Go into your 24 year old daughter's room, look for laundry that may have been on the floor for a week (because you haven't seen her face in a week) and find a half empty package of BC pills.
Gently scan the room for laundry, back out slowly, bow your head and say a short prayer.
Put in a load of your own laundry. Ponder.
Go upstairs, get on your computer , put on some music on from your youth ( the 70s in my case) and remind yourself of the chances you took at her age.
Take a deep breath.
Get on with it.... and wait for that perfect moment to bring the subject up.
Realize that , in this case, there never will be that "perfect" moment free of tension.
Go with it anyway. Do you job. Remember your roll. Put it out there.
What? A note on the package? A message wrapped in humor? No. That will not do.
But what if you get so busy that you forget to say anything &/or that perfect moment passes?
E mail? No. Face it. Face -to-face is the only way to do this.
Have you secured a relationship with this child that is trusting? And do you realize that you just called a 24 year old a "child"? Are you perpetuating a "baby" syndrome? Do you just realize that you are referring to & struggling with the concept of your baby having a baby?
Listen. Do you hear that song by The Band? It is called, " Life is a Carnival".
Got that right.
Flash.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
I suck at religion.
On the motorcycle forum I frequent someone posted a quiz on religion. I got a 60% (story of my life) & they were bragging about their awesome scores. So here is how I responded:
The first sentence is in response to one guy saying he was " surprised that a teacher can read from the Bible for literature purposes"...
Is the bible copyrighted? Because if it is , technically a teacher would have to ask the author for permission to use it in class. We just got the memo.
So who IS the author? huh? Tell me that all you religious smarty pants. I got 60% on the damn thing and 20% of MY school population is MUSLIM.
I suck. But I know my trees and bugs
Signed... a religious MUTT: Grandfather/ father's side JEWISH, grandmother/father's side CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST ( yeah.... THAT caused some "probems") , Father eventually followed MEHR BABA, Mother PROTESTANT ( VERY non practicing) , HER mother (my grandmother) SOUTHERN BAPTIST.
I was baptized at the age of 30 CATHOLIC.
But I say "under GOD" at the start every school day with the pledge of allegiance so I figure I'm covered..... even with a score of 60%. OR maybe I will just go to hell.
M
ps. My Christian Scientist Grandmother was the daughter of an EPISCOPALIAN Priest... but he left the church because he refused to believe something about the wine & blood...I now practice yoga & watch Dog The Bounty Hunter to relieve the religious strife I feel...NOT.
Last edited by *******; Today at 08:06 PM. Reason: CONFESSION
The first sentence is in response to one guy saying he was " surprised that a teacher can read from the Bible for literature purposes"...
Is the bible copyrighted? Because if it is , technically a teacher would have to ask the author for permission to use it in class. We just got the memo.
So who IS the author? huh? Tell me that all you religious smarty pants. I got 60% on the damn thing and 20% of MY school population is MUSLIM.
I suck. But I know my trees and bugs
Signed... a religious MUTT: Grandfather/ father's side JEWISH, grandmother/father's side CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST ( yeah.... THAT caused some "probems") , Father eventually followed MEHR BABA, Mother PROTESTANT ( VERY non practicing) , HER mother (my grandmother) SOUTHERN BAPTIST.
I was baptized at the age of 30 CATHOLIC.
But I say "under GOD" at the start every school day with the pledge of allegiance so I figure I'm covered..... even with a score of 60%. OR maybe I will just go to hell.
M
ps. My Christian Scientist Grandmother was the daughter of an EPISCOPALIAN Priest... but he left the church because he refused to believe something about the wine & blood...I now practice yoga & watch Dog The Bounty Hunter to relieve the religious strife I feel...NOT.
Last edited by *******; Today at 08:06 PM. Reason: CONFESSION
Sunday, September 26, 2010
I ran across this...
Was going to pick & chose a few things but then it is all out of context. The link is here. I like what he says.
Frank Furedi: Five things I have learned
Name: Frank Furedi
Occupation: Professor of Sociology at University of Kent, and author of books including Paranoid Parenting, Politics of Fear, Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?, Therapy Culture, Culture of Fear and Wasted: Why Education is not Educating
Education: BA in international relations at McGill University, Montreal, then studied African politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and received his doctorate from the University of Kent.
Continue reading the main story
Related stories
* Michael Gove: Five things I have learned
* Jill Berry: Five things I have learned
* Siobhan Freegard: Five things I have learned
Lives: Faversham, Kent
Born: 1947, Budapest, Hungary
Family life: Married to Ann; says he is "attempting to father" his 15-year-old son, Jake
Unusual fact: A former student radical, in the 70s, he was the founder and chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
1. Listen - because you can learn from anybody.
I have learnt that it is a mistake not to listen to people, even people who you don't take seriously, because those who appear ignorant can surprise you with their insights into life. Even if you disagree with what they say, through listening you can learn what it is that leads them to adopt an erroneous conclusion. That's one way of learning about other people's experiences and about life.
A genuine listening strategy is surprisingly difficult to acquire - but it is well worth the effort.
2. Question everything
This is one of the things I found most difficult to do. It's very easy to fall back into old ways and repeat things you have done in the past. When I simply follow someone else's opinion or unthinkingly repeat what I thought previously, I quite often end up realising that I'm on the wrong track. However, through questioning my beliefs and those of others it soon becomes evident that what worked yesterday may be inappropriate in a different context.
