That Was The Year That Was

I’ve been at a loss for blogging topics lately.  Actually, I have so much to write about that I can’t quite narrow down what I want to write about so I end up not writing anything.

One thing I do have is a lot of email.  A lot.  Like almost 2000 on any given day.  When I was going through it the other day, I noticed that I was in the 1900’s and the numbers reminded me of years.  Since then I’ve been toying with the idea of blog posts inspired by the years suggested by the number of emails I have in my inbox.  Boy!  That’s quite a mouthful!

This is the first of such posts.

1997

That seems like such a long time ago.  I guess it was.  Let’s see, in 1997 I was still living in Los Angeles and I was working as a substitute teacher most of the year.  In September, I began working as a full time teacher in a sixth grade classroom.

I remember one Saturday evening in August when my daughter and I went grocery shopping.  I took the youngest one with me and the two older ones stayed home.  It was a big shopping trip and must have taken almost a couple of hours.  I remember driving in the driveway with a smile on my face because I had gotten everything on my list along with some extra goodies because the kids and I were having a movie night so I had picked up some chips, and theater boxes of candy and some sodas, all in individual packages, just like at the movies.

As I drove into the driveway, Tina ran out of the house and by the time I shut the engine off, she was at my door waiting for me to get out.  I could tell something was wrong.  With tears in her eyes, she said, “Princess Diana was in a car crash and she’s in the hospital.  She’s going to die.”  Our eyes locked.  Just two days before she had told me that she had a feeling someone very famous was going to die.  I had asked her if it was the Pope (John Paul II) who had been very ill during that time and she had answered that it was someone young and that it was going to be a shock to the whole world.  She often came up with things like this or would wake from dreams to tell me that some tragedy was going to happen and it would.  In 1997, she was 12.

We went inside and, within minutes, the news was saying that Princess Diana was indeed dead.  I wanted to watch the coverage but I was afraid to because of Tina’s reaction but the kids all wanted to watch, including Tina.  So we watched.  During the whole thing and in the following days, I kept an eye on her and could tell that she had really been spooked by her “prediction” this time around.  I tried to tell her that she shouldn’t be scared; that it was a gift.  But she wasn’t completely convinced.

Then, a few days later, she again said, with great sadness, that someone else was going to die.  This time she said it would be someone old who had been sick.  People would be sad but it wouldn’t be a great surprise to people, she told me.  And she was right.  Mother Teresa died on September 5^th.

Note: Wow.  I didn’t know I would end up writing this.  This was a total surprise.  I just started with the year and this is what happened.  I think this will be an interesting way to come up with posts!

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Email

While speaking to an old friend (old as in from high school) the other night, the subject of email came up.  We noted that a lot of things would be different if we had had email back when we were in high school.  We’re talking early 70’s.  We didn’t have a lot of things that kids have now.  Things were different.  Some things were better; some were worse than now.

How has email, in particular, changed your life?  When is a time you would have used it had you had it available to you?  When is a time you wish you didn’t have it?

Food for thought.

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Amor, Dinero, Salud…

…y mucho tiempo para gozarlo.

Although many of us see it as the end of one year, I’m looking at this time as the beginning of a new year.  There’s so much waiting for us out there amidst the pages of the 2009 calendar.

Right now I am feeling that life is a journey and I’m eager to see what the coming year brings.  I might take that back depending on what reveals itself in the coming days but right now, I prefer to remain positive and invite the good karma to visit me.  May it visit you, too.

So on this final day of 2008, I wish each of you and yours, “amor, dinero, salud, y mucho tiempo para gozarlo” (love, money, health, and the time to enjoy them).

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December Preview

December.

This year I will try to make a blog post each day, or if not each day, at least 31 in the month which might bring you more than one post on days I need to catch up or post ahead. I’ve debated a lot about what kind of posts I’ll write here. I think I will try to make them related to holidays, family, and tradition. As I enjoy writing memoir, you can expect to find most of my posts this month will be memoir.

December means many things to me. It’s the end of the year and as such it lends itself to looking back on the year and maybe trying to tie up loose ends. To me, it’s also a bit of a let down after going through Nanowrimo in November. And as many of my readers know, it’s also my birth month. My birthday is on Christmas day so I sometimes go through that “oh-no-I’m-getting-older” thing that a lot of us go through after we hit 40!

I think December can also mean looking forward to the coming year. Perhaps this year there isn’t a lot to be looking forward to for many of us but perhaps we can all make an effort to have a positive outlook, at least in one area of our lives.

So on to December! I hope you’ll enjoy my blog this month. I will be re-posting some of my favorite Christmas stories, including the one about the night I was born, December 25, 1955.

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Signs of Fall

Yesterday, my daughter was visiting and she wanted to take some pictures.  She is very much into photography and is trying to convince some of her friends to move to Portland so we walked around between visiting stores on Hawthorn Blvd. and having breakfast.

Here are some of the signs that fall is definitely here:

We also saw snow last night.  Apparently someone had brought it down from the mountain in a big truck and it was in the middle of the street near Powell’s in downtown Portland.  I guess someone was anxious for winter!  I’m not even ready for fall!

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Weekend Blog Posts

One thing I have noticed over the course of the past couple of years is that no one reads blogs on weekends.  I can have the best blog post on a Saturday or a Sunday but no one will see it because they just aren’t online on the weekend.  By the time they come back to blog reading on Monday, sometimes late Monday, there is already at least one more blog post so the Reader tends to read the most recent one and not the ones that posted over the weekend.

