Tools I wish I had when I reached 18

Choices, most of the years growing up I was told what to do. I don't believe I was given choices. I made choices, not based on sound experience but based on doing what I wanted despite what my parents said I should do. Some of my most profound mistakes in life were based upon poor choices. The only way to make good choices is to have experience when you are young, making choices. A good book on this is called "Blink" it is about peoples choices and illustrates how we make important decisions quickly and unimportant decisions we worry over. So my first tool would have been experience making decisions when I was younger so I could make better choices when I was older and the choices had a bigger impact. For example, if you want to ride your bike until 10 pm you won't get any dinner because dinner is at 6:30, what do you want to do? Instead, I was told you have to come in now because dinner is ready. The follow on to this tool is tough love. You now made the choice, live with it. I told you at 4 pm that if you choose to ride your bike until 10 pm you wouldn't get any dinner, that includes a sandwich. My parents always tried to minimize the impact of my poor choices. Hum, Choices/Consequences. There are times and circumstances that minimizing might be the right thing to do. Most of the time living with your choice is the right thing to do. At 60 years old I have to live with my choices, no one shields me from having the electric turned off if I don't pay my bill. Why should I have been shielded from my poor choices at 12 years old. We have an obligation to teach our children to be self-sufficient and know that they should not only consider what the best choice would be but consider what the consequences will be. The last tool kind of ties it all together, experiences. How would I know what I wanted without experiences. I don't mean experiences like smoking pot, but experiences that make my life richer. One example would be going to a rodeo, or visiting a military academy, or an art museum. Most people learn through experience. I have tried to teach my children this way. They didn't always like it, but they are better adults because of it.

Hostess Exec's should get a good paddling

I am literally heartbroken, a tradition that I have passed on to my grandchildren is going away. When my granddaughter gets to be my age, she will say to her grandchildren, I would buy you a ding dong but hostess closed down just a year after my grandmother bought me my first one. What is the world coming too? A favorite of people everywhere is closing. Hostess should be ashamed of themselves for driving this company into the ground. And so should the health nuts of the country. Sure their products are not healthy but they taste so good. One once and a while is not that bad for you. Yeh, you could spend that 360 calories some where more sensible but you could also ride your bike to work everyday. I am salivating as I sit and write this article. What is the world going to do without the cake shaped like a hockey puck? Or for that matter the twinkie or cupcake, or sno ball? Next thing you know they will be saying that Mickey Mouse is going away or Alka Seltzer (do they even make that anymore?). I just cannot stand it, but what is a person to do, send a letter to the ding dongs of hostess? I just don't think that will work. Maybe I am the only one that feels this way, afterall I did buy at least a dozen boxes of ding dongs this year, for my grandkids of course. Maybe I was the only one buying them? Regardless, I want my ding dongs to remain a part of my life, made in America, not China. That has been the one item I could rely on as Made in America (I think). Our country is falling apart, it isn't the democrats or the republicans it is Hostess that will be the demise of the American way.

The yummy days of summer

I have had a great summer, done a lot and been many places. Too bad it is so short. It has been hotter than hades this summer, still no end in site. I have finished a few projects, a quilt top for my 90 year old aunt, some multimedia fabric art pieces, and I have canned about 25 quarts of peaches - my favorite fruit, right next to raspberries, which I picked for the last month. I have the allergic reaction to prove it. The abundance of summer is wonderful, it is great to be alive. Except for the election hype on TV. Oh man, it is so sad, so many people trying to convince you that they know best how to run the country. Cannot wait until November 6th gets here, not just because it is my birthday, but because the election will be overwith, as long as there are no hanging chads, or something else. I hope you have had a great summer too.

Fire

For all of us who wished-for summer, it is here with a blast of 100 degree weather and fire almost everywhere around the state of Colorado. It makes beautiful sunsets but for those of us who like to head to the mountains for a reprise from the heat it's a no go. The fire in Fort Collins area is still burning out of control. I can't tell you how many people have called and asked if we are ok. I tell them the fire would have to burn down three cities to get to us. That is an awful thought, but it is true. The first day of the fire, my husband and I were headed to Ft. Collins, and we saw the smoke, I told him then that it would take all summer to put it out. Heat, drought and wind are not the ingredients for a hastily extinguished fire. Then you add the damage in the mountains that the pine beetle has done, which has killed millions of trees, only more tender for the fire. There are probably good things that will come after the fire, but no one is thinking about that now. They are imagining having the home of your dreams burnt to the ground and not being able to do anything about it. It almost makes you want to cry for them. Hundreds of homes will be burnt this summer, and the fires will scare the landscape for many years to come. Nature will renew and return our beautiful mountains to their former grandeur. Enough of the fire. A few weeks ago I declared myself a fabric artist, not that it is the first time I have made a piece of art from fabric but I decided I like to work in the medium of fibers and fabric. I have always loved to sew, crochet and embroider. My mother started me on embroidery when I was about 8 years old, one summer when I complained about being bored. I was hooked. When I decided to go to college the placement tests said I should go into Art, I laughed, who makes a living in Art?? I guess lots of people do but I couldn't see it. Since then I have beaded, painted, refinished wood, worked with metal and many other things. I love creating things. The biggest problem is I now feel I need a studio to work in. Using half a bedroom is not working. The next place we live must have enough room for me to set up a studio, it must also have a yard for a large garden, requirments for my happiness. We had our five year old granddaughter for over night on Friday. She is such a delight. What is it about children that age? Last summer I enrolled her in swimming lessons, and she is taking them again. We went to the pool Friday night and Saturday morning. She is so not afraid of the water now. It is wonderful, we had a great time. I got my hair completely wet, unusual for me. I ususally just hover with my head above water. I am so glad my grandkids have learned to swim, it makes me happy.

