Waiting on the Flat Line!

hat's your peak graph look like?
I don't know about you but me, I keep reinventing who I am...did you know I used to vote Republican? Now I wouldn't even if you threatened to cut my throat..lol  It's funny how we become intolerant of what we once accepted; as I age it seems easier to tell anyone who is running in a different stream than me to "take a hike".  I guess as we age we feel we've earned that right to know what and who we want around us pretty fast. 

I can be, and am, naive to a point then one of those light bulbs pop up and I whisper to myself "ohhh I get it now". It's okay to blame your raising, for who you have become, up to a POINT then its on your shoulders, those blaming mama for their problems have not peaked into adulthood they are stuck in adolescence! I'm thinking some people never actually do grow up...I heard this saying on a TV drama and it explained a "place of being" I had been seeking words to describe and that word is Peaked. It's like Peter Pan for eternity.

People peak as different stages of their life I won't say ages cause even some 60+ yr old friends of mine are signing up for online dating...I don't understand that but I guess they still haven't peaked sexually, emotionally, socially or maybe they have not peaked in confidence, or they have not peaked in enjoying their own company?  Can't help but insert we come into and out of this world alone so get ready. 

I am one of those people who spends a lot of time thinking!! I try to figure out the why, what for, and where fore of life around me looking for answers to those inner questions of what makes me tick and then that could give some insight on what makes others tick too! 

I think there is a peak in all stages and in each of our senses and in every  part of our life.  Our friendships peak, our relationships peak, our talents and abilities peak, our very life peaks then disappears.
If you lay it out graphically it would look like the Alps as we rise and peak and then drop to less than, but its not just one graph its so many parallel graphs; finally the parallel universe we speak of has been found.  Each of us has our peak graph just as we have our own DNA, our life line, our life span.

I think the trick is recognizing when you've reached peak and when you have not...like learning the same lesson over and over till you finally get IT! It will keep coming back to reteach you till you do.  

Visually I peaked in my 30's then in my 40's I'm wearing glasses, now I can barely see with glasses...everything is a blur so what I think I'm seeing is mostly my brain playing memory tricks on me.  It tries to bring into focus what it thinks the eyes are seeing.  My son has a photographic memory and I wonder if it's peaked yet?

Physically I peaked in my 40's and started down from there...what was once easy is now difficult to do if I worked out and put more time into it maybe I could improve a couple of degrees on my graph but I could never reach peak again...I can still sing fairly well so vocally I may be peaking this year, should I record a song just for prosperity? 

Financially I peaked in my 40's, I should have been $saving$ more then... romantically, where the heart is involved, I peeked in my 30's that's the age I should have been seeking my soul mate...not at 21 like I did.

Emotionally I think Im on the verge of either a complete break out or an epiphany or some kind of enlightening...as my tolerance for anything that rubs me wrong is as short as the fuse on a July 4th firecracker!  Emotionally I'm still learning how to cull out the good from the bad. Will I be vacant of feeling once I've peaked or so over joyed at the relief I will be brimming over with love? I'm so ready for this one to materialize! The anger, the disappointments, the expectations will soon be humming on a nice straight line...I will have peaked emotionally!! 

So as we peak we draw close to or withdraw away from certain behaviors, certain philosophies,  and we recreate the inner self over again.  We peak and move on to something new, someone new, something more challenging; another peak to reach...ebb and flow, ying and yang, wax and wane.

I think the worse thing that could happen to someone is to peak in life too soon, like the tv show said, "he peaked in high school". Finally I had words to put to a feeling I had about some folks who hung onto childish behaviors well into adulthood and I just couldn't put my finger on it!   If we peak too soon it's like in STONE, done, formed, over and out.  Some peaked or reached the top of their maturity in high school and never progressed beyond that point! It had me negotiating my past wondering what parts of me peaked in high school? I'm not searching that one too hard for fear of what I will find-;o(

I do not socialize well at all anymore I talk too much or  
I shy away because I can't bear being around people socially BUT I was NOT like that 10 years ago...FINALLY answers to my questions. If  you can't sit in silence with someone and feel at ease and comfortable socially you have not reached your peak...and when you do its all down hill from there you will enjoy your alone time way more than the time you spend around other people you will engage your inner self more and you will welcome the introvert in you. The extrovert will cower in the corner as you feel peace, comfort, and tranquility no matter if you're in a room full or with one...aw finally i believe I am reaching my social peak! 

