Frayed 'fraid

April is quickly drawing to a close, just like that line in a Simon and Garfunkle song, "April, dash she must." Sadly, it has not been a very nice April. You'd have thought that April would have seen how great March was and tried to outdo her, but alas, April seemed to have petered out and has been sitting on a cold front and won't budge. The winds have been cold and whippy all month long. Surely, May will find a better way to behave. Weather! We can't do a thing about it, just accept it as it is.

In many ways, life is like that too. However, we can change some things in our lives, although not all things. We have to keep an open mind and a good attitude. Darkness has a way of swooping in and hiding us in the shadows at times. We have to give it the boot and let our best selves shine as much as possible. It's too easy to not try to better our mental outlook and to accept the lesser of ourselves. Sometimes one even has to fake it until one begins to feel better. As they say, "fake it, till you make it."

April. What happened in April? Easter felt like it came a bit early. And, in my household,  it was a rather quiet one. But that seemed just fine.

Our Green Bay Packer, Donald Driver, remains a driving force (or should that be a dancing force) on Dancing with the Stars. He must be getting tons of votes from Packer fans. I know one of my grandgirls dials in the maximum number of 4 votes allowed for him.

The month has seen me at my new job. I am called a "Page." Pretty cute considering it's the library. The pay is minimal and one sour note is that I have to pay to go to work. I mean I literally have to pay for my parking spot. Apparently, working only 12 hours doesn't give one the benefit of a free parking stall. I grumble about that, but then I know I only work 12 hours and that, in itself,  is pretty pleasant. The 2 weeks that I've worked there thus far have gone by pretty fast.

Dick Clark died on April 18. He was, in my mind, the epitome of a gentleman. It is sad to think he won't be around to usher in the new year anymore. But he did do a lot in the music world while he was here. We'll miss you Dick Clark! Thanks for all that you did for so many rising music stars.

I received a new sewing machine for a wedding anniversary gift. It's a Singer. And I've managed to thread the needle and fill one bobbin. It's sitting there waiting for me to do something. (It's waiting to sing!)  I'm looking at it and waiting for the desire to sew something to return. I used to sew quite a bit. My sewing muse, along with my guitar muse, my poetry muse, and my painting muse are all quite asleep. Will someone please come and wake them up for me. Time is passing by! And time waits for no one!

I'm living with a cloud of fear over my head until after Weds. May 2. On that date, I have a dental appointment to fix a cavity that decided to descend under a crown, no less. I hate the dentist. Well, not my dentist per se. Let's say I hate going to the dentist!  I'll be taking the gas and getting the site numbed. If they offered to put me to sleep I'd take that too. I'm waiting for it to be a week from today so that I'll know it's a done deal! I'm such a chicken about the dentist!!!! Guess I'm going to have to fake that too!

That's about it for me this month. Nothing real exciting. Sometimes life is like that.

Losing a Friend

I ran into an old friend the other day. She and I had been like sisters many, many years ago.


I hadn't been in town very long when we met where we both worked. She befriended  me and we did just about everything together. We shared deepest secrets, laughed till we cried, shopped till we dropped. We even went on overnight outings with some of her other friends and had tons of fun.


She would drop over and bring Cokes, I would drop over and take Pepsi's. I thought our friendship would last forever. But, suddenly one day she was gone. She just quit calling. She just quit coming over. I was flabbergasted. What had I done wrong??  I was sad beyond words. Though I have never been divorced I think that, that must be what it feels like. I was deeply hurt by the loss.


I tried calling her but she would never return my calls. I tried stopping over, but she was never around. One time I did manage to reach her and I asked her point blank what had changed, what had happened. She laughed me off and said nothing had changed, that we were still friends. When she said this I began to question myself. Was I just imagining things had changed?  But no, I couldn't be. We had a history and we had experience being friends. I knew what she would do and she knew what I would do. We no longer went shopping every Saturday, we no longer brought each other colas and chatted and laughed and made plans. We had been so close we could almost read each others minds. No, I certainly was not imagining it.


So, I gave up.


Over time I gradually got over the loss, but never really made such a close friendship with anyone else again. I don't know if I was leery of getting hurt by someone that I trusted so much and was so open with. Nonetheless, I have seen her over the years and we chat very briefly. Sometimes I wonder how she could have hurt me so deeply, moved on and not even realized it.


I know one of my faults is that I love my friends. I always do my best for them. I try to be there for them and help them. I know there is a line where friendship can be overbearing and I know enough not to cross it.


I have found that online friends are sometimes the same too. One can befriend  you quickly and you begin to trust them, and just as suddenly as they appeared, they disappear. I think that now I have gotten more thick-skinned about losing friends. Still, I wonder why people do this to other people. It is so easy to hurt someone else because one loses interest or finds someone else to befriend that seems more appealing than yourself.


