Category Archives: Love and Marriage

September 20, 2012 · 4:03 am

Shaping Our Children’s Lives & Futures

The theory that children are shaped, for life, in the first 5 years of their small lives has been proven to be true.

The effect of how they are loved, taught, held, or hurt can be found in the hallways of our schools, every day.

This essay is one of the best I have seen on the power for good or evil that all adults but especially parents hold when it comes to their children.All adults have the power to kill a small child’s life before it ever begins.  Killing doesn’t mean murdering the body; it means murdering the soul, the spirit and the mind of the child before the child ever has a chance to live and love in our world.

This post clearly states the case for all of us to make the effort to make our children’s lives safe and happy places for them to live, learn and love.  Please read it.  Please share it.  Please try to think about it before you choose (and it is a choice, folks) to snap at your child, to slap your child with words or your hand, to do damage to your child that lives inside of them, forever.

My Dad used to tell me this when I started dating.  ”Don’t listen to what they (boys) say; watch what they do.”  This same perspective is what your kids, our kids do every day.  They do NOT do what we say…they do what we do.

Please try to consider the fragility of these wonderful, bright shiny children who arrive so eager, so willing to learn and think about what you teach them.

Think What You Want.

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August 15, 2012 · 7:48 am

No Death; No Fear – Thich Nhat Hanh Was Right

I read Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
5 years ago.

I got some of it.  No, I got a lot of it.  But I just couldn’t get how I could face death and not be afraid.  Not my death but the deaths of my parents, the deaths of my brothers, Mike and Bob.

I mourned like everyone does.  Crying, missing them, wishing they hadn’t died, regretting the loss of time — time I should have spent with them when they were alive.  I beat myself up for lost opportunities to tell them how much they meant to me, how much I would miss them.  I’ve lived the last 35 years with regret.

I believed what Joseph Campbell wrote in one of his most widely known works, The Power of Myth.  ”All life is loss, loss, loss.”

The loss of my parents and brothers was devastating at an almost cellular level.  But here, this morning, in the cool aftermath of violent thunderstorms, I felt something else, some small pull to another view of loss.

In that instant, everything changed. I learned how time works.

It always seemed to move too fast for me.  This morning I discovered that time is neither fast nor slow.  It’s almost opaque.  The word “linear” no longer applies.  It is as though we are wandering through it.  Past, present and future are all there, in the same moment, even when we don’t recognize them.

When I try to analyze this  new relationship with time (having it, losing it, wasting it), I get anxious.  If I just let go, everything I ever thought I knew about time dissolves.

Each moment feels rich, full, amazing.  Listening to crickets chirp now as they always have and always will.  Watching geese gathering now as they always have and always will.  Seeing the meteors of Perseid, Leonid and all the others falling in the late night sky as they always have and always will.  Loving my family — no matter where they are – as I always have and always will.

It is as though this Universe in which we live and die is gently sharing this tiny but profound thought; the ones who have gone ahead are still here, living within the engine of the universe that keeps rolling before, during and after they left this place we call Earth.

It’s funny because for almost half of my life,  I could not hear the Universe at all, could not understand why people so dear to me had to die. The same Universe that just 2 months ago had to hit me in the forehead with a 2” x 4” now whispers to me and I can hear her.  She offers me comfort.  She lifts a corner of the veil of the infinite – the place we came from, the place we will go and lets me peek underneath.  And I soar into it.

Listening to the roar and the sigh of this place, seeing light and dark in their purest forms, leaving this body, being everywhere and nowhere, all at once, knowing, feeling, being  joy.  My very essence, my soul or spirit, if you will,  joins the stream of all others who were and will be.  My body is no longer along for the ride. Aches, pains, cares, shed like my skin as I rise into the infinite.

I went where Jill Bolte Taylor traveled when she had her stroke – part of everything and everything is part of me.  This is what I saw on my brother Bob’s face at the moment of his death.  Ten years old, grinning, blond hair being ruffled in the wind as he turned to wave good-bye to me then walked over the hill behind our barn in Pine Grove.

