Birthdays

  This past week was my birthday. Now, with a birthday at the end of the month, I tend to claim the entire month of March as my birthday.

   It did not start that way. It used to build until THE day, and then it was done. I was queen for a day.

   Well, that's not enough. As someone told me this week, " At my age I start at the beginning of the month, in case I don't make it to the end!". That is not entirely the reason I like to take the whole month.

   Have you ever felt you had failed the person you really liked just because you forgot the DAY of the birth? Well, I am just trying to make you all feel better if you happen to forget the day of my birth, but remember it sometime. Trust me. Sometime is better than never.

   Did I have a good birthday? I had a great birthday. We have a tradition in our family between me and my hubby. We go to Presleys' show on each other's birthday and anniversary and also to Circle B Chuckwagon. If they are both available on the day we do both, otherwise, we go when available. That is what we did this week and we had to do it on two different days, which brings us back to the longer celebration of birthdays. Several people commented on how much I celebrated my birthday. Just enjoying being a year older.

   Have a great day.

Being Positive in a Negative World

     I just reaad an excellent newsletter put out by C. Hope Clark on negativism and writing.

     The point was we are all hit with negative news all the time, whether it is national or personal. News people thrive on the horrible and worse. We get to where we seem to be looking for nothing but the bad news.

     I have always thought that I was a positive person.

     However, recently, I have been listening to my conversations with people and think that I see only the irritating habits in people. Why is that?

     I have an amazing God who has given me an amazing life and, even though there have been rough spots and dreams not realized, He has been beside me and held me up. That alone should keep me on the positive side of life.

    I have had family that have not behaved the way I want, or treated me with the respect I THINK I deserve. That is no reason to see only the bad in people.

   I have been trying to remember the little boy who cried when his kite flew away and allowed me to hold him and comfort him. Kind of hard when said little boy is now a man who tells me he doesn't feel like part of my family. Well, he is part of my family and how we feel really doesn't change that. I will love him and his family no matter what.

   I have a grandson who thinks that he does not want us around for his special days. That is his option. We will still love him and remember the little boy who stood in a restaurant and said," Tol' you I'd be here." He will be in our prayers and thoughts as he has always been.

   Do I have a special relationship with my granddaughter who looks at me and says, " Grams, I remember the snow."? I kept thinking she wouldn't remember. Yes, ma'am, I do. Can that relationship go the way of the others? No. It is a different day and I have learned what I did before and will not repeat that. Now, could something happen, oh, yeah, but you don't go through life worrying about that. You enjoy the day you have.

   Will I try to "fix" my relationship with my other grandchildren? No. I will continue to love them, pray for them and remember the good times.

   In a negative world people would think that all is lost with our grandchildren and children, but with God all things are possible, and they will enjoy their lives and I will enjoy mine.

    The daffodils are blooming and the woods are bright with purple of the redbud trees. The dogwood cannot be far behind. Spring is here.



  

Down Sizing

     Down sizing has come to mean something you don't want to do or have done to you: as in: " The company down sized and I lost my job."

    So, when my husband brought the idea of downsizing our lifestyle, I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. It sounded as though I might be out of a job. He really didn't say that he was wanting to downsize to one person or even that we needed to do less than we are right now. He just wanted to move from ownership to perhaps rentalship. If something needed fixing, someone else would be responsible for getting it done. Taxes would also be someone else's problem.

I could go along with that.

Then he started talking about getting rid of stuff.

I really have always said, and believed, that stuff was just stuff. It could be replaced or not.

When we first talked about it we talked about selling everything and moving into an rv and travel. We both really like road trips and seeing new things.

That didn't seem feasible. We would just be taking this lifestyle on the road and gaining nothing in the money department.

I really kind of liked the idea of gettting rid of everything and buying back what we needed as we needed it. A clean slate. I have been here before. God decided that perhaps we could use a clean slate, so we had a house fire and lost everything, but a really ugly hassock, and a few personal things.

We cleaned house. We started over. We had managed to save our pictures, which was nice.

Twenty some years later you would never know we had gone back to having nothing. We had something, now. Lots of it.

So, we decided to sell most of our stuff and downsize.

We are trying to downsize, just in case we decide to downsize the size of our living space.

Yep. This is lots of fun.

I will keep you posted on how this is going.