Talk Thursday: Rejuvenation

From Word Web….
Noun
1) The phenomenon of vitality and freshness being restored
2) The act of restoring to a more youthful condition

Wouldn’t that make it a verb? Just askin’. Seriously it said noun. So I checked out Merriam Webster’s, and while, yes Virginia it can be a noun, in my usage, totally a transition verb. Thank God. I freaked there for just a moment. Lately I’ve been having these Ginkgo Biloba moments and almost fell for it. Whew!

Rejuvenation, in middle age - isn’t that the same thing as diet and exercise? Totally a verb. I can’t say I’ve been rejuvenated. I get out in my garden, it keeps growing, I keep weeding and writing more checks for this compost, that seedling, those pavers and then start all over the next spring. That’s not rejuvenation, that’s repurchasing my garden. But I love my garden, digging in the soil and
un-sticking the slugs from my knees, and dead heading (Jerry and the boys are optional.) Do you know how much satisfaction there is in deadheading? Give it a try. Plant a puny little petunia, sprinkle it with some compost, surround with a heavy duty force field of Deadline, step back and watch mother nature take over. The following weekend go out with your prunners and dead head the spent blooms. Before you know it, removing the old has made way for new blooms several times over and dead- heading has you in your garden for hours on end, sniffing up heavenly blooms.

Dead heading… totally a rejuvenating verb.

I’ve had been on this diet, a life style type change of diet. Having grown up in the sixties I was taught to eat everything on my plate, because you know children in India and China were starving. I’ll pretend I was polite when the topic of my un-cleared plate was brought up. Hence I have an eating problem, I have to eat everything on my plate. Worse I made my daughter eat everything on her plate. America, this is just wrong. Wrong I say. So well into my fifties I’ve had to teach myself portions. This also means cutting back on my consumption of meat. Because America do you know the size of a meat portion? Texas is exempt from answering that question. It is 3 to 6 oz. Do you know what 4.5 ounces of meat looks like? I didn’t think so. I do now, didn’t then, but I have altered my intake to be much closer to 3 ounces than 10. After that I cut out potatoes (except on Fast Food Fridays,) breads (except on Fast Food Fridays,) and pasta (except when I eat pasta.) Now you ask what is Fast Food Fridays. Go ahead, ask.

I’m waiting.

Ah, hmmmm.

Here, let me help you. “Cele, what is Fast Food Fridays?”

Oh, my sole reader I am so glad you asked. Fast Food Fridays is my way of staying sane and on my diet. I try to maintain an 1100 to 1300 calorie a day diet through out the week. Well screw that concept all to heck on Friday night, “Honey, let’s order pizza.” And then I top it off with ice cream. Folks, come Saturday I’m back on my diet with little problem through out the week ( as long as I don’t buy large cans of peanuts.) I’ve lost twenty or so pounds. By now I want to be down thirty, but apparently that isn’t happening without exercise. Ugh.

My clothes are fitting a bit better, can we say “baggy pants?” But I am far from being where I want to be. So I’m going to have to get on my cross train and cross train. It sounds so much better said that way. It’s still not rejuvenation, but it is better than I was, not as good as I will be. And my garden is still growing. Here, see the pictures for yourself.

Now I'm off to plant my Chocolate Cosmo and vanilla scented Heliotrop


Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: I Don't Really Love To Bitch, but here goes...

The reality is, I don’t live to bitch, a good rant aids the soul; a bitch is just that, a negative out pouring that rarely results in positive input. I’m just saying. So instead of a bitch, I’ll opt for some little nit picky, nagging.

Why do people feel they can say what ever they want, gratis? Why? Because it’s coming out of your mouth? That makes it okay that you abused a person?

Not.

