Monday, September 22, 2008

The Waiting Room

Yee-Haw....I actually have a concrete subject today to have you ponder! Busy weekend but the things I wanted to share were about two books I read over the weekend and an interview that I heard on the radio this morning. The first book is called "A Rip In Heaven" http://www.amazon.com/Rip-Heaven-Memoir-Murder-Aftermath/dp/0451210530/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222116323&sr=8-1. All you STL people, this is about Robin and Julie Kerry who were raped and thrown off the Chain of Rocks Bridge along with their cousin Tom in April 1991. Tom's sister who was a teenager at the time of this incident, wrote this book years later and I highly recommend it. Many details that the media left out she brought out in her book. It is also a beautifully written book that focuses on what the family went through especially with two sisters being murdered and their cousin being arrested for the crime in the beginning (He, of course, was completely innocent and also a victim.) What the entire family endured; her immediate family and her aunt and cousin (Robin and Julie's sister) as well as the entire extended family on both sides.

But a main focus of this book was "they were just here, eating Chinese food with us and when I woke up, they were dead". How fast these things happen.....

So I usually never read just one book at a time and thought it ironic that my second reading choice this weekend was "The Last Lecture" http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lecture-Randy-Pausch/dp/1401323251/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222116602&sr=1-1. Randy Pausch actually died not long ago, so it's interesting (bad word??) to read this book and know he was just here but now he's not. I had picked it up several times (while he was still living and Oprah was having him on her show, etc.) but thought maybe the subject matter would be too emotional to read about. But it's really not and although I'm not finished, I'm thoroughly enjoying it and it seems almost lighthearted at times. But as he says in the book, there's that big elephant in the room....

So the interview that ties all this together, my dear blog readers, was with Alan Alda, who is also pushing a new book that he has out (sorry, didn't catch the name of that one). Someone asked him what sort of advice he might give a young person and he explained that he didn't like to give advice but he said, he hears about so many people that are waiting to be happy.....if they get a better job, they'll be happy, if they had more money, they'd be happy, if they had a better relationship or with someone else, they'd be happy. He said everyone needs to quit acting like we are in some big waiting room, waiting for what is going to come along to make us happy. Be in the present, enjoy what you have now, appreciate it all now BECAUSE like I've read in two books just this weekend, it can all be over so fast.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

BLOG OVERWHELMED

Ok, so I'm a researcher plain and simple and the internet is my best friend.....sorry, Samtastic (and no that's not your fictitious name, can't think of anything more clever right now)

I set up this blog and then started looking around at other blogs that I'd heard about:
http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/ or this one is my personal favorite
http://thepioneerwoman.com/ and now I'm thinking how can I measure up against such creativity?

I just like to write, my daughter is the creative one in our family, other than making sock monkeys and an occasional crocheted blanket, I don't have a creative bone in my body (and listen, Perfect is two and his blanket has yet to be finished, let alone starting on 5 month old Precious' blanket!)

So bottom line, Gentle Reader (I stole that one from Stephen King), is you are probably just gonna get words on this blog. At least for now....I do like to take pictures but combining all my interests in this one blog THAT I'M JUST WRITING FOR MYSELF is a might much even for me. But I'm a work in progress and I'm a woman so can change my mind at the drop of a hat!

A work in progress albeit slow progress. I feel like I'm just spending all this time setting up my "ground rules" for blogging versus actually writing anything meaningful. I always have so much rattling around in my head that I need to say that sometimes I think I should be carrying around one of my little tape recorders that I used in college to record things/topics to write about so I don't forget. But I usually do forget or what seemed like something I wanted to explore more in the morning, doesn't do anything for me this afternoon. Case in point, sitting in a long, boring morning meeting today, I kept writing things in the margin of my handout and now when I look at those words at 4 p.m., can't quite figure out why talking about those subjects were so important to me at 8a.m.!!

Good Lord, do I have the attention span of an ant? And whamo.....did I find the actual length of an ant's attention span when I popped out to research this question....NO, I found another creative blog: http://lisana.dreamhost.com/y1999/d1210.html to overwhelm me further and everything you might want to know about an ant: http://www.infowest.com/life/faq.htm and they only live for 90 days so their attention spans can't be more than a day? I hope this blog lasts longer than an ant!