Maybe if we had more of an understanding of our psychology we would be better human beings more tolerant and less judgmental... "oh I see you haven't peaked yet...now I get it". 

So how's your life graph has it flat lined yet? Sure hope so!!

Friday 13th goblins!

e peel the onion...and shed our tears...
Today was Friday 13th! I think know I am superstitious more so than most. I knock on wood, it has to be good wood my favorite is Maple..and If a black cat crosses my path I will curse aloud and it leaves me visibly shaken! Bad things always come in 3's...and I watch for the evil goblins to make things go bad on Friday 13th, just to name a few of my weird and strange idiosyncrasies.. 
My mom is 91 and losing her memory, it has not been slowly coming on it came on like a freight train...very rapid! At first it did only affect parts of her memory like repeating things she had told me over to me again and then again...but now its affecting all her thoughts... she can't remember how to do simple things like the laundry...its as if her thoughts are incomplete...she will declare she understands and at that moment she does...then seconds later she will have no memory of what we just discussed.

The problem is I fall into the trap of taking for granted she is understanding...like today we had a shopping trip to do I really NO longer enjoy taking my mom on shopping trips and these days shopping for our household means groceries and basic necessaries.  We don't really bother with much else..

On the way she found a $100 dollar bill in her wallet she thought it was a $10. SO I told her she should have just left that at home...but she said that is her lucky $100 bill...okay I understand Lucky and Unlucky! :o) so she tucked it into a secret flap in her wallet. 

So Mom wanted to go into Roses its a small discount store right next door to the grocery store so I got her a cart, took her inside the store and she reassured me she was fine I should go on and do the grocery shopping while she browsed inside the discount store...I kept saying are you sure, "Yes Im fine, I will wait right here for you to come get me when you finish." 
So I shopped and put the groceries in the van, and headed to Roses...I went in and she was right by the door waiting..I could tell something was wrong instantly..

"I've lost my pocketbook"! I don't even know if I had it with me when I came in here." She did cause I made sure it was in her cart...
So I asked where she was when you realized she didn't have it?
She was at the check out and when she went to get her wallet her purse was gone.  So I said let me ask if a purse has been found, cashier said nope..so then I tried to help her retrace her path...she had gone to the bathroom.  That's the first place I checked no bag...then I went back to where she waited and one of the store employees asked if I had lost a bag since one was turned into the office...
It was found in the ladies room....

Every thing was inside, but poor mom was so shaken she could barely stand up all she could think of was her $100 dollar bill!!

So that was probably the last trip alone in a store for mom it makes me sad to see the layers of independence being ripped away one by one...

But we decided to blame the Friday 13th Goblins instead!!

Expectations and other hard lessons

hat can you do when your expectations don't match up with the reality?

ANSWER=complain, learn, and move on lol...

I have learned a very valuable lesson! Sometimes I'm naive to the point of being ridiculous.  All I've done since my arrival back home after a 2 and1/2 month wonderful trip is clean, clean, clean! And as soon as the rain stops I have a huge yard clean up to do as well...

Why you say?....OH.... glad you asked...especially since I did have a house sitter, that was my first mistake!

I have been a house sitter in the past sitting at my sister's house and I never left anything for her to do in the house, or outside either, on her return...until they hired a yard service so I no longer had to do the yard clean up...but if limbs fell in the yard between the weekly yard service visits I would always have that picked up by the day my sis would arrive home...Nothing feels better to come home and all is "right"!  Well nothing could be farther from the truth with my experience when I came home on Halloween day. 

Sure it was trick or treat week...but really? And this person is was a friend!

 I totally expected way more for 2 and 1/2  months of room and; board (leave it better than you found it right?)...I had to mop the kitchen floor twice before we could walk on it barefoot  here is the RINSE water!

...my recliner was broken on one side and the foot pedal would not extend...it was fine when I left it.   It took me 2 days to get it fixed!  