Yes, this gripe comes from somewhere close to home. Last Thursday night when I should have been blogging, I instead had dinner with my brother, sister in law, and mom. During post dinner conversation with mostly my sister in law, I was there, but it was her way, her viewpoint; don’t bother with your viewpoint, because she would cut you off before the first comma, ergo while there - I was not actually in the conversation. I sat and politely listened, injected two and a half words, skidded to an elliptical halt and of course politely listened some more. Apparently my face didn’t show what I wanted nor what she found appropriate, because she told me I shouldn’t be offended “it’s the truth.” And then she was affronted when I told her she didn’t hurt my feelings when she said I should get out of Florence and into the real world. What really drove me crazy to frustration was the constant interrupt / over ride, what I needed was to be able to finish a sentence. So I said, “I would just like to be able to finish a sentence.” Apparently I’m a bitch. No she didn’t call me such. But she did huff off all offended. C’est La Vie.

Next, DJ’s who don’t know crap about the music they play. Like say the station’s genre and the genre of the music they keep saying we should play, but ohmigosh we’re an Adult Contemporary station what do you mean we should play Beyonce? She’s not AC, she’s not Hot AC, but excuse me she’s got a great ass – and although she’ highly talented, she’s not the iddybiddiest original. Then there are DJ’s who don’t know who has done what. Song in point (and this is from a very old conversations) my DJ couldn’t understand why we play Counting Crows w/ Vanessa Carlton’s Big Yellow Taxi. His argument, it’s a cover of Amy Grant’s Big Yellow Taxi. To this I said, “Yankee, Amy Grant’s is a cover the original was done by Joni Mitchell.”

Seriously, “Joni who?”

“Dude, go listen to Neil Diamond’s Red Red Wine and then come back and argue covers verses originals.”

Okay, this one is a bitch. Going into the grocery store and having to….
1) Wait to actually enter the store because people are standing in the entry way
a) Deciding which way they should turn
b) What they are actually looking for
c) or Was this even the right store

2) Having to turn around in the grocery store aisle because
a) She/He had to bring along she/he and they are arguing the merits of mustard
b) Joan on the corner, met June from the other corner and they are catching up on the neighborhood gossip and yes obliviously blocking the friggin' aisle.

3) People who are driving down the highway and literally have to slow to a stop to turn on to the bisecting road. WTF, people go back to driver ed because you need it.

Okay, that’s it. Not that I’ve run out of bitches or nit pics, but it’s getting too negative. Time to go garden.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: On My Road

Oh that is where I long to be, traveling, somewhere warm, the car window down basking in the bone warming sun. I won’t be taking a vacation this year, yes I will take off a week, but we have a daughter getting married and then we are going to take Burp on the Jet Boats out of Gold Beach. Too much fun, I think Psam was about his age when we took her.

Life is a road, with a tremendous amount of one way streets and detours, how we navigate those highways and byways is both the weft and weave of the story of what we are and how it was done. It is the measure by which we are judged; judged by others, by God, by ourselves. I want my travels on the road to be of good faith, intent, and deed; not a dirty little track littered by the remains of those I chewed up and spat out. I want there to be the well-woven tale of a woman who lived life, worthy of the telling at the end of my days.

What I want and what is differs from what was and what will be. Regardless it is my tale, it is my journey, it is my life to fuck up and mine to right. I have an amazing set of numbers that I truly don’t believe I live up to: 38 – 11 – 2 the master numbers of an old soul. The old soul part I believe for I often feel I once was a healer, a listener, a nurse. The sad part is I know that I am not tapping into the power potential inside of me and I fail to understand how to do so. No one has been able to describe to me how I must achieve this goal or worse, how to stay focused.

I do not grasp on to anger, grudge holding is not my forte, but the flip side of that short attention span is that things don’t hold my focus. My life lesson is anger, I know this must be something I indulged in lives past, because I know there is a capacity in me to rage, but I have learned to not say things that can not be taken back. To not lose my temper and rail at an in animate object, to not take my frustration and pettiness on others (for the most part) and I have learned to give up the negative energy of anger and displeasure. I’m still working on blocking the hurt… but maybe that’s another life.

For now I am still on this journey, collecting the love and lessons of others. On this journey I am learning I annoy others with my offer of knowledge. On this journey to others I offer a haven of comfort. On this journey I seek humor, love, and knowledge, in return I create a space of peace.

Sith,
Cele