storm and too often I just nod my head in agreement with all the people who complain. It's been sort of funny because people tend to give me a funny look when I say "to tell you the truth, I love the snow and I'm hoping for a big blizzard!"