Ann's Joy Thread

Just came across this and had to share. It's my ex with his whole slew of kids, ours and his steps. I'm sure Susan was 13 - will explain in a bit - so the pic is 29-30 years old. Everybody, including the ex, looks very very young.

L-R: Our Susan (13)Stepson Dusty (16) Our Lynn (15) Bill(39-40, or Dave's current age) Our Dave (9) S-s Sandy(14).

I remember Susan's age because of an incident that happened around the same time. I took my three to a movie. One of my students was working as an usher at the theater. Shortly after the film started, he came up and hunkered by my seat. The following whispered conversation ensued:

Quote :

Mrs. J
Yes, Jeff
I'm in love with your daughter.
Since when, Jeff
Since I just saw her with you in the lobby.
Which one, Jeff
The one in the hat.
She's 13, Jeff
I don't care.
I do, Jeff
Can I just call her?
Two more years, Jeff.
Jeez!
Bye, Jeff

Susan was very into Indiana Jones; hence, the fedora.

Ann

Ann ,

You were a fun mother. Your kids were lucky.

Having fun seemed to be a really important thing, Alice, considering the circumstances.

Ann

As I mentioned before, we had a lot of fun and family joy; that's just not the way my adult son remembers it.

Dear Diane,

When adult children blame parents for what ever they felt deprived of, it is time for them to get a grip on real life. You were not put on this earth to be their fairy godmother. You did the best you could. They have the control of their life, now. Let them get on with it.

Love,
Betty

What does he remember?

dkchristi wrote:

As I mentioned before, we had a lot of fun and family joy; that's just not the way my adult son remembers it.

My son remembered more of it than my daughters did. I've mentioned that before, too, DK. The odd thing is, for a long time, it upset me that they didn't remember. I reached the point where I was upset so much of the time, I had to just let it go, to the point of letting them go. I came to the conclusion that, while accepting responsibility for the choices I made during those years was a good thing, taking on the responsibility for everybody else's choices was keeping them from accepting their own responsibility, and getting that grip that Betty mentioned.

Eventually, they came around. Without me around to blame, they had to deal with their own stuff. They're starting to remember again.

Ann

Ann,

I am so happy for you. You have proved circumstances are not the determiner of your happiness.

Having reprimanded my youngest daughter, a good many years ago, she exclaimed, "I didn't ask to be born." Now she has two children and I expect one day she will be confronted with some form of rebellion.

Ann, you have a good looking family. Thanks for sharing. They provide a lifetime of memories - good and bad. It is often pleasing when our kids experience the same things we did, however on important issues, we hope they don't.

When we can let them go, they can grow. That's not always an easy thing to do. We want to protect them from making the mistakes we made.

It is very flattering when our kids want to emulate us. Internally we scream, NO, you have no idea what we went through to be who we are today.

We are all unique, shaped by life's experiences. They will create their own identity and we hope it will be less stressful and more fulfilling than ours. No matter how old they are, they are still our kids and we want to protect them. Letting go is not easy.

Thank you, Abe. Much of my joy this morning is coming from your posts. Gisela's positive report, your son's letter, and even a bit of good news from a newspaper. Now I am looking forward to becoming 70 in a couple of years.

Ann

The strangest thing happened here in San Antonio Thursday morning. The wind picked up and started howling around the houses. The sky got very dark - you would almost think it was nighttime, and all of a sudden, water started falling out of the sky! Have you ever heard of such a thing? It fell so hard and so fast, and the wind would catch it until it seemed to be falling straight across instead of coming down. There were all sorts of loud rumblings coming from the sky, and flashes of light with loud pops. I later heard that in a few places around the city, that little bits of ice fell out of the sky along with the water. Very strange phenomena, indeed.

It was scary at first, but then, it started to feel kind of exhilarating, and the mornings since, both yesterday and today, everything outside seems fresh and clean, and there are little patches of ground that almost look green.

So I feel quite joyful this morning, and am looking forward to the possibility that these phenomena just might occur again.

Wouldn't that be a good thing?

Ann

Ann,
Where I live, we would enjoy that. It is very dry and some of the vineyards are turning brown. It will not be a good harvest unless we get rain soon.
As I write this, the clouds are moving in and that shows promise. I'm getting ready to go to a concert and it may be safe to carry an umbrella.

My garden needs water also. I've heard on the news about floods in parts of the USA. Weather extremes are becoming the norm.

They say that any weather phenomenon is simply a part of nature's way of regaining balance. Things must be awfully unbalanced all around the globe. Seems highly unnatural that so much needs our Mother's correction. Maybe we should be trying to find ways to get back in Her good graces.

