Rose Colored Glasses

Rose colored glasses
I have been told by people that know me and love me, that I don’t see the same world as most people. Some say I exaggerate things, others that I fabricate stories and many that I see the world through rose colored glasses. They say I see the world the way I wish it was, instead of how it truly is. I focus on the good in people and try to see their “whys” for the things they do that I disapprove of. Whether that is true or not I don’t know but it got me to thinking…

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone in the world wore rose colored glasses? If all of us look at the best that the world has to offer and saw the strengths in people instead of their short-comings. So many times when someone does something we don’t like we are quick to judge their behavior as bad or evil instead of stopping to look at all the possible reasons for their behavior. We take their actions personally, as if they did it to us and don’t treat it as, merely a random act.

I read a book once called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and he talked about creating a better world by all people living according to four agreements.
1. Don’t take things personally
2. Always do your best
3. Be impeccable to your word
4. Don’t make assumptions
After reading the book I thought about how it could change the world if we could all live by those agreements. What if when someone did something that scared us or hurt us we would look for the possible reasons for their actions or better yet what is we asked them about their reasons rather than assuming we already knew them.

I wondered how much industry and economies would prosper if every person that came to work put forth their best effort and felt pride in the job they were doing. Not only would the employees change but also the management would work at being the best, the most understanding, the fairest, the most organized that they were capable of being.

And what a change our world would see if no one uttered a word that would do harm to another person. Not one word of dishonesty. No gossip about another person. No criticism unless it was to that person and was only meant to help them improve the situation. No nation would judge or criticize another, unless they were discussing with that nation what their needs were and were offering assistance to improve a situation. And even then they would allow the other nation the right to choose whether or not to accept their offer of assistance.

And finally what if each of us gave up our claim to mind reading powers and stopped assuming we knew what was in another's mind or heart when they did or said something. What if we went to the source? What if we allowed others the right to make mistakes sometimes and then learn from them without criticizing or making fun of their efforts?

So today I will get up and start my day but first I will put on my rose colored glasses and remind myself to see the world as it could be and look for the best in each person I meet.

Life is funny

Life is a funny thing. We enter the world without a road map, without a guide book and are expected to find our way through it and hopefully leave the world a better place than when we entered it or at least no worse.
Somewhere along the way we realize we are not journeying alone. I guess the first person we notice is our mother because of her all important role in our life. She feeds us, cleans us when it’s needed and comforts us when we are feeling distressed. Mom is our security and our first love. Gradually our little eyes open to find other interesting people, like our daddy, who knows how to tease and romp and can be quite entertaining to watch. Then we find other little people, maybe not as small as us but still small enough to peak our curiosity. Each day it seems our tiny world expands exponentially until one day we find ways to interact with the world around us. This whole process has been witnessed by parents again and again and each time it is a mesmerizing miracle to behold.
Our world takes a huge leap when we enter school. For the first time we are exposed to influences that are not directly controlled by our parents. Some of these are wondrous and exciting others are unsettling and frightening. We not only catch every childhood disease known to man that first year of school but we also catch on to how people treat and manipulate others and learn how they expect us to behave.
I don’t remember much about my early years of school but I do remember that I got in trouble in first grade for being a tattle-tell. I even know who it was that told me to go tell the teacher (she didn’t get in trouble so I doubt she remembers the incident). Isn’t it strange that this would stick in my brain after all these years? I was shy and unsure of myself those first years of school and I watched the other kids to learn how to act. But overall I was a happy little girl and liked school.
Somewhere around fifth grade things changed for me. I got a best friend. She was my confidant, my idol, my playmate and my best buddy. My dad used to say we were each other’s shadow. We used to pretend that we were sisters. This friendship was probably the one that shaped me more than any relationship I had outside my immediate family. Her family was from a much higher social-economic class than mine and she was the youngest, the only daughter and the last child at home. I was the 5th of 12 children and the second oldest daughter. We were so very different and still we played and dreamed in tandem. We were inseparable from 5th grade until our junior year in High School when our activities and boyfriends kept us busy and gradually we spent less time together.
But from that experience and many other experiences in the years since, I have learned that everyone needs a special friend, maybe a sister or brother, maybe a cousin or school friend, but we all need someone to share our joys and our sorrows. So look around at the people that you share your life with and appreciate the friends and family that brighten your world. Take time to tell them they are special to you.
I entered this world without a guide book or a road map but somehow I was blessed to find a series of guides that led me to where I am and I feel it is where I am meant to be. Thank you my friends for accepting me as I am and encouraging me to make the most of my life.

