I Don't Work

For me there are "times of year" that dictate what I do. Do you find this to be so with your life?
For example in the spring my main focus, in addition to regular housekeeping and family responsibilities, is working outside, getting the garden ready for planting, cleaning up the yard and flower beds, moving/dividing perennials, and planting annuals. These activities carry over to our church because I am in charge of the outdoor flower committee which sees to the maintenance of the church grounds, not mowing but the annual and perennial flowerbeds. During this time also our youngest son comes home from college the beginning of May. It is always a bit of a task to get the returning ones moved in a settled again.
Right of the heels of Spring are a number of summer events. For the past few summers I have found myself involved with a number of church activities, weddings and anniversaries. I decorate for these things. The weddings in particular take a lot of time. In addition, this summer I initiated a program for teenage girls. This ran for 6 weeks and garnered a fair amount of my time.
Fall is consumed with outdoor clean up and producing a DVD for our local high school football team. From August until the beginning of December this defines my life. My husband, eldest son and I go to and tape all the games. I take that into post production and put together a film that shows the heart and soul of the team, coaches and their efforts over the course of the season. With our son and his family coming to help with the taping throughout the fall I find myself cooking and having additional housekeeping to do, sheets to change and wash, picking up to do, etc.
Usually January and February are quiet times of the year but last year I filmed and produced a DVD for the annual stockholders luncheon for the bank where my husband works. That project took me from January through the middle of April. I will be doing another one for the bank in 2008. In fact filming begins Jan.6th!
Then there is Christmas. Christmas occupies much of the rest of the year. By the time the presents are all opened, the cookies eaten, the Christmas tree is taken down and ornaments and decorations put away it has been a full year!
Add to these things the production of a wedding video, and two small video projects one for family and one for our church, plus travel to San Antonio TX, Amelia Island, Fl, two trips to Watertown, WI, and Los Angeles, CA and various other short trips to visit family andyou have a fairly busy year for someone who doesn't work!

Learning to Blog

It took me about 20 minutes to find my blog! I think I must have more than one account. I set one up several months ago but then got busy with life and didn't take time to add to it. Then my daughter tried to help me by bookmarking the page and making it easy for me. So... today when I clicked on the bookmark the original blog appeared but with no options to post another blog. Confused, I clicked on one of the few options I had which took me to the "dashboard" page. (Understanding the blogging terms is an entire subject by itself!) I was logged in (I think) but the dashboard said I wasn't a member and gave the option to create a blog. Hmmm...(How can I be logged in and not be a member?) So after a lot of clicking and head scratching, I thought maybe going backward would point the way forward. I signed out. That brought me to a page where I could sign in. I signed in again with the password I (miraculously) remembered telling my daughter to use. It worked! I had a page that recognized me and gave me options that I understood! Success! From there I was able to get here.
As I said before I am...getting older. But I don't want to be a dinosaur! I want to keep up with cell phones, i-pods, computers, e-bay, T-Vo and blogging. (I don't think I will ever need to use a Blackberry, but I think I should know what it is and what it does) I want to be able to do this stuff...have a web album of the pictures I take of my family and to order prints on-line, etc. etc. The world is at my fingertips and I don't want to miss it! I want to be as "with it" as I can be at least with the technology that is relevant to my life. I know people who aren't. They seem handicapped to me. There are just so many things to keep current with! It sure keeps life interesting! Just because I'm "getting older", which by the way everyone is, doesn't mean it has to be boring!

Free to be me!

Hello!
I am ...well let's just say I'm getting older. To give you a ballpark figure...I am a Baby Boomer, which is actually pretty cool. Baby Boomers have seen a lot and have done alot. So it's okay with me to be a member of that generation!
I call us the Boomerang-ers cause we are coming in for our second "time around" so to speak. We garner the attention of the world's markets, partly because there are so many of us which when multiplied by the fact that we are at or near our earning potential makes us a considerable force in the economy.
So, that said, I am one of them and am still going strong. To some extent I think I am just now coming into my own. Maybe I am just discovering another version of me.
Hard to believe, but until now my life has been defined by my role as a spouse and parent. Married to my husband of 34 years I am the mother of 5. As such I became what my family needed me to be...a wife and mother. With the exception of the youngest who is still in college all of our children are college educated and on their own.
So, now I am free to pursue a suppressed identity. I am learning that I have talents and abilities that I was unaware of. I am exploring and developing in areas of writing, gardening, decorating, grandmothering, and unbelievably video production. I have learned that I have time to show others that I care about them and can give of my time in a number of volunteer ways.
So, that is a little bit about me. Even though I am still growing and changing as an individual, I am still a mom and wife and consider those to be my primary roles. Oh, but it is so much fun being free to discover more about who I am!