My Kid is getting married!!!

My oldest daughter is getting married!  I'm happy for her, not terribly surprised, but very happy.  Of the 4 kids, she looks the most like me, though on the surface she acts the least like me.   We are very different in day to day stuff, but actually quite a like in the stuff that counts.

She and her boyfriend gave marriage careful consideration and much discussion...Dan & I said, "hey let's get married" one day while we were at the mall in Springdale, Arkansas.  We did it a week or so later.  At the time it seemed to us to be the best solution to his parents cutting his college off for dating me. (they had never even met me, but his mom hated the IDEA of me)  As a married person he qualified for financial aid and so that's what we did.  We've been married for 30 years now.   And next month my first baby will be the first one of our children to get married.  I'm excited for her BECAUSE she's excited and happy.  That's what I want - for her to be happy.

There's not going to be a wedding.  Susi thinks they are a waste of money and I have to agree.  That's a lot of $$ to spend on a day that will never be as perfect as you wrote out the plan for.  People get so stressed that I see brides totally unable to enjoy their big day.  It shouldn't be that way.  For Susi & Justin it won't be.  They will have a party to celebrate.  Two parties actually.  One for the KC folks and one in Illinois for Justin's friends and family there.  The actual wedding ceremony will take place at a courthouse halfway between with the parents and maybe some siblings in attendance.

That's a smart move. I can't imagine trying to plan an actually wedding with this particular kid.  Even the wedding topper would be a pain. I looked through lots of images of them trying to find one for this post and it took forever.  So many show the bride as subservient or the groom as being trapped, shackled or caught.  They are partners and she would HATE all of those.  That's a small thing.  A bigger issue would come with his family being ultra conservative, religious, non drinkers who supported trump.  Us, not so much.  I'm spiritual in the neo pagan sense, Dan is Jewish, two of our other kids are atheist and one is agnostic.  We drink on occasion, though none do it regularly. My hair is blue, green and purple, so it's obvious that I'm not exactly conservative and we all voted for Hillary.  Dan & I are fairly active in progressive politics and attend quite a few protests.  All of that just sounds like a headache when it comes to planning a reception.  I envision it being like a middle school dance with the boys on one side and the girls on the other.

But none of that will be an issue.  There will be parties celebrating their union instead of a years worth of wedding planning to stress over.  I hope that overall, they stay as happy as they are during those celebrations.  There will be ups and downs, hugs and arguments, but it's the average of all those days that counts.  I want their average to be on the positive side.

When my baby was my baby

 

18474

18474

That's how many days I have been alive.  It's a lot of days, more than many people get.  When I turned 50 a lot of people told me how it wasn't so bad.  50 is the new 40 or 30 or whatever.  Of course it's not so bad.  The only alternative to turning 50 is to be dead.  I'll take 50.  

I made the mistake of using a life expectancy calculator the other day.  If I change nothing I have an estimated 10,220 days left.  I played around with it and factored in the changes I've been working on - reaching my goal weight and getting my diabetes under control - and that put the number more inline with my family's average life span. My grandfather lived well into his 90's despite having diabetes and 4 heart attacks.  If I make the changes I'm working on the estimation went up to approx 16,000 days.   I like that number and I'm going to use it.

Will I make it to the end of all 16,000 days?  Maybe, maybe not, but I'm going to give it a shot.  and I'm going to LIVE as many of them as I possibly can. I've existed.  I've survived.  I've lived, but not nearly as much as I should have.  

My weight has to change.  That's a given.  Healthy at any size only goes so far and this extra fat is putting a strain on my body.  I'm going to start running again.  I loved it.  I stopped when I got sick.  I didn't know I was ill, just that I didn't feel like running - or doing anything.  I'm getting past that and I want to recapture how running made me feel.  Free, alive and fast.  The fast was mostly in my imagination,  but how I see things is really all that counts anyway.  I want to get back to that.  