I knew when I came back to my body, this chair, this room, this morning…I knew that this is the secret of the universe.

I still know.  This is death; this is life ever after.

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June 17, 2012 · 5:01 pm

Buying or Selling A House? Listen Up

We were selling our house and buying someone else’s. And I was doing hand-to-hand combat with the universe…

We’ve tried selling our house before.  It’s been on the market (the really lousy, bottomed out housing market) 3 out of the last 4 years.  No one even came to see the house the first time.  The second time, two couples and one buyer who offered less money than we thought it was worth showed up.  Not a lot of activity which we put down to the slump in housing sales.

We were wrong.  Turns out that the first two times we put the house on the market, I wasn’t listening very well.  The universe kept whispering a single word, “…stay.”

This year, there were a lot of showings – a lot of cleaning, scrubbing, trimming, leaving to allow prospects to wander through our private paradise and figure out just how much less they could get it for.  This time, buyers, galore.

In the span of just 8 weeks I packed and unpacked our 4 bedroom, 2 office, 2 ½ bath home 3 times.  The only room not packed up was the kitchen.  I lost 12 pounds doing it – running up and down 2 flights of stairs with the accumulated detritus of our lives — clothing, books, photographs, artwork, memories and our lives in boxes of varying sizes.

We sold the house three times in 2 months, found a place to buy, three times in two months.  Packed up our lives, said good bye to the earth, the sky, the trees, the place that we love, three times.

Each time, just days before closing, something happened to the sale.  A buyer’s buyer lost her mortgage.  A buyer fell short of the funding needed to buy the house and wanted us to subsidize their move with a $15,000 seller’s assist.  This most recent sale collapsed 7 days before we were to move when the buyer’s home inspection team found significant issues and required remediation.

Septic, structure, radon…they said.  Shell out $30,000 or the deal is off…they said.

The universe wasn’t whispering anymore.  It was shouting. “Stay!”

This time, I was listening.  It is done.   We will not be moving.  This is where I will die.  The joy, the peace that come with that knowledge fills me up until small, slow tears slide down my cheeks.

I am home.

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June 2, 2012 · 9:46 am

Buying A House or Arm Wrestling

We are trying to buy a house.

We are willing to pay almost the full asking price — knowing the house:

  1. Needs a new roof.
  2. Is 1/2 the size of our current home but costs about the same.
  3. Is in the middle of nowhere.  (It’s so far out there there isn’t even a library in town.)

But so far, all we’ve gotten is an invitation to an ongoing wrestling match and a headache.

When did buying a house turn into as WWW WrestleMania event?

Okay, so the sellers have been left at the altar (settlement table) twice by buyers who couldn’t pony up the cash.  They are feeling a bit burned.  But we’re feeling really, really pissed off, snapping at each other like a couple of terriers because we can’t snap at the seller’s agent or the sellers, themselves.

Over the last couple of weeks, my husband and I have jumped through enough hoops for these people to qualify for a new act at Ringling Brothers circus!

The sellers’ agent has slowed the process down to the pace of a glacier (before global warming) and keeps adding or changing things to queer this deal including delaying paperwork, providing contract copies and financials that are illegible and tossing in new clauses faster than a short order cook flips burgers.

The deal breaker for us came after the owners of house accepted our bid, verbally.  About 90 minutes later, our agent called to tell us that the stipulation to acceptance was that, even if the purchase of our home fell through, we have to buy their house.  If we didn’t agree to that stipulation, they would continue to accept offers on their house right up to the day settlement.

I’ve never heard of such a stipulation and wonder why anyone – seller or the other realtor — would think we would put ourselves in such a position of risk.  I’m not sure of the ethics of the other realtor but I am real sure of the potential harm of this clause.  For us, it was  a lose-lose.

Our answer?  ”No. Thank you.”

The next communication was that they would accept our proposal but we could not move anything into the garage early, as previously agreed to. We would have to wait until after settlement.

We are moving out of a house  we’ve lived in for 19 years.  This house has 4 bedrooms, two offices and a three car garage and we are expected to be out by mid-day on June 22nd, settle on the new house same afternoon and unload the truck that evening.

