Category Archives: Life in General

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RSS Feed – Like Getting A Letter From A Friend

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I have been using Google Reader for longer than I can remember and at present there are 242 subscriptions that I currently read or have read in the past on a regular basis. I was shocked to see how many there are actually, but as I have them all neatly organized by subject matter or in cases by location such as UK, NZ, and US friends, I never noticed how many I had tucked away for safekeeping.

I’ve got headings for Art, Travel, Money and Investing, Photography, and Writing, UK expats in the US, and vice versa, along with some folks in a group so small that I put them together under India & Turkey. There’s a food section and heading for health topics and something I call Decorating Stuff that I no longer spend much time looking over since we finished the extension to the house. There are loads more groupings that I won’t bother to go into because what I really want to say has to do with something I have recently discovered.

It’s more of a realization really … as long as I’ve been reading blogs I have always resisted the subtle or not so subtle messages to click on the RSS button as noted in my top right corner or the email subscription found slightly lower down the page because in my mind I did not want it ‘cluttering’ up my inbox. I thought, No thanks, I’d rather visit you rather than have you just dropping in unannounced, and I must admit it has worked really well for me and I’ve not felt a need to change it.

Until recently that is … when I clicked on the very subtle, almost hidden, subscribe button of someone I never like to miss. She had been away from blogging for a few months as she was off doing more important things like building houses and reuniting families. When she popped back up in my google reader after being gone so long, I was ‘over the moon’ happy to see her again. During her absence, I’d followed her on Facebook and Twitter, but it just wasn’t the same as the longer bits on her blog that always felt like letters from a friend.

It wasn’t until her next posting and those that followed that I began to see the real merit for me in subscribing. Rather than my going to her place to catch up or share a thought, she pops into my inbox now just like any of my friends would. It always makes me smile to see what Jen Lemen has to say and given how much I enjoy seeing her mail arrive, I may just have to subscribe to a few more folks who have a similar effect on my moods and attitude.

I’m curious as to how you find the blogs you enjoying reading more than once or twice, do you bookmark, subscribe, use Google reader or something else perhaps? I’d be especially interested in how you find your way to my place and as always, thanks so much for stopping by and taking time to comment.

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When Is Good, Good Enough?

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Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.

~Harriet Braiker

I frequently struggle with what to keep and what to discard when it comes to my images. I can easily see exposure issues with this flower that cannot be resolved without losing detail in certain areas … yet each time I move to send it to the trash something stops my hand. It’s not perfect, but there is something happening in the very center that makes me want to give it another look. What about you, how do you let go of the need to be perfect and make peace with good enough?

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Comfort In The Dark Or What Waits In The Light

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John and I were talking about regrets this morning and I clearly have many more than he does. Never someone to sit around waiting for change, I have often jumped at opportunities when perhaps I should have waited, but I have always been more afraid of missing something than making a wrong decision.

Ralph Waldo Emerson might have been speaking to me when he said. ” For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

I’ve heard people say and have said it myself, that everything that has happened in our lives makes us who we are now, but sometimes I still wonder what might have been different had I been more content to wait for the light of a new day to reach me instead of always trying to find my way out of the dark on my own.

There is something to be gained in patience, a virtue I have long needed to learn.

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My New Blog Crush Is A Brazen Careerist

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I hope you won’t think me fickle, but I have new crush and she’s been taking up quite a lot of my time lately. Penelope Trunk’s blog, Brazen Careerist is so popular that she has tons of readers … 52,400 subscribers at present. Most of them probably think they’re stopping by to pick up a little career advice, but there is so much more to this woman than just how to get ahead in business.

We haven’t known each other for long … well, she doesn’t know me at all, but I do have a few favorites of hers I want to share with you. This bit of advice makes total sense to me. I have known this for a while now and actually managed to work it out on my own, but I was well into my forties before came together a flash of awareness. Here is another post that might look like business advice, but it’s really like a parachute in a way. Then there is this one, I like it because it might make you think differently about the stories you’ve been told about how having or finding the right job is the path to happiness.

Part of what I’ve been impressed with is the way that most of her favorite posts are about her relationships with the people in her life who mean the most to her. Of course you will find seeds of other topics tucked neatly in the intellectual soil waiting to germinate in your consciousness. She’s good that way … she knows how to take a bit of this and that and shape it into a good story that will make you want to stop by later to see what’s happening in her world. Before you know it you be hanging out like a stage door groupie, waiting for the next post. Okay, maybe you won’t have it that bad, but I do think you might enjoy a little nose around her space if you’ve got some time in your schedule.

And this crush thing … it doesn’t mean that I don’t still love you too, because you know I do!

xo

E

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Airborne

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Miranda went back to Atlanta yesterday flying out on Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day has been a challenge for me in many ways over the years and yesterday was no exception. Waiting in a London hotel near the airport, I woke at 2:15 thinking it was 4:00 and got up to sip coffee and make notes in the dark as I tried not to wake my daughter asleep in the next bed.