Moreover, it's only in the course of questioning that you make progress in developing and refining your ideas. I have really come to appreciate Socrates. He was always annoying everyone by going to the market and asking questions. But those questions often led to greater clarity.
3. Rely on your intuition
We live in a world where we are bombarded by conflicting instructions through the media. As a father and a teacher I have been forced to rely on my intuition. I have learned to use my intuition even when people that I respect point me in a very different direction. Intuition is really your experience codified - insights gained through the working of your emotions and ideas. It doesn't mean you are always right but it does put you in the right direction.
4. Always reflect on your motives when you are dealing with your children
Parents make big emotional investments in their children so that sometimes they confuse their own needs with those of their children. It is easy to overlook the fact that sometimes what we want for ourselves is not what our kids need.
There is so much pressure to live our lives through our children. That's why we need to pause and have a reality check. We need to think about our motives by asking the question: "Am I doing this for them or for myself?" You may still end up doing something that meets your own needs rather than those of your child, but at least you will not be deluding yourself.
5. Things are never as bad as they seem.
This is something I learned later in life. I was a micro-manager, always meeting deadlines, imagining that everything that could go bad would go bad. It is only relatively recently that I learned that the situation is rarely as bad as you imagine. We have a tremendous capacity for resilience, for bouncing back and not allowing our disappointments to overwhelm us.
Often what happens depends on how we respond to a problem. We can make a drama out of a crisis and feel sorry for ourselves for the next 10 years or we can find a strategy for moving on and looking for new opportunities. Moving on, always moving on, has become one of the key principles guiding my daily life.
Frank Furedi: Five things I have learned
Name: Frank Furedi
Occupation: Professor of Sociology at University of Kent, and author of books including Paranoid Parenting, Politics of Fear, Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?, Therapy Culture, Culture of Fear and Wasted: Why Education is not Educating
Education: BA in international relations at McGill University, Montreal, then studied African politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and received his doctorate from the University of Kent.
Continue reading the main story
Related stories
* Michael Gove: Five things I have learned
* Jill Berry: Five things I have learned
* Siobhan Freegard: Five things I have learned
Lives: Faversham, Kent
Born: 1947, Budapest, Hungary
Family life: Married to Ann; says he is "attempting to father" his 15-year-old son, Jake
Unusual fact: A former student radical, in the 70s, he was the founder and chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
1. Listen - because you can learn from anybody.
I have learnt that it is a mistake not to listen to people, even people who you don't take seriously, because those who appear ignorant can surprise you with their insights into life. Even if you disagree with what they say, through listening you can learn what it is that leads them to adopt an erroneous conclusion. That's one way of learning about other people's experiences and about life.
A genuine listening strategy is surprisingly difficult to acquire - but it is well worth the effort.
2. Question everything
This is one of the things I found most difficult to do. It's very easy to fall back into old ways and repeat things you have done in the past. When I simply follow someone else's opinion or unthinkingly repeat what I thought previously, I quite often end up realising that I'm on the wrong track. However, through questioning my beliefs and those of others it soon becomes evident that what worked yesterday may be inappropriate in a different context.
Moreover, it's only in the course of questioning that you make progress in developing and refining your ideas. I have really come to appreciate Socrates. He was always annoying everyone by going to the market and asking questions. But those questions often led to greater clarity.
3. Rely on your intuition
We live in a world where we are bombarded by conflicting instructions through the media. As a father and a teacher I have been forced to rely on my intuition. I have learned to use my intuition even when people that I respect point me in a very different direction. Intuition is really your experience codified - insights gained through the working of your emotions and ideas. It doesn't mean you are always right but it does put you in the right direction.
4. Always reflect on your motives when you are dealing with your children
Parents make big emotional investments in their children so that sometimes they confuse their own needs with those of their children. It is easy to overlook the fact that sometimes what we want for ourselves is not what our kids need.
There is so much pressure to live our lives through our children. That's why we need to pause and have a reality check. We need to think about our motives by asking the question: "Am I doing this for them or for myself?" You may still end up doing something that meets your own needs rather than those of your child, but at least you will not be deluding yourself.
5. Things are never as bad as they seem.
This is something I learned later in life. I was a micro-manager, always meeting deadlines, imagining that everything that could go bad would go bad. It is only relatively recently that I learned that the situation is rarely as bad as you imagine. We have a tremendous capacity for resilience, for bouncing back and not allowing our disappointments to overwhelm us.
Often what happens depends on how we respond to a problem. We can make a drama out of a crisis and feel sorry for ourselves for the next 10 years or we can find a strategy for moving on and looking for new opportunities. Moving on, always moving on, has become one of the key principles guiding my daily life.
Friday, September 24, 2010
What is a " Miche " bag?
Jamie is all excited about getting one. How did she figure all this stuff out on her own???!!!
haha
F :)
haha
F :)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
I am going on a ride to Rochester.
Tomorrow. I made up the route. I am looking forward to it. The weather looks good. We will have to be careful of wash out from the rain. I am staying with Jamie tomorrow. She is in charge of a walk. She syas it is for FAT people . She works with obese patients & their diet/ insulin/ diabetes. It is disconcerting that she refres to her patients as FAT people but then I remeber a certain teaher calling his students "little bastards" & thought THAT was funny. So I should understand.
I understood the stupid green sheets. They were in flux & some things are just like hat.
M
I understood the stupid green sheets. They were in flux & some things are just like hat.
M
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
About Me
- Mary
- I'm a real princess of a gal:) Want to know more about who I am? Check out my Amazon.com "I Heart You" wish list above. Feel free to feed my fetishes.