So on the Grammy Talks side of things...yesterday was Wednesday and EVERY Wednesday I have Perfect and Precious for several hours. Between Darling Daughter and the SIL and ME, the P's don't have to attend a daycare or go to a babysitter. The three of us have all worked our work hours around being able to avoid that childcare dilemma which is just splendid in my opinion. Darling Daughter and Fantastic Son both had to attend daycares while I worked when they were growing up (from very young ages) and while their facilities were nice and all and I had no problems with them, I would have preferred being home OR having a family member take care of them but that's all beside the point.

I get P&P EVERY Wednesday which is always something I look forward to. They were both in wonderful moods last night which was enjoyable and Perfect's vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds every day. Now he repeats every thing I say and cocks his head over like he's trying to understand what comes out of my mouth as he repeats my words. I just don't remember little things like this while DD and FS were growing up. Maybe that's why they say you enjoy being a grandparent more than a parent because you actually do enjoy the littlest things.

And as he running around the house screaming NO after his bath when I asked if he wanted to brush his teeth, it didn't stress me out in the least. With my kids, I would have chased them down and insisted on clean teeth and sweet breath and there would have been alot of yelling and tears in the end but I would have won. But it's not about winning the fights when you are a grandparent......I just passed that info on to SIL when he came to retrieve P&P, let him be the bad guy, this Grammy will cause no tears to be shed over unclean teeth! I would prefer running through the house screaming NO with him.

Stay tuned...

Monday, September 15, 2008

THE BEGINNING PART II

OK, so it is getting easier, I'm happy to report, since it's been all of 10 minutes since I posted the first blog. I'm calling my page Grammy Talks but that does not necessarily mean that I am going to focus on talking endlessly about my perfect grandchildren. I have kids, almost steps, a son-in-law, son's "serious" girlfriend, almost step grandson, and the "serious" girlfriend's children.

So Grammy Talks will, of course, contain stories about all of the above and my beloved friends that I took to calling, "The Elders", over the past weekend. We're not THAT old but compared to the teens/20/30 somethings out there, we often feel quite wise and world-savy and have quite of lot "experience" in life individually as well as a group that probably needs to be shared somewhere so guess this will be as good a place as any.

I also picked that name because when I think of my life at this time, being a grandma is pretty defining to me. Sometimes when you ask someone who they are, they say a lawyer (career defining), a soccer mom (children defining), so and so's wife (defined by another), and on and on. Sure I have a job, kids, an almost husband, like to read, write, eat ice cream, etc. BUT I am also Perfect grandson's and Precious granddaughter's GRAMMY. (see how easy those fictitious names just popped up!)

They changed my life at a time when it definitely needed changing and I have a different outlook on everything (or so it seems). I'm still the same person only Grammy-improved and I like that!

Stay tuned (and feel free to comment about improvements I can make with this blog or things you may just want my opinion about!! I'm always looking for material.)

THE BEGINNING

The beginning...like I mentioned in my profile, I'm always being told I need to write some of my stories or "insights" down so the other day I sat down and created this blog page and then....just stared at it.

What to write? Who knew? Certainly, not me. So I did what I usually do, closed the page down and wrote a few emails, texted a few friends, thought about it alot, and discussed it over with some of my friends over the weekend (we even got into an entertaining grammer discussion about our 9th grade English teacher with her Dear Abby hairdo).

Why is this so hard? Because "others" may read it? Because I might write about someone that may offend. What I write is now out there far and wide and not just sent to a few select individuals and kept private from others. Anyone AND everyone can, may, could, would read what I write. That's scary, so I'm going back to not thinking about all that and pretty much pretending that I'm writing to myself, for myself BUT I will NOT post anyone's real names....hear that, my friends, I'm making up fictitious names for you all and who knows the stories may be fictitious as well (OK, that last sentence will be my disclaimer and hopefully keep me out of trouble and with my long-lasting friendships intact!)

OK, Part I is over hopefully, Part II may be easier!