When I was young I thought my mom had super powers. She could fix anything that was broken, kiss away Boo Boos, sing me to sleep when I was tired and cheer me up when I was sad. I believed she never slept because she was awake to tuck me in and kiss me good-night and was up in time to make breakfast for me before I woke up.
By the time I started school and I realized that no, she wasn't a super hero, she was a genius. She could tutor me in math, proof read my English or help with a science project. She knew everything about religion and baking and sewing and on and on and on.
Years went by and soon I was in junior high. I looked at my mom and saw a magician. She could turn chores into games and create art from scraps. She could tuck her three youngest daughters into bed and then magically make three Easter dresses appear before they woke up on Easter morning. There they would be laid out on the couch with white shoes, white gloves and Easter bonnets. That is a magic trick I will never forget.
By the time I reached high school I thought I knew everything. I knew without a doubt that my mother was a talented artist and a dreamer. She was the only mother I knew that painted murals on the dining room wall and wrote Christmas pageants for church, composing the music herself.
As a very young adult my world suddenly crumbled around me and there Mama stood as my rock, close beside me to hold me as I cried and to assure me that God had a plan. She listened as I insisted that it wasn’t fair, not judging just quietly assuring me that “the sun will come up tomorrow.”
The sun did return and with it three daughters each one arriving on the heels of the previous one. I found myself a young mother constantly busy with diapers, laundry, picking up toys and teaching my little ones not to play in the toilet or the fish tank, I suddenly realized that my mother was a saint and a martyr. I marveled at all the love and patience she had given us and wondered how she survived twelve children. But she didn’t merely survive us, she found the time and energy to offer each of us unconditional love, making sure we knew that we were wonderful and special.
Now I look around and see that I have grown older and they say that with age comes wisdom, though I don’t feel very wise. I now see my mother more clearly and I realize that she is all those things and more. She is a super hero, a genius, a magician and artist and dreamer, my rock and a saint but most of all she is my Angel Mother who loves me, inspires me, encourages me and makes me want to be a better person than I am. She is a kind and gentle woman, a loving mother and grandmother, a quiet light that warms all how come in contact with her. She is the woman that I hope to someday be. Mama, I love you!

