What's age but just a number

I don't really think of myself as 44 years old.  The first weekend of every month at church those celebrating a birthday are called forward to receive a birthday blessing.  As if you can only receive the blessing if you confess your age, everyone in turn speaks their name and how old they are going to be that month.  So, I proclaim in front of 350 people that I'm going to be 44!  Wow!  I think that's when it hit me.  I was feeling a little glum after that.  A birthday wish by another parishioner came with "it's okay, it's just a number."

Your age is really only a number until you fill out a survey.  You know, the kind that have the questions at the end that everybody wants to avoid... what's your household income?  Your race?  Your AGE!  Well, I've got but one more year and I will be bumped up to another category.  It feels like just yesterday I joined probably most of the survey takers out there... the one that is 40-44.

We midlifers answer surveys because we want our opinion to count.  Maybe we don't feel like our opinion matters at home anymore because our kids don't really want to hear our opinion, they're busy doing their own thing and want to figure it out for themselves.  At work, we've usually been in our job for so long that bosses and co-workers already know your opinion without asking (or they think they do).  So we anonymously answer nonsensical, irrelevant surveys from which some computer on the other end compiles data for a huge company that we think cares about our opinion.  So I say subscribe to Shopper's Voice, Survey Monkey, My Survey and the like.  Let it all out.  What a great way to share how you really feel without being judged

Think about it... If you're having a bad day, you can really let them have it!  What's your opinion?

What's it all about, anyway?

While riding the bus the other morning, I thought of some ideas that were the true reason for my blog.  I figured I'd better write these great braniac ideas down because we all know what happens when you're a mid-lifer and you have an idea -- let 30 seconds go by and the idea has poofed right out of the grey matter in the brain.  Since all of my writing materials were jammed in my commute bag, I figured there has to be a better way.  Alas, I'm holding in my hand one of the greatest pieces of technology.  My cell phone!  By the time I opened my phone to figure out if there was a "notepad" in there, I'd forgotten what my ideas were.

So I digress... I've recently discovered that I'm a mid-lifer.  I am not sure how I came to the reality. Perhaps it is with the recent passing of a birthday.  If I truly am at midlife, I feel blessed.  That means that I will live to the ripe old age of 88.  I could deal with that.  

During a recent reflection, I discovered that my life has just been cruising along for a while -- normal, no real highlights.  Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, it just is.  I'm happy.  I have a wonderful, patient husband and a very talented and wise son.  I have a good job & I am comfortable.  God has truly blessed me.  

After I told a friend a list of my "symptoms" recently, he said, "I'm afraid your crisis has entered the building."  Does that mean that my past is history?  No, I think it means that I'm opening a new chapter to a very large book.  A lot of people go through what I'm going through.  Some realize it; others don't.

I subscribe to a few blogs.  I'm sort of like an internet stalker.  One of those blogs is available as a click-through by clicking on my picture over to the left.  That is a blog filled with the wisdom of a young person who has been a great inspiration to me.  Other blogs I read tell of "homesteading" and self-sufficiency.  Other blogs are on eating well, are full of recipes or family trials and tribulations.  I don't assume to be full of wisdom that I was impart to you, nor am I great in the garden and I for sure do not raise chickens!  My goal is to share experiences, walk through life with you -- my fellow mid-lifer -- and perhaps make someone laugh.  If just one person laughs, I will be happier because we know at midlife, everything seems so serious.

Peace & Blessings for this day. 

Thoughts to ponder

“Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities

no doubt crept in;

forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely

and with too high a spirit

to be encumbered with

your old nonsense.

This day is all that is good and fair.

It is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment

on the yesterdays.”

All in a name

I must give credit where credit is due.  Thank you to a wonderful friend who suggested my blog name.  When you decide you're going to start blogging, I'm told by Alex, you have to have a blog name that relates to the point of your blog.  "Well, duh," she says!  I decided that "blabbing bitch blog" was not very appropriate, so my dear friend who has "been there, done that" named my blog (well, I had to add the "my" so it was a unique URL).

Until I figure out how blogs work, I won't use anyone's name without their permission.  So, Friend, you know who you are!  Thank you!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!  The genesis of this blog is that Facebook drives me crazy, with its ever-changing format and all the nonsense that's there.  It's not because I think what I have to say is more important that what others post, but I just don't need to know what Sally in Nebraska ate for breakfast!  But, trust me, if you follow me for very long, you will -- at times -- hear what I had for breakfast, or I might even share a recipe with you.

I'm not really sure the point of my blog except that I have a lot to say!  So here goes nothin'.  I'm canceling my Facebook page & if you're following me, it's probably because you've been invited to join me, to embark on this new phase of my life with me, to laugh & to cry with me... well, maybe not the crying part.  (I'll save that for the private spaces of my home... like the closet!)