We couldn’t do that when we were in our 30′s.  Now, in our 60′s, that’s an order, too tall.

Our answer? “No. Thank you.”

The sellers’ agent said, “Okay, we can get early access to the garage, only.”  However, if the deal fell through for any reason, we would have to have all of our property out of the garage by midnight, June 22nd.  Really?  Another order, too tall.

So, here we are, 20 days away from having to vacate our current property and homeless.  And bloody tired of being jerked around by the sellers, their agent or both.

We really do need to find a house, now.

That said, this will be our last home…the one we leave, “…feet first” as my brother once said.  So, we will not be rushed.  We will store everything if we have to, including the classic cars and my motorheads’ garage full of stuff.  We will continue to look for that place where we will spend the last of our golden years, together.

Oh, and we will curse the name of the sellers, their realtor and their heirs and assignees to that special place in purgatory where they can see the house they want but they cannot buy it….no matter what deal they offer the devil.

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May 12, 2012 · 4:11 pm

What’s So Special About A Horse?

I went for a ride on my horse, today.   It was my first ride since shoulder surgery on February 7th.

In the scheme of all the things that have happened in my life in the last few years, few months and few weeks, taking a spin on your horse doesn’t seem to be all that important especially when you consider that:

  1. I’ve been unemployed since January of 2010.
  2. My husband is waging an ongoing battle with infections arising from his cancer surgery that have landed him in the hospital 37 times in 10 years.
  3. I lost my younger brother and my best friend to a brain tumor in May of 2010 and still, I miss him.
  4. In February of this year, my husband had malignant melanoma misdiagnosed by a dermatologist (who will remain nameless) as “…an age spot.”  Three surgeries down and three to go – that’s the status of this battle.
  5. Last week, he has learned he is being laid off, too.

The weight of all of these blows has seemed almost insurmountable.  I try hard not to feel stressed, anxious and sometimes angry but I failed my Mahatma Ghandi test a long time ago.  So life, our lives, have been hard to handle.

But today, I took a ride on my horse, Buzz.  Grooming him, talking to him as I tacked him up, slipping into the saddle and taking the first walk around the riding ring filled me with so much joy and love that I sit here, 6 hours later and I’m still filled with both.

Buzz and I don’t do anything special in the ring, no cantering, no jumps.  But we do so enjoy the early morning sun, the soft breeze across the fields of the farms that surround our barn and those moments when the rest of the world narrows to just the two of us and the feeling of knowing each other, understanding each other, enjoying each other.

Buzz is 20 years old.  He was an $850 rescue who I brought home 7 years ago, sad, lonely, neglected.  Some people might look at him and say, “What’s so special?”   But people who know horses, my farrier, the equine dentist, the nutritionist I work with at Stoltzfus, other riders in the barn know.  To a person they have said, “What a kind eye he has.”

And a kind and gentle heart that reminds me of just how wonderful this world is no matter what else is happening, no matter what is breaking, moving, changing, leaving.  As long is Buzz is along for the ride, I know I will be able to face anything.

Thank you, Buzz.

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April 11, 2012 · 6:20 pm

Life As We Know It Is Over

What makes me strong?  What keeps me from breaking under the load we all call life?

I have been asking that question for a dozen years.  My husband has been hospitalized more than 30 times since 2001.  He had bladder cancer.  He just kept growing tumors and finally they had to take his bladder out and put in a conduit to the ostomy that we now call Fred.

Then he had infections – and more infections and yet again, infections.  Over the last 10 years we have spent our vacations in the most expensive resort in the country – the hospital.  A jail cell really but it’s mostly white with nice subdued drapes and wardens dressed as nurses in navy  blue.

Recently, my husband did hand to hand combat with  melanoma which made a difference in how we spend our time, our money, our personal currency.

Now, he is being laid off.  He will be 60 when the axe finally falls.  He will be too old to employ – too young for social security or medicare.  And he will still be sick, still be in the hospital 2 or 3 times a year and still be the man I love with all my heart.