I'm going to dance too.  Dancing is great for weight loss but it's also great for mental health too.  It lightens the soul.  A P.E. teacher once told me that people don't dance when they feel uncomfortable in their own skin.  She was right in my case, but her approach was not helpful at all.  Telling me that I'm too awkward to dance didn't help me get past it.  Just reminded me that I sucked.  I didn't suck, but 15 year old StaceyLynn was pretty negative and hard on herself.  Now I can dance, badly, but that's no reason not to do it.  16,000 days and there is going to be dancing on at least 5,333 of them.  Hopefully more.  I picked once every 3 days because I can do it every day now if I choose, but I don't know what 80 year old me is going to be capable of.

Also for my mental health is embracing a more minimalist lifestyle.  So will meditation.  I can't set aside time for meditate. I don't do well with structured schedules.  Instead I promise myself to find time every day do so something meditative.  Running, creating, writing or actual sitting in one place quietly while thinking.  There are a lot of paths to my particular goal.

Learning.  I have 16,000 days to learn stuff.  Learning is my favorite.  I'll work on my ASL again, brush up on my German and maybe actually learn to make glass.  I've been fascinated by glass making for months now.  Whatever I am learning I want to keep it up right until I take my last breath.

Creating.  This is the only area where 16,000 days seems like far too short a time.  I have so many ideas.  So many things I want to make.  Creation doesn't just feed my soul, creation is my soul.  I'm going to make stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Stuff I care about. Stuff that shows the world me.  That's what art is to me.  It's a way to show the world my deepest being.  You may look at my work and see a crocheted scarf.  What I see is a memory.  A time I walked for miles in California with the path stretched out before me and a bottlebrush tree giving me shade.  It's a moment in time captured in string.  

An important one - I have 16,000 days left to find a comfortable bra.  Thought I would throw that onto my list.   Surely such a thing exists although I have yet to find one.  Or maybe I"ll give up on bras entirely and set the girls free.  That's a valid option.

Mostly I've tried to keep my plans painted in broad strokes.  You can't plan life in detail.  Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow or next week or next year or even today.  You can have an idea, but life has a way of surprising us all.

To sum it all up.  I have lived 18,474 days.  I will live some number of more days.  Going to make those days count.  Gonna wake up every day and be grateful for another chance to live.  Gonna go to bed every night grateful for whatever the day has brought.  In between that I want to make that day count.

Yummy Coffee

The walk to pick my kid up from school was unfun to say the least.  The first quarter mile was like having my ankle sawed in half from the inside.  Then it loosened up and I was all 'this isn't so bad"  But by half a mile it was bad again.  Had time to relax while I waited for the kiddo and then things were back to "I can do this"  by the last quarter mile home I was back to the glass inside my joint cutting it's way out feeling.

BUT

I did it.

I survived and in a few days I'll be able to go even longer.

The ick of the walk was quickly forgotten when I got home.  My coffee from Red-Headed Philosopher was waiting for me!  Home all day except for that 30 min and I manage to miss them.

They put stickers on the bags.  It was a nice surprise when I unrolled them to smell the joy.

Today's latte was served in this

Not my new coffee - but I did just make a nice carafe of some.  No flavoring or creamer.  It's nice to enjoy the actual coffee flavor first.  The latte this morning was pumpkin spice.  

Coffee a Day

I collect

Corningware with a corn flower blue pattern

ways to make coffee

cups to drink coffee


I've started showing off my coffee mug collection on Instagram.  my profile is @shouldntsaythat - follow me there!

In the mean time - here's what I've posted so far!

Much more interesting on Instagram since I tell you about what I'm drinking too.  :-)  

My all time favorite is the bottom one with the leaf imprints.  I bought it at Irish Fest 2013.  I recently tracked down the artist so I can get another one in blue.

I also love the beaker.  It makes my coffee taste like science.  :-)  This one is a replacement.  My husband broke the first one.