One of my fears is that I will get stuck in a rut. That’s not likely to happen, at least until I can’t get around anymore. I subscribe to Trivia Today to help spark new and interesting ideas. Mostly, I get a sense of hmmm, that’s interesting. Sometimes a quote or piece of trivia provokes a rabbit trail of thought. Occasionally, I will take a thought and pen a quick 500 words as a writing exercise. Today’s random tidbits included the origins of matchbox cars, Gumby, Frisbee, Twister, and the game Operation. There’s usually something there to spark interest in a writer’s soul! Gophercentral.com has the Trivia Today ezine as well as others if you want to check it out.
Today, Melissa mentioned a friend who passed away at the age of 32. Her friend’s sister chose to honor her sister’s birthday by 32 random acts of kindness for complete strangers. Melissa was inspired to try a few acts of kindness herself and her cousin joined in. Saturday October 19th is Sweetest Day, or so the florists and Hallmark tell me. I’m in a reduce/recycle mode right now and tonight I will be looking around for something that a random stranger might need. Last night I gave away a bag of empty aluminum cans to an older gentleman who makes his social security check stretch by recycling. That was without thinking. I think I can do better than that to celebrate Sweetest Day and not have to worry about the calories! What is gathering dust in your home that someone needs? Can you think of a random act of kindness to lift someone up? Go Forth and Be Random! (and rut free)
Tag Archives: family
Sweetest Day – October 19th
Filed under Writing
My Life is a Circus!
My life is a circus and I have a tent to prove it! It has been a little crazy lately. My beloved was a wonderful man. He could leap tall buildings, fix anything, reverse engineer or design engineer almost anything. I’m not exaggerating, he was a genius and had the IQ scores to prove it. He would give you the shirt off his back and had literally done so on at least two occasions I can recall. But, ah yes the but! He could not say no! Even when it caused his death. A close friend and former mentor had a heart attack and it turns out he was a hoarder. This could have been filmed for a reality show. The hoarders’ adult daughter called and pleaded for help. Mind you she had her family, her husband, her church, her father’s church and many friends in town. We lived over an hour away. But hey, she knew this close friend who could perform miracles and who wouldn’t say no….
My beloved should have been in intensive care with a fatal case of pneumonia. He was resting at home because he feared and hated hospitals. She knew this, you could hear it in his voice and as he coughed up liquid.
The call came and he went on Friday. I went with him on Saturday and Sunday and helped toss over a ton of belongings into a roll off dumpster. I begged, I cried, I watched him bend over and cough out water from his lungs. He came home Sunday night, could not get out of bed Monday and died on Tuesday morning. He was 52.
I do not bear her ill will, I am not angry with her, I think I have forgiven her, I may have to again, but I am not ready to talk to her yet. Maybe when the circus has left town and I can find some balance in my life again. Maybe these relationships just need to gently fade into the past with the pain as time goes by.
It has been one year and I have been fighting the bugs that came home with him all this time. The cockroaches were easy to kill, the silverfish a little harder but not impossible. The bed bugs won. Until I declared nuclear war and called in the fumigators. Food had to be removed and frozen. Anything taken out of the house had to be frozen or heated to over 130 degrees. We had to find homes for our three cats and ourselves for a week. My adult daughter is spending a few months with me to help me with the chaos of my life. We are both chemically sensitive and Vikane gas with a Tear Gas precursor is a very nasty chemical cocktail. It kills EVERYTHING! We have tossed and replaced one mattress and one box springs and had to destroy a lot of food that we either missed or just wouldn’t make the transfers. The tent alone cost $2,640. and other costs are still mounting. The biggest cost has been the life of my husband so the material possessions pale in comparison.
Clean, toss out, reorganize, sanitize…boxes and bags everywhere. I think it is the residue from the tear gas that is giving us sore throats and sore nasal cavities. It is better after washing all the bedding. The hundreds of little black bodies all over the house…who knew how many house flies and spiders we really had, even after a grocery store type of chemical bombing. The vacuum is busy and so are my daughter and myself!
My advice to you, say no when it is appropriate! Take care of your own health first! Regift, REDUCE, reuse, recycle! And so very important to avoid some of this mess….go to Wal-Mart and buy mattress and pillow cases for bed bugs. Put your box spring, your mattress and every bed pillow in the house in one! Strip all bedding, including the blankets, off your beds after visitors and wash and/or at least heat up in the dryer.
The folks at Clark Pest Control have been as wonderful as they could possibly be. They were very aggressive with the process (a good thing) and their sales person, Vincent, called me almost daily during the process. Sometimes three and four times a day. Now that I have “come clean” about my experience, others are confessing their own stories and what we have is an epidemic of bed bugs, especially areas that do not freeze over. Think about it….someone will pay the consequences of our actions, maybe not ourselves, but someone will.
Fumigation Tent
Filed under Family Times, Grief, Travel
Serenity Doesn’t Come Easy
I’m back from a favorite trip to Morro Bay. It was wonderful to spend some time with my host just hanging out and talking. Watched a few Sci Fi shows and a couple of chick flicks. Did our nails like teenagers (did you know there are magnetic polishes now?!) and did hand work. Really enjoyed the food and the long walks on the beach. There are two things in nature that seem to really calm and center me, the ocean and a redwood forest. I’ve always felt you can hear God breathe in a redwood forest. I have so many happy memories of family time spent camping when my Dad was alive. The teaching moments on a camping trip have served me a lifetime already. He would pull the truck up to the campsite and everyone would pile out and go canvass the entire site looking for trash, broken glass and anything that might be non-native or hazardous. Then we would create our home away from home. After spending a week or two, even a few days, we would canvass the area again before we left it. Dad always said to leave a place better than you found it. If you borrowed something, you gave it back better than it was loaned to you.
I am continually introduced to individuals that are suffering from some form of severe anxiety. Their lives are full of the stress of living a lifestyle while being unable to stretch their time and dollars from that lifestyle to their beliefs. It cannot stretch that far without changes.
“We live longer than our forefathers; but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles; we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves.” Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)
My recommendation, less time at Starbucks and more time on the beach and in a redwood forest chatting with God. Hey, it works for me! I’m already planning my next trip!
Filed under Stress Reduction, Travel, Word Worthy Quotations
Beautiful Days and Nights
This is my favorite time of the year, even with my allergies. I’m lucky enough to have the fruit trees in my yard bloom in succession. The floral show begins with a well developed plum tree, moves on to the apricot, cherry, limequat, apple, early and then late peach and almond trees. The olive trees (2) join in there somewhere and the blackberry bushes delight my bees by blooming most of the spring and summer. The season ends with a flourish as the Cottonwood trees dump fluff all over the lawn in the heat of summer.
This wonderful show can be seen from my patio! This weekend we hauled out the 8′ folding tables and had a traditional Italian feast of…Mexican food…LOL! Seriously, I love the laughter, hugs and kisses and the delight as the children run full out in the yard. What a great day to be a kid! What a great day to be a mom and grandmom! It was a treat as my daughter made it up from Morro Bay and it is great to have her home. I don’t think I heard a disparaging word all night.
My sons “of my heart” split a particularly dense and well seasoned oak log and built a roaring fire in the fire pit when the light faded. We continued to enjoy the night with birthday cupcakes and citronella candles flickering in tune with the fire pit.
I think I shall take a snapshot of Saturday night and save it in my soul. My treasures.
Filed under Family Times
Tessa Bertoldi 