Countrymouse Posted November 2018
On My Mind
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Replacing the much lamented 'On My Mind' profile option, this thread is for musings, jottings, whimsies, preoccupations and the rest of the thesaurus for anyone to jot down anything they please.
I can't remember what the maximum character count was before, can anyone else? But anyway it wasn't very many so let's keep to that.
Anyways, he has his head going in the right direction and I will pray that he finds balance in ALL things.
I am soooooo very happy to hear that it is a blessing all around. Praise The Lord! HE will guide you in everything you seek from HIM.
You are doing a stellar job with your 2 sons. Keep up the good work, food insecurity is a tough one to overcome but, you are dealing with it amazingly.
May The Lord touch each one of you and bless you exceeding abundantly!
We have all the drama of teenage and childhood life. Right now my grand-nephew is sorta suffering through the first girlfriend breakup. I say sorta because he left the ballgame last night with a new girl (and her mother) giving him a lift home before the varsity game ended.
A minor(?) challenge over finances with older adopted son. I give him access to all the family budgets and meal planning (hoping to teach him how to make spending choices) and he is definitely learning BUT he is questioning the weekly restaurant meal. Doesn't think its worth it since we can fix a meal that just as good at home for a fraction of the cost. He accepts my explanation that its more than a meal: its entertainment and learning public poise and appreciating other cultures and foods. If we needed more money for something else we would cut the cost by going less often or choosing less expensive restuarants but while we can pay our bills and put a signficant amount into savings - it's okay. And we save to have choices; although my example of being able to buy new shoes for his younger brother when he outgrew his school shoes before Christmas was undercut because I "took" the money from the clothing budget category... We'll have a totally unexpected expense sometime although I may have made this more difficult by estimating/ budgeting expenses into too many categories. He's a fine young man but I feel my biggest challenge at this point is to try to teach him to "balance". He wants to see everything as good or bad (home cooking=good, restuarant meal=bad) and I'm trying to make sure it he understands context (restaurant meal can be good if you can afford it). I don't want him to end up like my dad and never take a vacation or go to his kid's games because "that's a waste" of his time and money. Daddy had deprivation in his childhood that impacted his entire life; I don't want that major impact on my adopted son but I don't know if I will be able to really change the script.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
Yay! So very happy for you and your son! We adopted our little girl 35 years ago. I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her. She was four and a half weeks old.
Congratulations on this wonderful news! You’re both blessed to be in each other’s lives.
When people told me that my daughter was blessed to be loved by us, I immediately responded with, “We are blessed to have an amazing daughter!”
Yep, that’s another funny holiday movie. My favorite Chevy Chase movie is Funny Farm. I know that I have seen it at least a dozen times!
As the former family holiday hostess married to an eternal optimist, that movie is so relatable. An extra family of four shows up and my teeth grit along with Ellen Griswold. “We have plenty of room. Plenty of towels. Plenty of everything.”
I love the classics like, It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street too, Charlie Brown and the Grinch are my favorites.
I know that Hallmark movies are popular but I find them to be mediocre and don’t watch any of them.
Yes . Time goes too fast
I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to get older when I was a kid. Time seemed to move a lot more slowly than it does now in my late 60’s.
I look in the mirror and say to myself, where did the years go? I have a lot more years behind me than I have ahead. It makes me feel like we should make the most of the time that is left.
Being in a very remote area in senior years... better hope that you can have your Depends delivered by drone or else have an entire room dedicated to a year's supply of boxes ;-) Maybe by then the medtech industry will have a procedure to fix incontinence safely and affordably. Right now it's neuromodulation, but you can't have dementia and use the controls for that device (smart phone) easily, or at all.
Living in rural areas also means very few social workers and county services, even fewer medical services and fewer yet care facilities. Fewer choices for caregivers.