A Unique Family

I was not raised in a normal family. The average American family has 2.5 children. I was the 5th of 12 children. The majority of US families are blended or single parent households. I was raised by two loving parents that both resided in my home. Currently most homes have both parents working outside the home. I was blessed to have a loving “stay at home mom” (but she was a working mother, remember 12 children). Those weren’t the only things that separated my family from the norm. My dad traveled in his work but was always an active parent, present at the birth of every child and home for all the major holidays I remember. We had a family band and performed locally and regionally at weddings, nursing homes, school dances and bars. Mama was an undiscovered artist writing Christmas pageants, painting murals on the walls and allowing her children equal creativity even to the point of my brother’s painting their bedroom walls black and covering their ceiling with swirling red and white stripes dotted with stenciled blue stars. She didn’t flinch when they replaced their light fixture with a black light and covered the black walls with psychedelic posters; after all it was the 70s.
But don’t get the idea that we were free spirited "hippy" children. We were a grounded Catholic family that said the family rosary, went to mass on Sunday and weekdays and sang in church more than anywhere else, often making up the whole choir. Mama read us bedtime stories from the Lives of the Saints; I believe she was hoping we would follow in their footsteps.
I remember once when we were performing Christmas music at the State Children’s Home in Wyoming and a little boy came up to my brother and said, “Your family is weird.” My brother never missed a beat as he smiled and replied, “I think the word you are looking for in unique.” From that day on I have always believed I was the product of a unique family and I always smiled at that thought.
When I married Steve, who most people describe as a playful, guy that forgot to grow up, and we began our family how could we expect them to grow up to be anything but unique.
Our girls started their lives in Wyoming surrounded by enough cousins, aunts and uncles to fill our home to over-flowing. So when we moved to Indiana where we had no family my youngest asked with all sincerity, “But who will come to our birthday.” We soon learned that you don’t really have to share blood to be family and there were wonderful friends that opened their hearts, homes and families to us so we could share the holidays. With this change we realized that some of the family traditions that worked in Casper with a very large family didn’t work well with our smaller crew so the girls began to create new traditions. Thus began the commemorating of Dios de los Muertos at the Art Museum for Halloween (whenever possible), dressing up as Indians and Pilgrims on Thanksgiving, and the afternoon Thanksgiving “craft with a twist competition” after the meal instead of football (remember all my children are girls) of course Steve and the husbands still have the option of football if they feel the need, the annual cutting of the Christmas tree as a family and the Christmas family crossword puzzle (where every question is about someone or some event in the family’s history).
We are a close family but each has their separate interests and calling. Tana is my oldest and she and Nic have a son Cohen. Nic is a photographer and Tana a lawyer. Angie and Nick (yes, they are both named Nick, just to make it confusing for me when I’m old) own and run and bagel/sandwich shop and grille. They have three children, Calvin, Henry and Marley and live just outside our town on a three acre mini-farm. Stephanie our youngest is single and works as a therapist for a community mental health center. She likes to claim the title of “Favorite Aunt and Spoiler of the Grandchildren.”
Steve and I have good-a-nuf health. Good enough health to allow us to continue working, Steve with computers and me in mental health. We are members of the community music club and I still sing at the church but we spend most of our free time enjoying our children and our grandchildren. I teach them things they need to know and Steve teaches them how to get in trouble.
So I am the product of a unique family and I raised my children in a unique family and now I sit back and watch with pride as they raise their children in their own unique families. Life is good!

 

Electricity

When was the last time you thought about how great electricity is? I know that seems like a silly question but I have a whole new appreciation for it.
I visited my mother this past weekend in Michigan and the trip made me think about electricity a lot. You see the afternoon we arrived, so did a major thunderstorm and when it left it took with it all our electricity. Now when you are from Southern Indiana you come to expect these blackouts from time to time because they often accompany thunderstorms and thunderstorms are a common occurrence, but I wasn’t at home so I didn’t have my supply of LED flashlights, my candles, lanterns or my windup lights. The first thing we realized was that Mama doesn’t keep candles in her house and she has one flashlight. Luckily there were three of us with cell phones and in a pinch they work as tiny flashlights. Of course they also need recharged from time to time but we figured we would worry about that when the time came.
The next thing we realized was that Mama is on well water and the well pump doesn’t work unless, you guessed it, there is electricity. So now we are without lights, air conditioning, fans and water. We tried to convince the grandchildren that it was an adventure and that we would have fond memories of this weekend in the future but when the tornado sirens started to blast in the dark and they realized that there was no basement to run to they weren’t convinced. We discussed our safety training and decided the safest place was in the hallway away from all the windows. When my niece became upset and started to cry we decided that the logical thing was to sing songs about being brave and started with “I Whistle a Happy Tune.” So how many songs can you think of about rainbows, being brave and waiting for the sunshine? I think only a family that grew up singing together would find this the logical way to pass time during a storm but it seemed to help, well okay, not really that much for the frightened children. One thing that helped with the darkness was the huge flashes of lightning but somehow the kids didn’t find that comforting when each flash was followed by an eardrum shattering crash of thunder. So the first night in Michigan was spent hot, dark and noisy.
Finally morning arrived only to find out that there was still no electricity or water and the electric company said it might not be fixed until the next night. We spent part of the day picking up the limbs that had fallen in the yard and trimming up some still hanging in the trees. Then I busied myself working in the flower beds, which I love to do when I visit Mama. I’ve told you before that I love to garden and that morning I learned that my 17month old grandson also loves to garden because before I noticed he was elbow deep, digging in a flower pot of water and potting soil and he was covered from head to toes in black mud. Now I’m not a fussy grandmother and my daughter also has no problem with children getting dirty but as I mentioned earlier, we had no water. So we settled on the next best thing. We walked Henry over and allowed him to bathe in the mud puddle in the front yard. I’m not sure what the neighbors thought but I think Henry may want to take all his baths outside from now on.
We all laughed, sang and reminisced that weekend and it was nice not to have the distraction of television, computer and video games (but flushing toilets that didn’t involve pouring a gallon of water into the tank would have been nice). Mama said she wanted to be sure and write down all the memories we were creating and she hurried to the computer, then she laughed and took out her pencil and paper.