I am a master’s prepared, professional who is applying for jobs as a receptionist, an administrative assistant., a dog walker, anything to get a job that will help bridge the gap between his layoff and his 65th birthday.

But I can’t get a job.  We can’t sell our house.  And we cannot stop the layoff that is rolling toward us at the speed of light.

How did this happen?  When did we become part of the fringe that cannot sustain itself in this country  - the land of the brave, the land of the free?

Welcome to America – 2012.  Welcome to our country where people work and do a good job and pay their taxes and still get screwed.  This is the land where the rich once again get richer and the rest of us pay for their privilege.

We”ll keep fighting.  We will stay together.  We will find a way, smaller, narrower but still together.  But is this what is supposed to happen to people who have lived a good life?  Worked hard?  Helped out our families?

Who knows? All I know is that this is our lot.  And this we will face together — until death do us part.

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December 7, 2011 · 9:41 am

Five Favorite Holiday Movies That Make Great Gifts

If you’re stumped for a gift for your grandparents, grand aunt or just some grand “older” friends, holiday movies might be the answer.  They are inexpensive, will bring back memories (or maybe create some new ones) and are perfect for people who already have just about everything.

There are about a dozen movies I like that fall into the holiday category but the 5 listed below are at the top of my all-time favorites list.

A Christmas Carol
George C. Scott is my favorite Scrooge. I love his portrayal and I think Charles Dickens would have, too.  A solid script, good acting by all of the other players and a superb performance from Scott make this a favorite.  The costumes and the cinematography are also exceptional.  And some of the visual effects combined with the sound effects make for a few scary scenes.  All in all, a good story, well done.

Holiday Inn
The dancing of Fred Astaire, the singing of Bing Crosby and the romantic rivalry between the two make this a fun film to watch over and over again.  One of the things I love best about Holiday Inn is the music which is tied to a lot of the major holidays of the year.  In fact, Irving Berlin created or reused a number of songs with holiday themes including Washington’s Birthday, Easter Parade and what would become one of the bestselling recordings of all time, White Christmas.  I love this film and watch it at least 4 times a year!

The Bishop’s Wife
When an angel (Cary Grant) comes down from heaven to help a Bishop (David Niven), some not so heavenly sparks fly in this romantic, holiday comedy as the angel falls for the…Bishop’s wife (Loretta Young).  Toss in Monty Woolley and the Mitchell Boys Choir and you get a heavenly film for the holidays.   This is the original version and only available as an MGM set (with 2 other holiday movies) or as a download at Amazon.  But you can buy it from Turner Classic Movies for $12.99.

Holiday Affair
This  romantic comedy has a well-known cast of actors including Robert Mitchum,  Wendell Corey and, in the female lead, none other than Jamie Lee Curtis’s mother, Janet Leigh (also of Psycho fame).  Leigh plays a war widow who can’t afford to buy her son a toy train for Christmas. Mitchum buys the train and that’s when things get complicated.  Watch for Harry Morgan of MASH fame who is hilarious as a night-court judge who tries to get a handle on who is really in love with whom and who stole the salt and pepper shakers.   The movie is out of stock at Barnes & Noble but you can download this one at Amazon or or buy it in a set of with 3 other holiday movies for under $10.00.

Christmas In Connecticut
Barbara Stanwyck did some fine comedies in her career and this movie was one of the best. Stanwyck writes a food column for a very upscale magazine (think Gourmet) but she can’t cook.  It wouldn’t have mattered except her publisher decides to send her a war hero for her and her husband (which she doesn’t have) to entertain over the holidays. Stanwyck has to line up a husband, a baby and a chef who “helps out” in the kitchen to cover all the fibs she told to get the job. The result is hilarious.

I own every one of these movies and sometimes I watch them in July!  But since it is the holiday season, it looks like it’s time to pop some popcorn, light a fire in the fireplace and settle in to a night of watching these holiday favorites with my favorite guy.

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December 6, 2011 · 6:54 am

Five Favorite, Frugal Gardening Gifts

If you have a gardener in your life (or you are the gardener in your life), there are 5 great gifts that you can give them this holiday season and not break the bank doing it.  The least expensive one is under $10.00 and the most expensive one is just over $50.00.  All of these gifts will bring years of gardening pleasure, too.

