Category: Share My World

SHARING MY WORLD – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World 6-11-19

I realize I am not sharing my world. I’m just answering cute questions. Just as well. I spend so much time sharing it in my own posts, I’m not sure I could handle any more serious sharing!

What do fish do all day?   What thoughts do you think they have?  (Credit to the awesome Teresa and her Fibbin’ Fridays for this one)

My best guess would be (are you ready?) … swim. Oh, and also they eat and make baby fish during the appropriate season.

Some of them spend lots of time learning because they travel in schools.

What celebrity would you have as a SPOUSE, if you HAD to choose?

I can’t think of any. I’m pretty good with the one I’ve got. Besides, anyone who looks interesting is too young.

What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever broken?

I blew up a transmission in my first husband’s car. I was learning to drive and it was a manual, three on the stick in an old Chevy Impala, circa 1961.

This is the car. Same style, same colors.

Eventually, he decided maybe I needed driving lessons. That worked out way better.

When was the last time you slept more than 9 hours in a stretch?  Why?

Before I got pregnant and definitely before Owen was born and why? Who knows? I was young. Young people sleep well.

Now, I’m up every few hours to go to the bathroom, trying to find a comfortable position for my back,  or just because I need a couple of minutes to worry about something.

An Attitude of Gratitude! Share something you were really grateful for this year (so far):

We are still both alive and aren’t yet living in our car.

Be it ever so humble

Last night I tried (mentally) to add up how much money we’ve put into repairing this house and realized we could have easily bought another house by now.

SHARING MY WORLD AND JUNE BEGINS – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World 6-4-19

aaaSYWHANDMAP
Do you think there is such a thing as a ‘gendered’ brain?  

I think the physical aspects of motherhood are clearly feminine. Not the emotional ones, but the urge to reproduce, to nurse — physical stuff. But emotionally? A lot of women are not especially nurturing and a lot of men are. What’s more, I think this has always been true, throughout the ages.

What is the silliest fear you have? 

Spiders. Although that brown recluse spider did a number on Garry and recently took a big bite out of a close friend of my son. They are tiny, hard to see, and really poisonous. But I’m afraid of all spiders, whether of not they can do me any harm.

Out of your family members, who are you closest to?

Other than Garry? Owen. After that, Kaity and Sandy. But that’s my whole family.

What is something you’ll NEVER do again?

Swim in the ocean. Too cold!

If you’d like, please share a photo or a comment about something good that’s happened recently!  
The spiderwort bloomed!

SHARING MY WORLD – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World 5-27-19

Do you consider yourself a pessimist or an optimist?

I think I’m a skeptic, which means I need information before I can be for or against anything. Information may be just “getting to know someone” before deciding I like (or don’t like) them — or getting facts before deciding on something where facts are at issue.

I’m more upbeat than some people, not as much as others.

Snowballs and the Mumford dam

Somehow, I’m more convinced we are not going the way of the Axis in World War II and I believe if we can just hang on, things will get better. I’m convinced we’ll pull out of this mess we are in.

I also get that I could be entirely and horribly wrong about that!

Can War ever be just?

War is never good, but sometimes, one’s world must be defended. But our last “just” war — World War II — would never have been necessary if we had settled the ashes of WW I with more concern for the human beings who would have to live with that settlement.

Greed, land, hatred, bad leaders — they make war happen. So I’m not sure there’s ever an entirely “just” war because if you look at the context, it should never have happened at all.

People create wars. It’s time we owned up to it.

War leads to more war, so this war may be just, but it wouldn’t be necessary if we hadn’t had a previous war. I don’t think we’ll ever stop fighting and for one side of the other, it’s always a just war and God is always on everyone’s side. Pity God has never had anything to say about that.

Think about the people you love most in your life, what do you do for them?

I try to keep them in mind and keep in touch. When we can be together, that makes me happy.

There isn’t much else to do, is there?

Are you health conscious?

Painfully, on many levels.

Eating well!

We eat decently, avoid most of the really bad stuff. It gets harder as prices keep going up. Good thing we don’t eat much.

Gratitude, Thankfulness, Wonder, Awe, and Joy!   

It was great seeing boys being boys and enjoying a swim in the river with no hovering parents, no cell phones.

Just being kids. It gave me some hope!

SHARING THE WORLD: A BIRTHDAY AND COLLEGE! – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World 5-20-19

Is it better to suspect something (bad or hurtful) and not know or to have your worst fears confirmed by sure knowledge? 

I’m happy in my ignorance on a personal level. I don’t want to know who is gossiping or talking behind my back. If I know more, I might have to do something about it and I prefer not to do anything about it. Gossips and backbiters always get taken down eventually. It always catches up with them.

I also think that people who confess their sins and destroy a relationship are selfish. Whose ends are they serving? Sometimes, please — shut up.

My son turned 50!

Politically and for most other things, I want accurate information.

What makes you laugh aloud? Crack up? Laugh until your sides split? When was the last time you had a great big belly laugh?

Things that are funny. “A Mighty Wind,” anything made by the Monty Python group. Marx brothers. And my friends.

Do you suppose Noah had woodpeckers in the ark? If he did, where did he keep them? Apologies to the Darwinians in the crowd…this is merely for fun, okay? 

Presumably, there were two of everything and woodpeckers are part of everything.