I can understand that kind of pattern but it seems that many times, my best posts are on the weekend, or perhaps not the best ones but the ones I want feedback on.  In the case of November, when I participate in NaBloPoMo, I have committed to posting EVERY day in November, including weekends.  I guess I can just post a picture or a re-post or maybe link to favorite blogs or YouTube videos on the weekend but somehow, I forget and I put up an “important” post then I realize that it’s Saturday and no one’s going to read it! 😦

Oh well, as you can see, I am not putting up anything of substance on this Sunday so you get my gibberish and mile rant.  Now I have to come up with something fantastic every day this week!

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TwitFic

I know most of us have heard of, read, and even tried writing 100 word stories. They’re challenging and they help to hone the writing skills.

I’m wondering about Twitter Fiction. Tweets are limited to 140 characters. I wonder how difficult it would be to write complete stories in the space of a single tweet?! Not sure if challenging is the word.

TwitFic #1

If that gun had not been there when Jason looked for it, everything would be different; he’d still be innocent and she’d still be alive. (136 characters)

TwitFic #2

Marti waited for someone to visit her.She was lonely. No one ever came to see her at the home. She waited, hoping today would be the day. (138 characters)

Okay, now it’s your turn to try!

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A Few Things To Think About…

1. ~If you have arthritis and you are planning a move from a warm weather area, you should probably not move to a cold, wet region.

2. ~When you have food on the stove and you’re on the computer at the same time, you should probably set a timer.

3. ~Online friends are not necessarily the same people you would pick as friends in real life.

4. ~Always stock up on toilet tissue. It will get used. If you don’t have it and you need it, you’ll be very sorry.

5. ~Those old, ratty sweaters that are so comfortable to you look a lot rattier to strangers. Maybe you should reconsider wearing them outside of the house.

6. ~When you’ve taken the time to write yourself a note reminding you to do something important, you should take the time to read it!

~If you are going to write a blog post with a numbered list, figure out ahead of time how to get your draft copied and pasted into the text box WITH the numbering intact.

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Eddie Haskell Lives On My Street

Remember Leave It To Beaver? Remember Eddie Haskell, Wally’s friend? You know, the one that was ready to stab you in the back while kissing up to you? Remember how the look on his face would change whenever a grownup came within hearing shot? Remember him saying something like, “Hello Mrs. Cleaver. You look very lovely today, Mrs. Cleaver.” Then he’d turn around and his regular face would return. Remember? Remember?

Well, I had all but forgotten until I moved here. It was August. Because of the heat, I pretty much stayed indoors most of the day and ran out to do my errands in the early evening. On my way down the street, I would run into a group of teenagers playing basketball in the middle of the street. I would slow way down to give them a chance to get out of the way. They would all scoot off, giving me dirty looks for interrupting my game. All except “Eddie Haskell” who would look right into my car window with that big sugary smile and then he’d wave hi to me. The moment I went by, I could see his look change in my rear view mirror. That’s when Leave It To Beaver came back to me, especially Eddie Haskell. I even told my daughter about it. At first, she didn’t believe me. She thought I was exaggerating but then one day she was in the car with me when it happened and she cracked up saying I was right. It was definitely an Eddie Haskell look!

Now that summer is over and they’re not out there playing every night, I kind of miss Eddie Haskell. Once in a while, I’ll see him on my way down the street and I’ll get that Eddie look from him. Every time. It cracks me up.

I can hardly wait til they start playing basketball out in the street again!

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Smile

While consulting the internet for a list of topics to write about and post on my blog I came across a question that struck my fancy. It read: “What is one thing you really like about yourself?” I’m not one for tooting my own horn so I would normally turn away from this type of question but instead, it called out to me.

My smile.

That’s probably the one thing I like most about myself. To me, a smile is the pathway to a person’s soul. If you can get someone to smile, you can tell if it is a genuine one or not. And that smile can lead you to a person’s soul because there is a lot that people can hide but a smile is one thing that is difficult to squelch.

I remember many years ago, when I was in high school, the United States suffered its first major oil crisis. We had gas rationing and could only get gas on certain days of the week (determined by whether our license plate was ended in an odd or even number). As one of the “fixes” for the oil crisis, Congress decided that we would stay in Daylight Savings Time past our normal time. This meant that it was much darker in the morning. My high school had begun having a 7^th period that year, which was actually a Pre-1^st period PE class. It was designed for kids that needed to make up units for classes they had failed. That wasn’t me. I was way ahead; however, I was missing a couple of classes for my college prep so taking the Early PE class was what I needed to do. My mother wouldn’t let me take it because she was sure it was going to be too dark in the morning and I’d be mugged by someone waiting in the dark halls at school. I went to talk to one of the Assistant Principals thinking he could talk to my mom. He was the one administrator at my high school that was a native Spanish speaker and he had spoken to my mom on previous occasions. His name was Mr. Cordova. He smiled at me and told me that I should just promise my mom that I’d smile a lot to brighten up the halls!

Everyone used to comment on my smile and I liked that a lot. As an adult, the compliment was that my kids had my smile! That always made me happy.

I know that when I look for a picture of myself to put up as an icon on various sites, I always look for one with a smile because that’s how I like me best…smiling!

So here’s a smile at y’all!

SMILE!

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