I don't have anything against rural living but I'm a chronically practical person and I need to be careful about romanticizing what it will be like in my sunset years -- in my house on a hill and 2 full flights of stairs inside. My friend's Gramma (64 yrs old, so my age) just moved to a hobby farm in Wisconsin with her sickly alcoholic husband. Like hobby farms don't require much physical effort. Or money. Cue the smack to the forehead.
You were very blessed that she decided to be safe vs. the alternative.
What a lovely mental image I'm picturing of a cat in a window seat chasing snowflakes. Get a picture of that if you can because I think that would make a splendid holiday card.
@Geaton
I wish I was out in rural North Dakota. I'm so tired of wall-to-wall people and traffic of a city. I hope your relative has a plan to move in a caregiver so they never have to move.
DH had a small child dash out from a parked car after a moving van slowly passed the parked car.
Probably seemed very slow to the child. DH was behind the van. Raining. Windshield wipers on. Residential street. No one was speeding. The little boy seemed inches away to DH. He pulled up to the boy and told him Go home and tell your parents you almost got killed playing in the rain. I told DH the little boy probably told his parents an old man yelled at him if he told them anything. I asked DH what did the boy do after he was yelled at. Splashed in the water and took off running across the lawns. Obviously feeling very much alive while DH was spent with the drama of it all.
DH aunt, trying to be helpful, backed her car out of her driveway to allow for departing guests to back into her garage to load their bags more easily. Problem was, aunt backed across the street and into across the street neighbors drive which she had done many times over the years. But this time, she forgot the part where you apply the brakes and instead hit their garage door. She said to the neighbor. I’ll be right back with my check book.
The cat loves it . She’s on the window seat chasing snowflakes .
This means I really have to get going on Christmas , wrapping , sending cards , holiday decorating , at some point baking ……..
I love tenacious old people that somehow just make things work and quit when they don't.
My grandpa had a close call with a very young child crossing the highway by themselves and he decided to give up driving because he knew he wouldn't have been able to live with harming another because his reflexes had slowed down. (For anyone being critical that he was allowed to drive to long, this little kid was obviously being neglected and was crossing a 6 lane highway outside of a crosswalk by themselves, it would NOT have been grandpa's fault. Praise God that he missed. I wouldn't have encouraged him quitting but, I supported his choice and got on the rotation to be his ride.)
12 weeks isn't so bad and you are going to rock your new classes too!
Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s easy to take life for granted. We never know what is in store for our future.
I remember my grandmother's neighbor telling me a story about how GM had gotten into a situation where she was on the wrong side of the road, and her car blocked traffic. She was so independent for so long, but she had to stop driving at some point. Macular degeneration claimed her eyesight, too, Need.
Both previous classes were difficult at times. I was also under the weather during a lot of them. But I not only passed, I have around 98% for both of them! That's not just an "A," that's a "you are crushing this, Ali" kind of A.
So... I'm doubling up. I'm taking Measurements, and, Ethics this next term. I just registered for the second class, and both start tomorrow.
It was a gut-check moment. Am I sure I can do this..? It won't be easy, but I can adjust my work schedule. I'm so fortunate to have flexible work right now.
Wish me luck. I have some dread because I know it will be non-stop reading and writing for the next 12 weeks, but I think I'll be fine once I get in the groove. And there's a Christmas break in the middle of the class, which means I will get a halfway-mark pit stop. I got this. 💪
It’s tough for people who don’t have access to public transportation.
It boggles my mind to think about pioneers who traveled from far away to attain a better life. Many died along the way. I admire them and am certainly grateful to them for blazing a trail for others to follow.
Very true! In today’s world we don’t necessarily have to drive. There are delivery options.
Bad weather is another cause for concern. So many things are responsible for accidents and many of them are completely avoidable.
Everyone should be aware about when it isn’t safe to drive.
If we are a caregiver, we should educate our family members that we are living in a new world with many options available for us.
No one has to get behind the wheel of a car and endanger themselves and others who are sharing the road.
We need to make public transportation more accessible for everyone for people who want to remain as independent as possible. Our city added more streetcar lines a while back.