Oh My Goodness...It is Now July 2015....

Are you kidding me?? I just found my Time Shares blogs in my old email folders...now, 5 plus years later, I cant't begin to fathom how much life I have lived since then...wow! The grandson I took in to raise went through high school, football and I willingly became his teacher, guide, support and loved him greatly with my son...he graduated, learned to live in a home, be accountable, get a job and, I thought, outgrow the horrendous and chaotic dysfunctional life and experiences of his mothers home...He fell victim to dishonest smartass friends who led him to disrespect and lie to me and his dad...it went on for a tortured year or more...and I did all I could do to help him turn around...he lied and stole from me..and ultimately left without a word..never speaking to me or his dad or the family who loved him...I grieved badly...but in the end I knew that I gave my best and my love...whether he appreciated it or not....I also left my hospital career and helped open and develop an ambulatory surgical center as the administrator...it has been 4 years...I am better off working and purposeful...esteeming my own talents...and getting on with the ending of the grandson years...down the road someday I shall retire and peacefully go fishing and live in the sunshine, nature and a peaceful simple lifestyle...where? Dont know yet...by the way, grandson left me with 2 dogs...a story for another day 😆

The Times of My Life

Oh, I must write in blue...it is alive...youthful...vibrant...the colors of my grandson's high school football jersey...and the colors of mine...
I am a Time Traveler...I am having the Times of My Life!

I am a grandma living in a mother's world..I lived there as a young woman with my 2 precious children...I did it all as best I could..with as much as I knew and as much as I had experienced as a child...I lived in that time somewhat imperfectly...I think.

Today I have been given a GIFT of Time..I am raising my grandson.. I have always been there for him..but then he came to live with me permanently, as a Junior in High School, at last freed from a chaotic and stark childhood world with his other parent...she delivered him finally to me and his father..and with circumstances affecting my son, I said, Yes, it is Time, HIS Time ...and I will do my best for him..he deserves it!

He moved in, grateful to even have a bed and new shoes..and enrolled in our local HS..he only only ever wanted to play football..and miraculously, the boy with no experience, only a wish..came home with a #63 Football Jersey...Oh how wonderful for him...how proud for him I was...and how little I knew where the Journey of "YES" would take, me..and him...back in Time, forward in Time? God knows...I told him he was now in Grandma's Bootcamp..and we'd figure it out together...and we have ...

Last night was the final Senior Football Game for him...I have been to them all...garbed in his jerseys. cheering my heart out for his team..with all the Moms and Dads, and my son (Senior Parents..and grandma)...
I cannot begin to describe what JOY I have found..I have learned to toilet paper cheerleader homes, accept toilet paper all over mine...survive daily "sports talks" and raced for the papers to read about all the local team scores...

I have plunged backwards in Time to my own High School Days (Class of 63..get it? his Jersey #) and forwards in Time, standing with my son on senior parents night as my grandson in full football uniform presented me with roses..holding my hand as a beautiful young man, just the way he did as a trusting and precious little boy..

I'm not done yet..and hardly dare to dream past today as far as what my and his life will hold...we'll take our Time..and do it together, with God, and oh so much gratitude.......

Time Was...

There was a time in my life when I believed in the words of others...I owned them..they were written in my heart, unquestioned. Of course, the golden and precious words, I Love You...sacred words, never to be confused with I Like You..never to be misrepresented as true, when not ....Mothers say I love you...and all that they do after that is said must be part of the loving...lovers say those words..and sometimes it gets confusing because it doesn't feel like love...I was told to never say I love you unless I meant it..and don't waste it on foods, books, clothes..mundane things...Love, and saying it was, well, special.

Friends say loving things too..time was when I believed in the specialness of friends...real friends...like a trust or love thing...special. And children..family...those were all in that special words, Hallmarky category..sacred....and Time Was...a LONG Time it Was..that it was all I knew, all I believed in (besides God and all that)

Well, one day, or week or year, I began to see some flaws..little ones, then huge ones...words..yes WORDS...didn't count...for anything! Nothing!! I love you could be said, but the actions of the sayer..felt to me like I Hate you or I love Me...the words of my life and the speakers in it..didn't match...with their actions..lots and lots of the words were wrong...I started to think..don't say those words to me...just show me...see how the folks are acting with NO words...Time Was..well, Time Was teaching me something..showing me something..Time Was helping me grow up and become real, with real meanings and real people...not just words, not just labels...there was a time, when I was a child, when I was blind...but now I see.

THIS TIME

I have often said that my life seems to traverse a path of circles or loop-backs. I began to notice this strange pattern of repeating or retracing several years ago, as early as childhood. I was moved around to several schools and homes with my family due to my father's job. In those days, family would just pack up and move when the father was "transferred". I saw myself as a sort of gypsy..no beginnings, no endings, a sort of "life traveler" belonging to no particular place or time.

