Karen

Getting married at the wedding

July 21, 2013 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Date night, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, relationships

When my husband and I got married, we had very little money. To make our dollars stretch as far as possible, we decided to have our wedding at home. We contacted a Justice of the Peace who was happy to perform the ceremony in our living room. I chose a bouquet of mostly carnations with a few roses instead of mostly roses with a few carnations. We ordered a small cake. We kept the guest list short, inviting only our immediate families.

Also, we decided not to hire a photographer.

We had a lovely wedding and I have always been happy with how we did things…except I wished we had a nice wedding picture.

Our 22nd wedding anniversary was in June. As it approached, my husband mentioned that he had been thinking about how he wished we had a nice wedding picture (you know, Great Minds Syndrome?)! So, we talked about it on and off, here and there, when suddenly we thought:

Why not take a nice wedding picture now?

(At other times in our marriage, we have had blinding flashes of brilliance like this, such as: Instead of waiting until we retire to move to Maine…why not move to Maine now?)

Once the decision was made, everything just fell into place. We chose our wedding clothes. We scouted locations (and may I say that the Episcopal Churches in southern Maine are beautiful??) and found one we both loved: St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport. My brother, who is an excellent photographer, agreed to take the pictures…and 254 photos later, here we are.

Now my only regret is this: why didn’t we think to get a CAKE?

🙂

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Cicely’s Japanese Maple Tree

May 29, 2013 by Karen, posted in family, friends, gardening

We have a Japanese Maple Tree in our backyard. We brought it here when we moved from another house, and we had brought it to that house when we moved from another house. Even that wasn’t its original location though. In all, moving it to this home was its third transplantation.

From whence did it come? When our son was little, my husband or I used to walk him to and from the bus stop when he started kindergarten. While waiting for the bus, Bill struck up a conversation with the woman who owned the house on the corner of the street where the bus stopped.

Cicely had a beautiful garden, and my husband had created one too at our house, so they immediately had something in common. Cicely was from Trinidad and lived a lone in her little house on the corner. She loved her garden and took great care of it.

She had a gigantic Japanese Maple Tree that anchored her garden. One day, she gave Bill a seedling from this tree; it had about two leaves on it. He loved the tree and took it home and gave it a nice spot in our yard. This was about 17 years ago. Since then, it stayed alive but never really thrived, despite the great care and attention that Bill gave to it.

Cicely died shortly thereafter. The people who bought her house did not maintain her garden and all the plants are gone now. Except that tree. It still lives in her garden…and it still lives in ours.

It never really thrived until this year. I don’t know what is different, but Cicely’s Japanese Maple Tree has finally come into its own.

Thanks, Cicely.

Metamorphing

May 4, 2013 by Karen, posted in Midlife Crisis, Turning 50

I am not exactly sure if ‘metamorphing’ is the correct word; maybe ‘morphing’ would suffice. I only know that this year of being 50 has been much different from what I expected. My forties were a decade of furiosity, including but not limited to: furious writing, reading, cooking, baking, yoga-ing (walking, hula-hooping, Wii-dancing and other activities of the exercise type), short day tripping, collecting, shopping, scrapbooking, ‘friend’-ing, gardening, fighting (for FAPE), class-taking, picture-taking, meetings (with friends), working…and of course, wifing and mothering. I expected that my fifties would be more of the same, a sort of continuation of the frenetic activities that defined my forties.

No frikkin’ way.

So far, it’s been very different. In fact, it’s like my life as I knew it screeched to a halt when I turned 50. I feel, well, bewildered by it all. I feel encumbered. I don’t feel like ‘do’-ing much of anything (may I just mention here that I have 184 unopened emails, last count?). Mostly, I just want to, well, ‘be here now’.

You know, sitting on the couch with my husband and watch Survivor or Bigfoot or FoodTV with my daughter, sitting in my car and staring at the ocean, appreciating the view of flowers (planted for me by my husband) from my front door…things like that.

I still don’t feel like doing housework though; isn’t it comforting to know that some things never change?

50: The year I got old

March 30, 2013 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Adult children, family, fitness, health, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Turning 50

I was thinking about how I have been in a funk these past several weeks, when I realized, no, it’s actually been several months now that I’ve been feeling this way. I realized what is partly affecting my mood and my decisions is this: I feel old.

My skin looks old.
All of my joints hurt all the time so I don’t want to exercise.
If I do exercise, all my muscles hurt the next day.
My bowel pattern is a constant concern.
No matter what time I go to bed, or how late I sleep in the morning, I’m still tired all the time.
I don’t want to do any work anymore.
I don’t want to eat “healthy” anymore. I want cappuccino whoopie pies and DQ blizzards and apple crisps and Peanut M+M’s every frikkin’ day.
I don’t even want to read anymore because my expensively, progressively, trifocally, Transitions vision sucks.

How’s that for pathetic? After I read my list it dawned on me: I’m depressed. SAD probably, since this is the longest, coldest, snowiest winter in the last, what, million years.

My daughter was reading this over my shoulder without my knowledge as I was writing it. A little while later she said,

She: “Mom, it’s not true.”

Me: “What’s not true?”

She: “That stuff you were writing; it’s not true.”

My daughter: yep, think I’ll keep her.

