Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Two Colors or Hues only
Day: March 11, 2014
I’LL BE BACK
Like a lichen on a rock, I cling. Like the sun, I rise. Like the earth, I renew.
I’ll be back.
Friday’s the big day, though I’ll be in the hospital as of Thursday for cardiac catheterization. Hopefully they won’t find anymore stuff that needs repairing. Garry will try to send updates, but he’s going to be busy and tired, so be gentle with him. This is hard for him too.
Stubbornly, determinedly, I’ll come back. Until then, I will miss you.
Other entries:
- Daily Prompt: Never Surrender- Between Resilience and Stubbroness | Journeyman
- The Trial, Not For the Weak of Faint of Heart: Part 1 | jlaneb
- No surrender on Mental Illness | ALIEN AURA’S BlOG: IT’LL BLOW YOUR MIND!
- There are just some things I like a certain way. The right way. | thoughtsofrkh
- Stubborn as a Mule! | meanderedwanderings
- Pardon me for everything I’m about to say | Attempted Human Relations and Self
- Welcome to the jungle | The verbal hedge
- Daily Prompt: Never Surrender | My Extraordinary Everyday Life
- Health Goals, Easy Going Or Stubborn? | Because It Calms My Nerves:
- The Conundrum | Each Feather, A Freedom
- Java, Joe, Carbon Remover, Plasma | Exploratorius
- Tweet, Tweet, Twitterfiction | My Little Avalon
- Steadfast in my integrity: I am my mother’s daughter « psychologistmimi
- How Do I Get My Son To Go To School | A mom’s blog
- I am not bossy, I AM the boss | IvyMosquito
- Daily Prompt: Never Surrender | Finding Life
- Stubborn Love | peacefulblessedstar
- Daily Prompt: Never Surrender | Life is great
- Stubborn Dutch | Lisa’s Kansa Muse
- Daily Prompt: Never Surrender | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss
GOOGLE GOOGLED ME
The weirdest and funniest “happy birthday” of the day? I opened Google after midnight and there was a picture of a birthday cake and other goodies. So I said to myself, I wonder who else’s birthday it is?
When I hovered the cursor, it said (still does) “Happy birthday, Marilyn.” I think it must only work on my computer, but that’s the picture.
How do they do that? It’s kind of spooky, but cute! I know it’s software, but still … out of the millions of people using Google, how do they know to make that header show up on my computers?
Isn’t technology grand?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
Weekly Photo Challenge: Selfie
Despite the suggestion that self-portraiture is a modern phenomenon, it most assuredly is not. The wide-spread availability of cameras and cell phones have made it easy for everyone to participate, but artists have been doing self portraits for as long as there have been artists. Any museum will support my statement.
Why do we put so much effort into our own images? Partly because we are the one model who will always be available, any time of day or night. Then there’s the challenge of seeing what new thing you can say about this person you’ve known your entire life with an intimacy you can never have with any other living being.
What does your face show? Wisdom? Humor? Worry? Joy? Can you grab that feeling and make it part of the picture? Whatever you do, you are following in a very long tradition, a tradition that goes back at least 1,000 years.
“There is nothing new under the sun,” commended Julius Caesar.
Today I am 67 years old … an age which seems impossible. Never did I imagine being so old. In my head, I am the same kid I’ve always been. Marilyn, the girl, has the same dreams, the same hopes, the same feelings she did when she was a 17-year-old. The body hasn’t done too well, but the essence remains. May all of you keep your dreams alive forever.
“We just do the same old stuff using new tools,” says Marilyn Armstrong.
GOLDEN WHAT?
Weekly Writing Challenge: Golden Years
When you think about retirement and “the golden years,” you probably think it means free time. After decades of deadlines, you can do what you want, when you want. Time to travel, time to sleep, time to be with friends.
It doesn’t usually work out that way. As a start, though I’m not sure why, the minute you retire, you’re incredibly busy. Nature abhors a vacuum and your days fill up. Life becomes unexpected.
You will wonder how you ever had time to work a full-time job.
IF YOU DON’T DIE YOUNG YOU WILL GET OLD
Your friends get old and some move away. With luck, you’ve got friends and family near enough to visit easily. It’s a gift. But you can’t count on having the old gang in the neighborhood.
Enter email, Skype and social networking. I don’t care who invented the Internet. I’m just glad it exists.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN? OY.
If you are one of the lucky ones who have money and time, you may not have the energy or emotional fortitude to deal with the vicissitudes of modern travel. To put it succinctly, modern travel sucks. It’s not elegant or romantic. It’s hard work for which you pay.