Ann

This morning's widget message:

Quote :

If you follow your bliss, you will always have your bliss, money or not. If you follow money, you may lose it, and you will have nothing.
A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Ann

The granite installers came and made templates for our granite countertops. "Inch by inch."

Our original countertops are only 26 years old. The countertop folks said, "You take good care of things."

It is fun getting updated.

It's funny now. My mother was a compulsive housekeeper and a perfectionist. She gave me a hard time about my lack of devotion to housework from the day I married until the day she died. I gave too much time to a lot of unnecessary guilt during those years.

But when I put my house in Houston on the market, after living in it for 22 years (It was 6 months old when I bought it, and the original owner worked for the builder, and only left because he was transferred to a different city.), and as a working single mom (She always had a full time housekeeper while we were at home.), not only my own real estate agent, but the ones she invited to the open house, kept walking through it and talking about how well it had been maintained. I walked behind them, saying inside my head, "Are you listening, Mommie Dearest??"

Take full pleasure in those comments, Alice. They are well-deserved.

Ann

When we sold our house in Glasgow, one of the viewers said it was the cleanest house she had ever seen. I do not keep my home immaculately clean -- but I made darn sure it was immaculate when we sold it!

My wife's aunt, when still alive, asked Gisela how often she vacummed. My wife answered, "When it needs it." Some women have a morning routine to vacumm and/or dust whether it needs it or not. What a waste of energy.

"Cleanliness is next to impossible."

My mother washed the walls at least twice a month. Vacuuming was a daily thing. But she never worked outside her home, and continued to have a housekeeper come in on a weekly basis after my brother and I left home. Before that, as I've said, she had daily help.

Have you ever seen Mommie Dearest? Remember the opening scene, where Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford was scrubbing the floor? It freaked me out.

But this is a joy thread, so let's not go there.

Ann

Went dancing two nights in a row; the owner welcomed us like we were regulars, hah. He doesn't make much on my soda & lime. Anyway, tonight a lovely, elderly couple were trying to dance. It brought tears of joy and sadness at the same time. She was obviously suffering from a stroke or something similar. He held her close and moved to the music. She barely moved at all, but hung on tightly and both were smiling. Perhaps they remembered when they danced across the floor. I don't know. Their smile was infectious.

I hate to dust. I would much prefer to wash the kitchen countertop. My step mother in-law was a perfectionist who said she would teach me to clean house! She grabbed a can of lysol spray , and sprayed the top of our piano--end of piano finish!
Oh well. Now I have a reason to hate dusting.

She was hard to please.

Ann,

Your mother was compulsive in the extreme. My mother liked to wash the ceilings.
she was very fussy yet a disaster at decorating.

She hung pictures behind doors etc.

Her housekeper was me. I was so fed up with housework, I let our kids get by wih few and I mean very few household chores. It's all right they both work now.
Kids should be kids.

I was determined that my kids would have me, and to he** with the housework. But I was better at it than I thought I was. I thought I was supposed to do it like Mom did.

Oh, well. We are who we are sometimes because of and some times in spite of our upbringing.

I don't think we are born blank slates. I think that predilections are already there. We are born for a purpose, and maybe what we remember as sh** is something we needed to experience in order to be able to do what we came here to do.

Bedtime night all
Ann

dkchristi wrote:

Went dancing two nights in a row; the owner welcomed us like we were regulars, hah. He doesn't make much on my soda & lime. Anyway, tonight a lovely, elderly couple were trying to dance. It brought tears of joy and sadness at the same time. She was obviously suffering from a stroke or something similar. He held her close and moved to the music. She barely moved at all, but hung on tightly and both were smiling. Perhaps they remembered when they danced across the floor. I don't know. Their smile was infectious.

Diane,
Your description created a touching scene centered on love.

"...hard to say what my happiness is anymore, not that I am unhappy, only that it always seems something in the context of that which is around it..." mused the goblin at least happy to have found this thread then, adding "...perhaps one of my happinesses is a build-up I see within myself, how during the day my posting seems all clever, attentive, responding to others, and how just it continues into the evening where at some point something else takes over now, and the slot in front of me seems to become a path where I'm slowly walking within these written words, at times retracing my steps perhaps, but going somewhere all the same, this then is my journey to self, till finally at some point just before the sandman shows, the clock slows its ticking, and in that moment one knows that this is it all that it is, but one also knows that this really is everything too, for here is the self that was trying to reach all along..."