Fiskars 7079 Big Grip Garden Knife
Under $10 and without a doubt the handiest tool I have in my shed.  The grip is comfortable – that means the knife takes a beating, not your hands.  I use it for digging, planting, weeding, and transplanting. The serrated edge cuts through the ground like butter.  The middle of the blade has a slight indention for transplanting.  And the knife has a notched tip that helps cut through tap roots of dandelions and burdock.  The metal blade is also coated with a rust-resistant material, and the handle features a large hang hole for easy storage.  I bought one of these for all of my brothers and sisters.

Fiskars 3 Piece Soft Touch Garden Tool Set
Fiskars wins again with this tool set.   Easy on the hands and the wallet (under $15.00), the three tools that come in this set make handwork in the garden so much better.   The tools are lightweight and balanced.  Made of rust-resistant polished aluminum, each one has an over-sized, soft grip that is ergonomically designed to keep wrists in a neutral position.  The set includes a trowel, transplanter, and cultivator and comes with a lifetime warranty.

Flexrake 1000A Hula Hoe
if you have to weed, this is the tool you want in your arsenal.  An old standby that has been upgraded, this stirrup hoe has an aluminum handle making it easier on your hands and the blade of the hoe makes it easier on your back.  The self-sharpening Hula-Ho blade works beneath the surface of the soil.  Back and forth “hula” motion cuts weeds at the roots and leaves them to mulch in the garden.  This one is a bargain at just over $23.00.

Mintcraft Folding Garden Stool
For all you gardeners of “a certain age” there is no question that this stool qualifies as a tool!    Bending over is fine if you are under forty.  It’s pretty uncomfortable if you’re older or have a hinky back.  So I love this gardening tool.  And I love being able to pack all my other tools into the canvas pockets and take them with me, wherever I go in the garden.  Buy the gardening stool for just $27.99.  Or take advantage of the great deal Amazon put together.  Buy this stool with the Fiskars Soft Touch Garden Tool Set and get them both for only $37.00.

Felco Classic Manual Pruners
I got a pair of these for my anniversary and I was so excited.  I had been hacking my fruit trees, blackberry and blueberry bushes and ornamentals with loppers.  No finesse there and a lot of hacked up bushes.  The Felco pruners make it so easy to reach into a shrub, bush or fruit tree and only remove dead wood or crossed branches.  I don’t have a lot of upper arm strength so I love the fact that this pruner literally cuts through smaller branches like a warm knife through butter.  This is the most expensive garden gift – $59.00 – but well worth the cost.

Anyone of these tools will make gardeners’ eyes light up, bring a smile to their faces and make them want to run right out and start turning soil.

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December 2, 2011 · 8:26 am

The Last, Best Gift

What is the last, best gift you will ever give someone you love?

A new car?  A diamond ring?  A Mediterranean cruise?

Sure, those would be nice.  But that’s not exactly what I had in mind.  In fact, the last, best gift you will ever give someone you love is practically free but it comes with this warning:  this gift may make a lot of you uncomfortable. 

This gift is an end of life plan.

Wait!  Please don’t hit the back button yet.  Take a minute to imagine how much easier those last few weeks, days, moments of your life will be for everyone if you give them this gift.

An end of life plan ensures that no one has to make any of those terrible decisions — intubate, put in a feeding tube, unplug. the ventilator.  No one has the responsibility for deciding how you live  or if you live or if you die.

Your final gift makes all that clear.  If you have a couple of hundred dollars, let a lawyer put the package together for you.  If you don’t, there are a few simple forms that you can download from the Internet, fill out  and make it so much easier for those you leave behind.

So, what’s in an end of life plan?