Working on an idea for a Mother’s Day post which never made it to the blog, I filled several pages by hand on the largest paper space I could find, writing in the back of a book I had brought to read before bed. After checking her flight information online, I could see there was a problem when Delta had her listed as leaving one day later than she was scheduled to fly.

It turned out that the Atlanta flight had a problem the night before and had never left the US. Arriving at the airport early, she was able to get on a flight leaving six hours later out of Heathrow, and Delta shuttled her with the other passengers over by bus from Gatwick to wait for the flight.

She’s sleeping now in the US as I was when she sent a text message last night letting me know she made it back so we haven’t had a chance to discuss her journey. Because she was added to an existing flight, she had to take any available seat which meant she went from sitting on an aisle to being wedged between two people the whole way back.

After she knew she would be on the flight out of Heathrow, she emailed her dad to let him know the changes since he was picking her up in Atlanta. While she was typing, I noticed a man in desert fatigues coming into the airport with more backpacks and duffel bags than one person should try to manage on their own, even if as a soldier he was used to struggling with the weight of things.

I could see he was trying to pick up the various bags to strap them to his body so I went over quickly and asked to help. I didn’t really wait for an answer and picked up the military issued backpack while offering to take the duffel bag he had already lifted on to the front of his body forming a sort of counter to the large load strapped to his back.

He was almost one color with hair a bit like several shades of sand all mixed together matching the color of his uniform and all of his gear. Looking back now, I am surprised he let me help him as often travelers are warned about people offering help with an intention to harm. I guess my looking like a mom alleviated any concern he might have felt along with his travel fatigue.

As I helped him maneuver two floors up to the Delta check-in area, he told me that he had been traveling for two days from Afghanistan and was just trying to get to Atlanta so he could catch the next flight back to his home in Louisiana.

I found myself telling him how I had been in the army too, noting silently that it was probably years before he had been born from the look of him. After putting his bags down at the end of a long line of stressed looking people, he reached out to shake my hand and said, ” Thank you, ma’am,” just a sweetly as could be. I thought about how his mother was probably waiting for him in Louisiana or maybe he was hoping to surprise her by arriving home in secret on Mother’s Day and how wouldn’t she be pleased to see that even as weary as he looked to be, her boy still remembered his manners.

I asked Miranda to let me know if he made the flight and while I haven’t heard from her yet, I sure hope they found him a seat.

*Photograph by Miranda.

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Grown

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Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing.

~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

If you guessed that our first visitor from America was my daughter Miranda, you would be right. I’m thrilled to bits to have her here and introduce her to my UK life. I just have to remember she’s grown.

When she was a baby, I used to kiss her all over her face telling people who happened to catch me at what some thought was an excessive display of mother love that I was stocking up for the days to come when a mother’s kisses might not be as welcomed, knowing even then that children reach an age fairly quickly and rightly so that begins to give you limited access in some areas of their lives.

At twenty-two she’s been there for while, but I still need to remind myself sometimes. I know it’s healthy and normal and I am glad she has grown up to claim her own space in this world, but sometimes I wish just for a minute … I could have one more chance to shower her with kisses.

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Friends With Benefits

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If you are American you are probably are familiar the expression, friends with benefits that I’ve used as a title for today. John thought it meant having friends who receive state benefits when I asked him what he thought so after explaining the American meaning of the phrase to him, I decided to add a link for those reading who might need more information. I’ll be using those three little words a bit differently today to illustrate a few of the benefits I have discovered after making new friends here in Cornwall.

My husband John and I have a great life together which I would say is only missing two things, one of which I barely notice now, but most of my American readers would think impossible to live without. I know I did at first and still struggle a bit with it on some of the cold and wet days that seem to stay with us for long stretches in the winter.

Georgia winters are cold and wet too so that was nothing new, but making it through the damp days without a tumble dryer as Brits call the other half of the washer/dryer combo was a whole other beast. John thinks they are a waste of energy and has never owned one. Two years into a dryer-less life, I find that I have adjusted to hanging them on a clothesline in all sorts of weather and I am no longer ” bovvered “ as Lauren Cooper might say.

The other thing I miss is having my own dog. We travel so frequently that it really is impossible to consider getting one. It would be too hard on the dog to board at a kennel and too costly as well. So for now we remain dog-less at least in our home anyway.

You see everywhere I go in this village there seem to be dogs and some people don’t stop with one, they have two or three. So there are always plenty around to play with like Cherry and Nigel’s new puppies that I had an opportunity to photograph in the churchyard on Saturday.

Remember what I said earlier about friends with benefits … well, having a chance to play with sweet puppies like Alfie and Dougie are two of the benefits that go with having Cherry and Nigel as friends. Not that those too aren’t great on their own, but letting me cuddle up to their new boys makes it just about perfect.