Being Creative

When I was young I didn't think of myself as creative, it seemed like nothing was there. I had no desire to create. Now being creative is part of me. One thing I notice is I am a fixer. I see an old piece of furniture, and I want to fix it. If it has knobs missing or a big dent in it where someone has hit it against something, I want to take it home and fix it. I have carried many old pieces of furniture home and painted, refinished, fixed and repaired it. If it is out of my realm of ability then I hire someone to fix it. It does have to have good bones though, made well in the first place. It drives my husband crazy. Oh well a little crazy is good. Especially for him. I digress.
I also like to fix clothing. I will find a beautiful garment, or maybe a not so beautiful garment and take it home to fit it to me. Oh I have had some disasters in the past. Items that ended up in the garbage, because I didn't know what I was doing. Over the years, I have learned though. I still don't know everything, but I can take up a T-shirt, and fit a pair of pants to my odd-shaped body and make them look ok. I have plenty of books on doing this too. I just fail to read or cannot find the directions for making the crotch of my pants fit me. What is a person to do? I just keep trying, working of cheap stuff until I can work on the expensive stuff and do it right, that is the best solution for me, hold the cost to a minimum.

This creativity gets applied to other things too, the decor of the house I live in, making quilt and other items with my sewing machine.

People say to me, oh, I can never do something like that. The lesson creativity has taught me can be applied to many areas of my life. To create and be proud of it, you need to learn to accept the faults, accept the imperfections. Then you have other people who look at what you have created and only see the imperfections, stick their nose up in the air and act like you are far less than they. The lesson in that is there will always be people who think they are better than you, forgive them and don't take it personal, there are always going to be people like that regardless of how wonderful your creations are. Love what you do and who you are, and you create an impenetrable shell around you that keeps what those people think from hurting you. The most important thing about being creative is, everyone needs to create so find your creativity.

Moving

Packing, cleaning and loading, then unloading and putting things away, sounds so simple. Yet it is also full of emotion. After 11 years in our home, we have sold it and are moving to a new area. Leaving our friends behind is probably the most difficult thing to do. Friends we have dinner with, go on road trips with, share our lives with, gone, or at least in a different state. The rest of it, loading and unloading, etc, is easy when you think about finding new friends. The annual road trip my friend and I make to the Lancaster quilt show, no more, unless I fly out to see her next year. Dinners on holidays and special occasions, it is just so rot with emotions. Too bad we can't just pack our friends up and bring them with us, one living on one side of us and one on the other. That would be great, for us, but not so much for them. I guess you never really loose freinds, they are always with you, but walking over and borrowing a spool of thread or a power tool is much more difficult. I guess we have to start in a positive mood and find new freinds. It is all about moving forward. We will miss you Bill, Shirley, Toni and Bill. Thanks for all the wonderful memories.

Colonel Fore

I used to have a boss, he was a Colonel, his last name was Fore. Colonel Fore was the base commander at the then closing Ft. Ord, California. The base closed in 1995. Anyway I digress, Col. Fore loved to golf, or as he said it goff. His staff made word play with his last name, you can use your own imagination as to what some of them were. It was all in good fun, since he was well loved around the base. I asked him once just after I found out he played golf, so you play, huh? How good are you? He said he wasn't very good and there were a number of trees around the world with his golf club wrapped around them, it was the most frustrating game he had ever played. That was him, there wasn't enough irritation in the world, he had to find more. He was from Arkansas and used to tell me, I am just a simple boy from Arkansas. He spoke like that, using euphumisms. He had saying he would use that drew pictures in your mind. During a staff meeting we had, he used my favorite while talking about out budget. I had never heard it said, and to this day I have never heard anyone use it as a descriptive. The budget was smaller than they had expected and when a base is closing there are many unusual expenses, so we discussing it and he said, "It's like stretching a gnats ass over a rain barrel." My seat during staff meetings was behind the Colonel, I guess he really didn't want to see the public affairs officer then he didn't have to think of the buzzards over head. Well I started giggling and the guy setting next to me started and pretty soon, the Colonel turned around with a puzzled look on his face and said to me, what are you laughing about, in his most stern voice, I said that I liked his colorful language, it took him a few seconds to remember what he said, then he apologized. He endeared himself to me that day. So, it was earth shattering one day when we were again having a staff meeting, I can't remember what we were discussing this time, but I can tell you I wasn't paying attention. I was startled when he pounded his fist on the table, pointed at me and yelled Sandy, then proceeded to rant. I must of had a terrified look on my face, because he stopped mid-sentence and said not you Sandy, but the other Sandy. I was sitting next to a guy whose given name was Alexander and they called him Sandy. I began breathing again. After it was over and we had moved on, I turned to the Sandy and said, that is the last time I sit next to you, he grinned. There were lots of ceremonies as the base closed and units deactivated. His beautiful wife attended one of these ceremonies. When I say beautiful, I mean fashion model beautiful. Even at sixty she was tall and willowy, gorgeous face and the most stunning silver gray hair. Anyway, he was very proud of her. There was another ceremony on the parade field, she went to his office and rode over with him. After it was over she and I were talking, he came over and said to her, you need to get your purse out of my car, I have a meeting to attend. She said can't you just bring it to me. He quipped, I am not carrying your purse across the parade field, in my uniform, I love you but this is not something I will do for you. I cracked up laughing, since I have told my husband this story, he uses it to his advantage, he will say, if Colonel Fore won't do it, what makes you think I will? When Colonel Fore retired, I didn't go to his party, I too was in the midst of leaving Fort Ord, so this is my tribute to him. He is someone I think fondly of even though he was as rough as a cob (also one of his sayings, although much more common).