Perhaps it is human nature. Perhaps the way of the world has changed now. It is easy to disregard another by simply ignoring them and sooner or later one will just stop trying. I think it's a sad thing not to value people. I think everyone is precious and worthy of kindness in return to kindness given. I don't take friendships lightly.


I doubt that I am the only one who feels this way, and I doubt that things are ever going to change. I know for myself that I am not going to stop believing in the goodness that we all possess. Yet, I have learned to tread lightly and go forward realizing that if someone is a true friend they will remain through thick and thin. I have a friend who wrote to me recently after I shared the feeling of the loss of a friend. Their note ended, "some of us will always love you...no matter what."   It made me smile and it made me thankful for having someone care enough to  make me feel that I mattered. When we lose someone we begin to think we are not worthy, but we are. We might not be loved or liked by someone that we want to befriend us the way we'd like them to, but it does not lessen the person that we are.


Befriending someone and then losing them teaches us that we are stronger than we think we are. It is not the end of everything, it just might be the beginning of something else, when we least expect it.


Be kind to one another. Sometimes all we have to share with one another is our human kindness.

Returning Half Baked

     Retired, just 3 months. Really? I didn't even get a chance to be bored, and yet the "call of the workplace," was noisy in my ear. Late last month I got a call to ask if I wanted to put in a few hours of work in at my old place. Feeling like it was a good thing I accepted. It was refreshing.

Changing shoes mid-stream...

      It is kind of funny when one works full time. We see it so close that we begin to tire of it being so common in our lives. I suppose that is why employers give employees vacations. It's a chance to renew. Vacations are a good thing, however, vacations don't last all that long and one doesn't really get a chance to relax and see a long period of time stretching ahead. Once we have rested and have had a chance to look around, it seems that we get the feeling that we need to reconnect with the world, or old work friends, or getting out of the house, or just feeling like we make a difference to someone other than ourselves.
     When I went to work after they called me, I had a great experience for half of a day. This week I worked a whole day and at the end of the day I felt exhausted. I know, with certainty,  that I don't want to return to work full time and yet the need to do something outside of "myself" is a strong magnet. I have now accepted part time work, and I mean very part time, as in 12 hours a week to allow me a little time away from home, a few dollars to spend on nonsense and a little more social-ism.


     I don't know if this will feel like a drag to me after a while. Perhaps it might, perhaps it might not. But for now it seems to be what I feel like I want to do. A different place to drive up to and park, a different place to be able to help others, a different set of personalities to learn about, and hopefuly learn from them as well. A difference.


     Sometimes maybe a difference is all we are really looking for. I begin April 16. I think I've sustained a bit of roadrash, and now I'm doing some self healing in this and hoping it's not just an escape, because sooner or later I really will have to hang up my working shoes.


    Maybe this is really a second chance. Life is a funny thing, isn't it!


   This has been my experience....and to think I thought I had it all figured out!

April Foolishness

Just throwing out some things I've been thinking about. Yes, believe it or not...some serious thoughts do cross my mind...



Drink more water...my steam iron takes in more water than I do!

Why is it called dusting when you dust, but when you mop they call it mopping instead of wetting the floor...hmmmm???

I wish I could sleep with one eye closed and one eye open. I like to keep an eye on things, you know.

Do some pigs covet another piggy's tail because it's curlier than their own?

Language is a funny thing like how come they say, "cat got your tongue?" Whoever thought of that? I mean, sayings generally originate from things that actually happened or can happen, for instance, when someone says: "where there's smoke there's fire." I shudder to think that at one point some CAT GOT SOMEONE'S TONGUE!!!!!!!!!!

My sinuses are bothering me and my head feels disconnected...gosh! I hope no one else is wearing my head, they'd be totally confused!

Have you ever noticed that if you have a problem and you are laying in bed thinking about it, that if you lay on one side of your head you come up with something down to earth to fix it, but if you turn over and lay on the other side of your head you think of something far out and creative to solve the problem?!? Try it!  (don't go blaming me if you choose the funky pink carpet over the nice neutral beige one.)

I think I should ask the Sharks in the Shark Tank for $3 billion dollars, and no interest in my company that I will start up, to make an invention that automatically turns cell phones off when people try to text while driving.

Who came up with the idea that April 1st was April Fool's Day?  At some point did a bunch of foolishness occur across the world to cause everyone to suddenly say, "oh my, look at all the fools out there--it must be April fool's day."  Think about that....

Would you be offended if you got an April Fool's Day card, but not a birthday one??