Gratitude Journal-Hello, it’s been a while

March 15, 2013March 15, 2013 by Karen, posted in Gratitude Journal 2013


		March 15, 2013
1		The sun shining in my kitchen window this afternoon
2.		My husband painting my daughter’s room
3.		My whole family here under my roof together for a few hours today all at the same time for once
4.		Finishing up the leftovers for lunch
5.		Making time for the Deepak Chopra 21 day Meditation Challenge today (missed the past 2 days 😦 )

Mentoring: top ten tips

March 11, 2013March 11, 2013 by Karen, posted in Life in the cube, Midlife Crisis, quest for the best, Work from Home

In my first career, I managed a restaurant. Over the years I trained a lot of waitresses, ice cream scoopers, grill cooks, supervisors, and even managers. We had a three step process that worked really well. First, she watched me do it. Next, I watched her do it. Finally, she did it by herself, but I was nearby; present but not hovering, taking more and more steps back until she was efficiently operating on her own.

That was it.

Now I am in a different profession. I have been a trainer/mentor for many colleagues over the past several years. I recently have been on the trainee side of the equation again (hel-lo) and it’s helped me remember what is helpful and what is not so helpful from this side of the table.

Listen to your trainee
Choose your verbs carefully: “Struggling” is unkind. “Learning” is another word that expresses the same phenomenon but doesn’t leave your trainee feeling crushed.
Rookies make rookie mistakes. Let them.
Tell your newbie that she is doing a great job. Tell her frequently, every day, even it if’ it’s overstating things a bit. It’s very motivating.
Adult learners process information differently (read: more slowly) than they did in their earlier decades of life, and they might be coming face to face with this difficult truth in a new and uncomfortable way. Give them frequent little breaks to absorb what is coming her way.
Allow a little time to debrief at the end of the day.
Chocolate helps. A lot. In large amounts.
Introduce some fun; fun is good.
Remind your newbie that you were sitting in the same seat that she is now when you first started, and look at you now!
Never forget rule #9 yourself.

Birthdays

February 24, 2013 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, friends

My lovely daughter is turning 14 in a couple of months. We have given her a birthday party every year of her life, so there is a fair chance that she will be expecting one this year too.

What to do?

There is some pressure not only to do something that is new and different from a)what we’ve done before, but also from b) what everyone else had done before.

No easy feat, that.

We have had all kinds of parties over the years, but the Smitty’s birthday party was my favorite. We go to the theater and everything happens there: the cake, the presents, the meal, the activity (movie, duh), the goodie bags. The employees clean up afterwards. In other words, I got off easy.

I am finding that this idea is a hard sell to my teenage daughter, who has ‘been there, done that”.

We are leaning toward a …wait for it… spa party. I have a couple of ideas and potential tricks up my sleeve, so if the planets align it might all come together into a nice day for my daughter.

The joys of dementia

February 3, 2013February 3, 2013 by Karen, posted in health

I was at work, caring for an elderly woman with dementia. She was propelling herself around the unit in her wheelchair, talking and singing, as was her usual routine. She had her ‘baby’ (doll) with her, a small bundle in a pink one piece piggy outfit, complete with little ears and a tail.

As she tiptoed her way by, a nurse’s aid stopped to take a peek at her infant.

Nurse’s Aid: “Oh! What a cute baby! What’s her name?”

Woman (smiling): “Crotch!”

Nurse’s Aid: “Well, I guess that makes sense. That’s where it came out of!”

True story.

Choose happiness

January 27, 2013 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, Midlife Crisis, Turning 50

I read about Liz Gilbert’s Happiness Jar idea last year when I was turning 50. I thought it was a great idea. I thought I would do it.

I did not do it.

Today, I was thinking about how I used to get on the scale every day, so I could nip any pesky post-Weight Watcher’s weight gain in the bud. I was thinking about it because my friend revealed her current weight to me yesterday and I realized that I had no idea what I weighed any more since I had no idea when I had braved the scale last.

I braved it this morning.

I immediately wished I hadn’t.

I started thinking that I should go back to eating in a healthier way, so I had some Strawberry Rhubarb Pie (okay, okay, full disclosure: à la mode) for breakfast. Then I recalled the Cappuccino Whoopie Pie that I had for a snack last night, and the piece of chocolate fudge from Divine Chocolate I treated myself to earlier in the day.

I love chocolate. 🙂

Then, when I was putting my finished pie dish into the sink, I spied the jar that I used to keep chocolate in (before I ate it all) which was now empty, languishing on the kitchen counter, waiting to be useful again.

The twain met.

My former (pre-weight gain) chocolate jar could be my new happiness jar!

Then I remembered that I still have a little piece of that fudge left.

The first entry into my 2013 Happiness Jar is this: Chocolate fudge made me happy today.

Resolutions

January 25, 2013 by Karen, posted in books, Midlife Crisis, no fear, quest for the best, Turning 50

I remember getting to the end of 2011 and thinking “What an awful year this has been,” and hoping 2012 would be better. Fast forward one year: I remember getting to the end of 2012 and thinking, “What an awful year this has been,” and hoping 2013 would be better.

I’m sensing a pattern here, people.

So, when I saw this online course on The Daily Om’s website, The Best Year of Your Life by Debbie Ford, of course my interest was immediately piqued. Then I thought, “What if this year, instead of just hoping that it would be a better year (reference the definition of insanity), I took some active, conscious steps to try to make it happen?

What this course has going for it:

It’s online. No hauling my sorry ass out of the house in -1 degree weather to get to it.
It’s relatively cheap: $21 for the year.
No stupid, exorbitant, deal-breaking shipping and handling charges are tacked on at the end.
It’s structured. I like structure.

I am not sure if I’m going to sign up for this course or not, but I’m leaning toward it at the moment. Debbie Ford has written a book with a similar title The Best Year of Your Life: Dream It, Plan It, Live It (2005), but so often I buy books then put them in the to read pile, where the languish indefinitely. It might be 2014 before I find it again, and then 2013 might end the way 2011 and 2012 did.

What good would that be?