Trees in Southern Indiana

Trees in Southern Indiana are often considered big weeds. In the late spring and early summer you find them everywhere. There are small maple trees growing in people’s rain gutters, in the flower gardens and in the lawn. The same is true of the sassafras, mulberries and the catalpa trees. If you get to them right away they are easy to pull up and discard but if you leave them for a month you will find yourself having to dig them out.
So having explained that, I want you to tell me why is it that if you plant a tree on purpose in your yard you will have about a 50-50chance that it will grow. When I moved to my present home it had no trees in the yard. So I decided the easiest way to remedy that was to join the Arbor Day Society and get 10 free trees. You don’t get to pick which trees you get but I reasoned that any tree is better than no tree and they said they would make them native to my area. I received 10little sticks each color-coded with paint at the bottom of the tree and a list that was color-coded and named the trees as well as a planting guide. I dutifully planted the 10trees into my flowerbeds as they instructed, they said because of their size they would need the protection and the good soil for the first two years. I watered them and tended to them for the first summer and when the following spring rolled around I had six of the ten trees still growing. I thought that was pretty good considering they started life as painted sticks. So for a second summer I nurtured them and the following spring they were all healthy and ready to transplant.
Now, how many of you have transplanted a tree? It is a challenge to say the least and when the tree is twice your height it seems an impossible task. I read about how to transplant them and they suggested that you dig around them on every side until you can form a root ball. Then rock the tree until you can push burlap under the root ball and them move it ever so carefully to the new location and plant it. My first mistake was planting two of them too near the fence in the side-garden. With the trees near the fence there was no way to get to the fourth side so I decided to start with the tree in the circle garden by the back porch. I told my husband what the internet said about the root ball and the burlap but he said, “I have a better idea let’s just dig it up and move it. Trees grow like weeds here anyway.” So we did. We dug it up, which is no easy task when the tree is about 12 feet tall and then hoisted it into the wheel barrel and moved it to the back of the yard. There he dug a large hole and we sat the tree in it and filled the hole with good soil.
Well I think you can guess what happened to my little, well not that little, tree. It dropped its leaves and slowly died. I left it until this spring just to make sure it wouldn’t come back from the roots but it appears that won’t happen.
So now it is year three and I have a redbud in my back circle garden, a redbud by the fence in my side-garden, a crepe myrtle along the fence line in my side-garden and another one across the yard along the property line. Then finally I have a golden chain tree growing in the circle garden near the back porch. None of them have bloomed yet so I’m not even sure what color the crepe myrtles will be (I hope they aren’t white because I already had two white crepe myrtle trees I bought from the nursery). Anyway I am trying to decide if I should try to move any more trees or if I should just accept them where they are. They all bloom so I could just pretend they are big flowers. And the birds do like having their shelter.
I guess there is a lesson to be learned here: If you join the Arbor Day Society and they send you 10trees (painted sticks) and tell you to plant them in the flower garden for two years and then transplant them. Don’t believe them. I suggest you choose where you want the tree, plant it and then construct some type of protective enclosure to keep it safe.
Oh, by the way, my golden chain tree bloomed this year and is now about 16feet tall but there are still no blooms on the Crepe Myrtles.