Sunday, July 17, 2011

Hat Bags

Just had to share my hat bags for recently made hats. Maybe I'll include lavendar sachets in them. Heck, I don't even know what I'll do with them yet, but I like all the marketing details.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

More on Grandparenting




Stress may be a pejorative word, but in yin/yang terms it's absence does not serve us well as creatures on this earth. Coping keeps us our brains healthy, our adaptive skills tuned up and our youthfulness zipping along. In decades past, I have fantasized about leading a relaxing life, doing what I want without the stress of meeting unpleasant and unwanted demands. Naive. I'm a slow learner.

What I'm accepting more in my sixties is the beauty of such demands. In my retirement, I have fewer things to cope with than ever. Back when I was a youngster, a mother with two small children, I observed a young woman during the summer, reading in a bikini under an umbrella to her heart's content. I looked wistfully at her, remembering my pre-child-rearing days, and thought how nice it would be to sit and read peacefully. Oooh, Heaven.

Fast forward many decades and I have had the time to resume this heavenly activity. But guess what? It hasn't been nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be back when I didn't have that leisure time. In fact, there are new nagging discontents that have seeped into my old brain.

My friend, Audrey, told me about her audiologist whom she respects greatly. He said when the time comes, he plans to live in a group situation with others his age. Seeing many patients he has observed that the folks who live alone/with a partner seem to deteriorate mentally faster than the people who are forced to interact with others regularly, forced to negotiate, compromise, problem solve.

We get a great deal of pleasure from our grandchildren...and they exhaust us. One day while caring for the two boys aged five and three, I was overwhelmed with sleepiness. Dexter was napping but Zach was wide awake. I told Z that I was going to rest for a minute on the couch. When I awoke only moments later he was gone. When I found him he had gotten into wet paint and was trying to remove it from his clothes and body. He was covered. A midday bath cured all, but it was clear that resting was not an activity to partake of when the boys are awake.

Grandchildren and grandparents are a perfect match. We don't like being rushed and we have endless time to learn together. If we can keep up, I think this is a great way to combine leisure time and a good amount of stress. No wonder extended families have worked so well over the centuries.