Remember what I said about having not one, but two …

I almost can’t stand the cuteness whenever I am around these two.

Dougie chasing Alfie through the primroses.

Looking for something to nibble.

Striking a pose.

Alfie discovering someone else on the scene.

Mark and Nigel trying to get Dougie to pose while Alfie pretends he is a patch of white primroses on the ground in between them.

Dougie doing his best to look aloof.

One of me in the pub with Alfie … pubs with dogs … heavenly!

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Dixie Carter – A Strong Southern Woman

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(Internet photo)

When Dixie Carter died last Saturday, Julia Sugarbaker breathed her last too. Although Julia Sugarbaker was only one role she played during a lifetime as a working actor, it is the one I will always associate most with her. Writer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason may have created the feisty southern character, but it was Dixie Carter who made her come alive.

During the late 80’s and early 90’s there were several television shows I tried never to miss, and Designing Women was one of them. While I always pictured myself as more Murphy Brown than Julia Sugarbaker, my step-mom Cullene could easily have been the model for the well heeled, articulate character, who was always willing to fight for the underdog or let someone know when they had pushed her just a bit too far.

As I’ve gotten older, I know there have been times in my life when I might have been channeling versions of all three women, calling on some secret source of inner strength that even I was not always aware was waiting in reserve. Take a look at this video where Julia speaks her mind one more time if you are not sure of what I mean. Dixie Carter may be gone, but she lives on in her children, in the roles she created, and in women who cheered each time Julia Sugarbaker stood her ground, leading the way for southern women who were watching like me.

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I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

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Photographs of Mollye are lifted from Facebook

I am stealing a song title from a Beatle’s tune this morning to say a few more words about the post I wrote here a couple of days ago, which I followed up with this one yesterday where I thanked everyone for their supportive comments. If you are someone who reads comments left by others as I sometimes do except over at Pioneer Woman’s place because one post can garner thousands of comments and who has time to read that many … anyway, if you happen to be reading the comments left on the post, Are You Judy’s Daughter, you will see a comment from someone named Mollye, that could do with a bit of an explanation.

My dear friend Mollye is one of the sweetest souls I know. We met about ten years ago when we were both working with folks who were either infected or affected by HIV. While I worked mostly with the physicians and medical providers who managed their care, I also had an opportunity to meet people like Mollye who worked at the time for one of the AIDS service organizations in Atlanta. After reading her comment on the revealing mother-daughter post I wrote, I decided it might be a bit confusing without a little backstory.

Mollye is quite accomplished in many ways, in addition to working as a gifted therapist, she is an amazing artist and photographer. She specializes in pet photography when she’s not helping people searching for their best selves and I only wish I had more of her art hanging on my walls.

I sent Mollye a message yesterday with a link telling her of the dream I had a few days ago that prompted me to write the mother-daughter post. What I did not say publicly in that post was that Mollye had been in my dream too, showing up right at the end just as I was waking up. I told Mollye that I was not sure whether it was because I had looked at her art just before I went to bed which deals directly with ghosts and is titled “Spirits of the Field,” or because she is an Alabama native which is the last place I saw my mother who has lived only two hours from my former home in Georgia for about the last twenty years. For whatever reason Mollye popped in at the last minute, it was comforting to wake up with a sense of her nurturing presence after the familiar rejection by my mother in the dream.

When I woke this morning and sat down to check my messages as I do while the coffee is brewing, I read the sweet comment she left me and felt so lucky to have friends in my life like Mollye. We all have histories and ghosts that haunt us, but who we become in spite of it all is a true measure of a life well lived.

I could make excuses for my mother’s behavior, but there is nothing so horrible in her history that would have made her into the bitter narcissistic person that she is. She is what she is by choice and although I understand that intellectually, that knowledge has provided little emotional comfort over the years.

There is one thing I am very sure of and that is while we may not be able to choose the path we on which we begin our journey, we can choose which direction we take once we gain our own footing. The love and kindness of friends like Mollye are some of the gifts of my journey and an example of the good you receive in life when you choose to walk in the light.

Please feel free to share your story of someone who might be a ” Mollye ” in your life in a comment below.

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Telling Your Children The Truth

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Children ask a lot of questions and some are easier to answer than others. The dreaded ones for me were never about sex or the where do babies come from type of questions because I was ready for those. I had read enough books to feel confident and even practiced the answers years before I would actually have to talk about those subjects, but the questions that left me stymied were the ones I could not have anticipated. These would be the kind of inquiries from your child where you have a split second to make a decision as to whether to tell the truth or maybe stretch it a little or even a lot.

Example # 1,  A lovely little get together with a famous bunny taken about 20 years ago. It looks as if it was going well, right  … my daughter was holding hands with the Easter Bunny and having a sweet little chat and then she spots it.

” Hey,  what’s this …  ”   Three guesses what her next question to me was.