Travel used to be fun when I was young, but it’s been less fun with each passing year. Now, air travel’s a disgrace. Airports and security turn vacations into stress tests, nightmares in which strangers paw you and security personnel dismantle your luggage. There’s no choice if you’re want to go long distances or cross oceans; you have to fly. Good luck with that.
I love flying. If I had a private jet and could skip the airport, I’d travel. Silly me. If I had that kind of money, a lot of things would be different. Like pretty much everything. Never mind. Forget I said anything.
WHERE’S THE MONEY?
Retirement means a fixed income. Your “salary” stays the same forever, while prices don’t. It takes a while to come to grips with this. After you retire, you will never get a raise. Or a Christmas bonus.
You will never have more buying power than you do today. Time erodes the value of pensions. Younger people don’t get it, but they will someday. Their time will come and they won’t like it. No one does.
On the up side, you will find stuff to do that doesn’t cost much money. Museums and other public venues have senior rates the same as kid prices. Movie theaters have cheap afternoon rates as well as special showings of classic movies. Senior discounts are a big perk.
Never forget to take your senior discount! It’s the least they can for you do after all your years of hard work.
OH MY ACHING …
Most people don’t have as many problems as I do, but everyone has some physical issues. Old bodies wear out. Things hurt. Reflexes slow down. You aren’t as strong as you were. You tire more quickly. If you fall, you don’t bounce. You go splat.
It’s normal, but aggravating. If you’re smart, you adapt. Enjoy what your body can do and don’t waste your life fighting to be what you were — while missing the fun of being what you are.
Buck up buckaroos. Getting older isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. Consider the alternative.
You will have fun. You will adapt, accept limitations and enjoy life differently. Keeping an open mind helps. A sense of humor helps more.
NOT WORKING IS THE POT OF GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW
The golden-est part of the golden years is not working.
Not working is absolutely, unequivocally a most excellent thing. If only they would just keep sending checks. I don’t miss working, not for a minute, but I miss getting paid.
Our skills are better than ever. Creative artists and people in any field for which mental rather than physical prowess is required, get another chance. We blog, do charity work. Write books, take pictures, sculpt, paint. Design things. Create magnificent gardens. We are treasure troves of experience and knowledge should anyone choose to ask.
I’ve had a lot of fun recently. I’ve written stuff I like, taken pictures with which I’m pleased. Spent time with friends I love. Laughed until I cried and cried until I laughed.
Now I have to go get my heart rebuilt. Drat. It’s always something.
Other entries:
- Social Media has changed me | The Bohemian Rock Star’s “Untitled Project”
- Golden Years | Icezine
- Counting The Scars/ Weekly Writing Challenge | standinginthestorm
- Weekly Writing Challenge: The Golden Years | Mirth and Motivation
- Fearless Youth | the intrinsickness
- Golden Years | mnemosynesandlethe
- Weekly Writing Challenge: Golden Years | MythRider
- i am always looking | y
- nobody has said if | y
- Age is Just a Number | Random Words
- The Age of a New Season | Mary J Melange
- Stories From My Mind
- It is OK, I am here | jessicadafoe
- We’re Still Aging! | theeyelife
- Age isn’t defined by a number (unless you’re a minor…). | …Properly Ridiculous…
- Working Girl | Never Stationary
- Golden Years (DPChallenge) | Between Madness & Euphoria
- “Unforgotten” | Cosmic Heroism
- And Here We Are, Stuck Moving Forward | A Cool Glass of Lemonade
- Age is Just a Number – Ha! Age is a Bunch of Numbers! | Once Upon Your Prime. . .
WECOME TO MY WORLD AGAIN
Share Your World – 2014 Week 10
Describe yourself in a word that starts with the first letter of your name.
Mental.
If 100 people your age were chosen at random, how many do you think you’d find leading a more satisfying life than yours?
No idea. That’s pretty subjective. I’m happy with life in general, but there are areas with room for improvement. A stair lift. A all-terrain scooter. A car in which said scooter could be transported. Money. A lot more money. Someone to cook and clean. And a long Caribbean cruise.
If you were a tree, would you become a book or furniture? Please describe.
If I were a tree, I would find a Dryad and start a relationship. Or maybe become a dryad. Whatever.
You are trapped in an elevator, who would you want to be trapped with?
My best friend Cherrie. And maybe our husbands. But then, we’d also need books, music, snacks and computers, too. And a toilet with a door for privacy. Come to think of it, I don’t think the elevator thing will work out.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
Postponing surgery until later this week so I can celebrate my birthday (today 🙂 with Garry — and not hooked to an IV morphine drip in the hospital.
MELTING