A very favorite childhood book, "Half Magic" intrigued me and was a part of my few items I treasured before it, too was lost in one of the "moves". I saw myself as a creative energy, able to fit into all settings and make something out of anything...musings of a lost child? I am not so sure, the stories of my life many years later unmistakeably describe some spiritual force or Karma at work in and around me. I long ago lost shock and surprise at synchronous or serendipitous events which characterized my life. I began to feel as though the was a spirit force, a oneness with something...angels? heaven? Native American roots...I sure couldn't put my own name on it...but I surely had something going on...something that I began to learn was leading me on the paths I should follow, and something reassuring me that I was not alone, that I was being given angel smiles all the time....The repeating of scenarios makes me feel like second hand rose at times...perhaps that is God's humor or perhaps He feels I am more useful if I am placed in familiar settings to accomplish things...I was in 9 different grammar schools before I finished 8th grade...graduating from 8th grade in the same school I had started in Kindergarten.

Many years and much life forward..I am living in the home where my children were raised by my in laws while I worked...I often say I have become my ex mother-in law, or my own grandmother or something...I am raising my son's son in the same house..he and I attend games and care for him as I did with his father when he was a child..only now I'm a grandmother...it doesn't help the fact that I am in the same kitchen with my infant son, then with his infant son, doing the same things again...only this time..yes, THIS TIME, I am better..older, but better..kinder, more generous, more patient..and I am using these times...this time to do better what I had done before...a common theme in my heart about second chances and opportunities missed...as a "survivor" of more than one terminal or life threatening event, I am so grateful for THIS TIME, loop backs, repeaters or whatever you call it...I show up to life, and my Spirit guide, and say...OK Lord, I am following your lead This Time.......

Time to Come Home to Myself

I've been gone a long long time..it was August, when I last posted here, or even looked at it. I've been in a sort of functional fugue state..a post traumatic stress period...life became so invaded, so intruded, so totally empty of any protection or security, lost in the unfamiliar, chaotic, repulsive and threatened world of a terrible contractor experience..I lived in 2 rooms of my home..all that I have was displaced, my bathrooms gone, my clothing and daily items moved, bagged, boxed or lost...strange day laborers in my bedroom and my one bathroom there each day while I was forced to be at work, dust, filth permeated every inch of my house, items were taken, work was shoddy and sporadic, and I was threatened by a bullying owner for more and more money throughout, even though I had naively signed the insurance checks over to him before the "job" started...struggling all hot summer to live and maintain myself in the unfamiliar, unsafe world my home had become..and taking a grandson into live with me at the same time...it was the the most difficult situation I have faced in a long time...I was Scarlet OHara, my oh my how I had always identified with her spirit and survival instincts...I became Scarlet..wearing my drapes as a proverbial gown, with dignity and silent fears, terror of financial collapse, my home a disaster zone...I was on the ground as she was...it was all I had left...and I am JUST waking up..they aren't done, but I needed to stand up to the cursing threatening contractor on more than one occasion...they thought they had a foolish trusting patsy in me...but no, I have begun to reclaim my strength to stand up for the shabby work and unacceptable treatment, record and produce the facts (I'm a very wise documenter of details) and get them done AND OUT OF HERE FOR GOOD...then I will inform my insurance company of the tactics of the "highly recommended" (by the insurance adjuster) contractor....I really could write a book...I can finally breathe and bathe...nothing is perfect, but sometimes and perhaps better, is that the pain will end, and I can come HOME...and be at home in me.....

Long Time No Post

It's been so long since I blogged that I forgot how to access my own account! Or maybe the remodeling horror story has evoked an early Alzheimer's type response from over- exposure to inhalation and consumption of white dust and construction residues. I forgot that for a minute or two while I tried to remember my email name...very bad sign, I'd say!!!

I'm so tired right now that all I can say is I am still here, roomless except for one toilet, shower and sink in the master bedroom which I must regularly share with strange men and day laborers who don't even put the seat down-the toilet, not my bedroom!! More later.......

Time to Remodel the House....

It started with a garage door opener which kept spontaneously opening the garage door in the freezing winter nights....it was like a demonic attack, everytime I shut it, it opened itself....I called Sears...they promised to fix it...I took a few hours off from work to wait for them...they were late...I called....annoyed. Then I heard water running...no water should be running...checked all bathrooms...washer hose...nothing....peeked into garage...the door was OPEN all night..pipes froze and broke...flooding the first floor....where is the damn water shut off?? call 911..."sorry lady, not a police matter"...call a plumber...find the shut off...what a mess! glad I was home..could have been worse, I think...call insurance...get quotes...and then...began the demolition and removal process...and the discovery of just how much damage can hide behind the walls and hidden parts of your home....I am learning to survive in a mess of what used to be a home...right down to the July 12, 1968, 41 year old newspapers stuffed in the walls....when LBJ was president and neighborhood boys were dying in Vietnam and GE refrigerators were on sale for $135...and this was once a brand new home, with brand new pipes, and floors and walls..and gagage doors that were opened manually.....h-m-m-m...progress!