Here’s the cake to prove it! What a great cake!

Why is “Charlie” short for “Charles when they are the same number of letters?

It’s a nickname. Now short would be calling Garry “Gar” or me “Mar.” Or Jeff for Jeffrey, Gene for Eugene. I like nicknames better.

What happened in your world this past week that made you feel thankful, joyful or grateful? 

Congratulations Kaitlin.

My granddaughter is finally starting college. Joy to the world!

Congratulations Owen!

And my son turned 50 (ouch on MY side … it’s hard to pretend to be young when your kid turns 50!).

SHARING MY WORLD – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World 5-13-19

Questions:

What social stigma does society need to get over already?

The list is too long. It’s sad, too. Because I thought, way back when, that we had actually gotten over some of it. I thought that if we hadn’t lost our racism, we had at least gotten past calling each other names. I thought we’d finally learned after Mussolini and Hitler and all the others throughout history, that we knew dictators are a bad deal. That all the organization they bring to the world, they are cruel, evil, and no good ever comes from them.

But somehow, between the episodes of horror, we forget. We lose our memories of evil. We idolize the power and forget the monstrous nature of the beast.

What was the last photo you took?

Yesterday, I took some pictures of a bunch of Brown-headed Cowbirds sitting on the railing of my deck.

These ARE blackbirds!

Otherwise, I’m trying to figure out how the last squirrel managed to unhook the entire feeder and drop it to the ground below. I have to hand it to the maker of this feeder that it survived as if nothing happened, even though it fell two stories.

When was the last time you snooped and found something or found out something you wish you hadn’t?

The last time I read Tarot cards. I saw that the man I was reading for was going to die. And he did.

What’s the most comfortable bed or chair you’ve ever slept in?

The bed we own with its original mattress was the world’s MOST comfortable bed. Now, with a new, not as expensive mattress it’s very comfortable, but not like it was with its original mattress.

But that mattress lasted 15 years, so it didn’t owe me anything. I only wish I could have afforded another real natural latex mattress. Sadly, it was out of our price range.

SHARING MY WORLD IN THE RAINIEST APRIL SINCE 1872 – Marilyn Armstrong

SHARE YOUR WORLD 4-29-19

If you could interview anyone from your life living or dead, but not a celebrity, who would it be and why?

My Aunt Kate. She was the one who had lived in the old country and had memories of the trip from Poland to New York. By the time I realized I needed to ask her questions, she was in her 80s and had forgotten a lot of the things I wanted to know. I’m so sorry I waited so long.

As a child, did you have a nickname?  Did you carry that with you throughout life or was it only in childhood that you used it?

I’ve never had a nickname. I always wanted one, but it never happened.

Give us three words that describe you:

Aging, a bit broken but alive, and still engaged with life.

Sneaking into a second movie at the theater (if you go to a movie house)?  Is that wrong or just harmless ‘fun’?

When I was a kid, if the movie wasn’t crowded, you could stay for as many showings as you could sit for. Most of the movies in those golden olden days were two movies and one or two cartoons. That was usually more than enough for me, but there were others who could spend a whole day and just watch over and over.

I got tired of sitting for that long. Back then, you got a lot of “freebies.” If you rode the Cyclone and wanted to ride again as long as there was no line you could keep riding. It wasn’t theft. There was a generosity of spirit that we seem to have lost over the years.

If you had a time machine would you go back to the past or forward into the future?  Why?

Goldfinches all lined up for chow time!

I’d like to take a quick look at medieval Europe, but I don’t think I’d want to stay very long. I like hot showers and flush toilets … and not getting the plague.

What were you thankful for during April?

Birds and squirrels. It has been such a gray and wet month, the bright birds and crazy squirrels kept me interested and alive.

And a few brilliant daffodils.

WORLD SHARING IN A WET APRIL – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World 4-22-19

Was the last thing you read digital or print?

Digital and it was “The Mueller Report.” Otherwise, most of my reading (other than comments and posts ) are audiobooks with a little bit on Kindle. I don’t really have a decent reading light by my bed anymore. I’m used to reading Kindle with its own backlight.

Are you more an extrovert or introvert?

It depends on the situation. I’m not good with large crowds, but I’m pretty extroverted in small groups with good friends.

How is your life different from what you imagined as a younger person?

May flocks of Goldfinch follow you everywhere

I got OLD. How did THAT happen? Worse yet, all the people who I knew when I was young — they got old TOO. That’s just not fair!

Do you think about dying?   Does death scare you?  Why or why not?

I don’t worry about dying. I worry about staying alive.

Who has been nicest to me in my life?

That is a question I cannot answer. As a start, I can’t remember all the people in my life. If whoever they were, they were part of my much younger life, I don’t remember them. Sometimes, not even a footnote.

For another … how long do we remember people? I remember asking my Aunt Kate, who was in her 80s at the time, about “life in the Old Country” and she said, “Darling, I don’t remember. It was 75 years ago.”

Titmouse and Chickadee have a turn at the feeder

Anything much that happened in my 20s I’ve mostly forgotten with a few exceptions, but the memories are going fast! Unless I still KNOW that person and can share memories, they have just slipped away. I’m sure they are in that giant hard drive in my head, but I get a lot of notifications labeled “FILE NOT FOUND.”

For another thing, “nicest” is too vague. I don’t know what it means.