  1. Advance Directives ensure that patients have more control over their care and families are spared the guilt of trying to guess what their loved one’s last wishes might have been.
  2. A Living Will is one of the most critical pieces of an end of life plan.  This document lets you appoint someone to speak for you when you can’t.  That person is not making life or death decisions for you; they are simply verifying your wishes and honoring your last request.
  3. A Last Will & Testament - every adult should have one of these.  It clearly delineates who gets what when you die.  Without a will, you die “in testate” and the state usually gets more than its fair share of anything you owned including bank accounts, homes, insurance.
  4. An Executor - this person is pivotal to seeing that your wishes are carried out and that your will is executed as written.
  5. A Durable Power of Attorney – less common but a truly powerful document that allows the person you appoint to have legal and financial standing for you and stays in effect after your are disabled or unable to speak for yourself.

All these documents lay the groundwork for ensuring that your end of life wishes are granted.  But there is one more thing that has to take place to make sure this happens.  This may just be the hardest part of creating an end of life plan.

You have to talk to your spouse, your parents and even your children about how you feel about the end of life and what you want.

Sharing your wishes with your family in a face to face conversation is not easy but it is necessary.  Don’t think you will be able to handle the talk?  Need some tips on getting started?  This is just one of the things that a hospice can help with.

Some hospices have classes and provide education for caregivers and patients.  Some even have one-on-one meetings to help people get their affairs in order.  Many of the forms and resources needed to help families discuss and document their preferences regarding end of life care are available on hospice websites like Caring Connections.

Creating an end of life plan is not easy but it may just be the most important plan we undertake.

So, this year, if you really want to give the last, best gift, put down the travel brochures, stop looking at diamond rings and resolve to let a caterer cook your holiday feast.  Make this one, last plan and give your loved ones the last, best gift — peace of mind.

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November 23, 2011 · 7:24 am

THINK Before Buying Holiday Gifts

Okay, I know Black Friday is upon us.  I know some of you are getting up very early or staying up very late to get the best bargain on the latest toy, game, boots, fill in the blank.

But before you dig your credit card hole a bit deeper, before you create a huge pile of “stuff” that will be opened with glee and tossed aside without a second thought, I am asking you to think.

That’s right, think.  Drop the pen.  Put down the list.  Stop perusing flyers and catalogues or crawling web sites and take 5 minutes and ask yourself just one question?

What gift did you get 20, 30 or 40 years ago that makes you smile, right now?

Was it the most expensive?  The biggest?  The latest?  I will bet you it wasn’t.

Over the years, I have been given many big, expensive gifts – jewelry, exotic vacations, works of art.  Nice gifts but not my favorite gift, the one I am smiling about right now.  For me, that gift was a used rocking chair.

A big Christmas gift without a big price tag.

My favorite Christmas gift is this rocker restored by my husband.

My husband found it on the side of the road, put out for trash pick up. Carefully, lovingly, he restored the oak to its full glory.  Removing the shredded fabric and compressed batting from the coiled springs, he rebuilt and recovered the seat with warm, rich velvet.

This oak chair sits, today, in my sewing room.   I see it every day.  I sit in it, often, when I am doing finishing work on clothing or a craft project.

The total cost for this wonderful gift could not have been more than $10 but I remember crying when I saw it by our tree.  Do you remember getting a gift like that?   Not made in China or Taiwan?  No batteries required?  Not mass-produced? Lovingly made by someone you know, just for you? Those are the gifts you remember, you cherish.

If I go back even further for favorite holiday memories to when we were kids, the highlight of our Christmas morning was finding a big juicy orange in the toe of our stocking.  Sounds ridiculous but there it was – five kids racing for the mantle (yes, a real fireplace mantle) pulling down stockings and pulling out the candy cane and walnuts, to get to the bottom, to get to the orange.

Why would an orange be such a big deal?  Oranges weren’t available in December in the North.  No one was trucking them up from Florida or across the country from California.  Back then, an orange was a rarity – a real treat.   Definitely not a big ticket item but a childhood moment I treasure, a wonderful memory of holidays gone by.

Want to have happy holidays filled with warm memories?

Don’t spend too much money on too many things that no one will need or treasure even two weeks after the holiday has come and gone.  Think…and get gifts that really speak to the young, the old and the in-between people you love.  This year, build some holiday memories yourself, memories that will make you smile, 30 years from now.

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