 The wood floors felt sticky as the sitter has used "wet swiffers" on the floor...I told her I only use Murphy's Soap on the wood floors.  There was long grey hair all over the bedroom rugs, the bathroom floor, tub...no dusting has been done...she moved things around from where we keep it like our glasses, silverware, she left half eaten containers of food in the fridge, cabinets and on the counters...and SHE LEFT MEAT IN MY FRIDGE AND FREEZER! omg--she totally knows we do not eat meat SO WHY leave it FOR me to throw out? She brought in different cutting boards and left them on the counters as if to say "these are my choice and should be yours"...I ended up cleaning up behind her, tossing all that out! She put my dish cloths in the drawer without laundering them I think she rinsed, hung them up to dry, and then put them back in the drawer...

The recycle bin in the kitchen was heaped to overflowing with dozens of 2 liter soda bottles, milk bottles, processed food packaging...and yet I had instructed that recycles must be taken to the center weekly! And there was another large garbage BAG FULL of the same type stuff on the back screen porch laying in one of our porch chairs.  I have bins in place for this with lids because in the South you can't leave stuff such as that out..it draws vermin and bugs!

None of the 3 porches had been swept up. I left my important plants in the screen porch for easy watering and I asked her to move them inside if it turned frosty She moved them in (it was not frosty) and she stopped watering them all were dry and droopy...

She was to fill the bird feeders, and make sure the bird bath was filled.  Okay when it rains bird feeders need to be cleaned & dried out cause rain gets in and it gets all funky and moldy...I don't think she fed the birds period she allowed the seed I had put in to get low,  then it rained and the last remains got all soaked and moldy and then the day before I arrived she dumped fresh seed on top of that NOT one bird was at the feeders cause there was no way for them to get seeds out thru that gunky mess...the bird bath was green with algae and slime as well as all my yard fountains...the hummingbird feeder was left out to mold and mildew instead of being brought in washed and put away...she told me around Oct 1st that the hummers had left so I said Okay no need to fill that anymore...I guess she is the type that you have to explain every minuscule detail to but to me... an adult knows better!

The front and back yards are littered with limbs, sticks, pine cones...like a trailer load!!  I pick up sticks daily and I showed her the bins I use to do that with...and that was to be part of her chores...because I know how it can collect if  you don't do it daily...if you do it daily it takes about 15 mins a day! One wheel barrow had been half filled with sticks then left sitting on the lawn to collect rain water it was infested with mosquitoes...the firepit was full of standing water cause the drain hole was clogged...all the yard benches were 4" deep with wet leaves...

She left burnt scented candles in jars in the living room? WHY? I should have said NO candle burning... she had put in one of those plug in Glade scent thing...we don't use those type things it uses electric unnecessarily...and smells like perfume..yuk.  

She made several long distance phone calls to some man she knows...yet when I tried to call and let her know our itinerary for returning home she never bothered to return my call. She finally contacted me via an email 6 days later! I never saw it until I returned home.

So never again! In the future I will close the house down, ask my neighbors to keep a watchful eye out and hire a yard service to keep the  yard up that way I would have had nothing to do but relax when I returned and I'm sure it would be cheaper than 2 months of utilities we paid for her to be in the house including satellite TV we had planned to have put in vacation mode.

my yard birds appeared immediately after hanging the cleaned feeders.

But since I chose to have her come here I have the house cleaning and yard work to do.  I was trying to help someone by giving them a cozy place to stay for 2 months since she has no permanent residence.  On the positive side she took the household garbage away, she swept the floors, she changed the linens in the bedroom but left her used towel on the rack in the bathroom, the kitchen was straight and counter tops and dishes all clean but the floors have to be mopped weekly WE live in the country where no paved walks exist so just coming and going makes dirt..the electric bill was about what it normally is and the water bill was lower than average...so I guess in her mind she helped us... in my mind it was a bad idea to have her here.  I guess I expected more in return I didn't think I'd have to come home and clean up behind her. 

My expectations were way out of proportion to the reality. I think Im about as picky as the average bear.... I thought I may be able to save someone else from having the same experience, so fair warning and beware!!