Nelly's Birthday: My Declaration of Independence

It was 2 am and I sat sniveling in my silk pajamas at my computer. I had decided to call my sister in the morning before our families got together for the 4^th of July festivities and tell her I would not be writing a “humorous” book about organizing household finances with her. The reason was simple; I had no business telling anyone what to do when it came to money. At the not-so-tender age of 59 I had no retirement, no savings and I was $26,000.00 in credit card debt! The book we were to write together would absolutely get me out of debt, but my ethics would not allow me to be part of a lie. No way could I write a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do book.

You Know What I Mean?

The last thing I want to do in my old age, is get grouchy, but if I don’t get this irksome aggravation under control and off my chest, I’m afraid I’m going to snap and get cranky. I don’t want to hurt anyone, because I wouldn’t do well in prison since I have to have my special pillow, I like the temperature at a constant 70 degrees and I don’t think I’d like bread and water or all that inmate noise. I’m hoping if I explain what’s bugging me to you, I’ll feel better and be able to cope with it the next time it happens (which is often).

Maternity Awards? Could there be such a thing?

It's graduation time again, and it got me to thinking about it, which lead me to the idea of celebrating. I looked up the definition of celebration and it said: a joyful occasion for special festivities to mark some happy event.

When we’re young, because we’re growing and changing, there’s cause to celebrate those achievements of going from grade school through high school and college, as well as celebrating the holidays and birthdays.

Happy Father's Day All The Happy Fathers In the World

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of your father? When I think of mine, I think of his smile. He was so in love with Mom, my younger sister Peggy and me that he seemed to always have a happy face. If you read Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, you know that I got the disorganized gene from Dad. He threatened to sue me for defamation of character, but of course he was joking and if he really had intended to take me to court, he’d never have gotten around to it because he was a procrastinator.

Have You Hugged Your Dentist Lately?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to go to the dentist. Once I make an appointment and get it on my calendar, it sticks out like a countdown to a jury verdict. Making the appointment to the chair and getting in the chair are not high on my make it fun list, but in the spirit of my motto, Make it fun and it will get done! I try to stay cheerful through the process, twice a year.

I Hate Windows!

I wonder if there are job openings at Microsoft for geeks to help them really respond to the message I get at least ten times a day using Windows 7? Windows is checking for a solution to the problem. In all the years I’ve been getting that message, no one has ever gotten back to me with any solutions.

What I want to know is, is there really a guy in some bank as long as a football field of busy Microsoft operators, receiving a notice that my computer has a problem and is he trying to figure out why it won’t do what it’s supposed to do? I think there’s probably a bank of guys alright, but they’re all just sitting there 24/7 deleting that notice as fast as they come in. Why else would I never hear from anyone, ever? It’s like having a guy say to you after that first date, “I’ll call you.” Yeah right!

I Think I've Become My Mother

When I was young, sometimes my mother would ask me to do something for no good reason. Like, “Pam, please clean out the dog’s dish and feed her before we go.” I was a curious child and I probably wore out the word “why,” because when I’d use it she’d invariably say, “Just because I said so!” I hated that! I vowed when I grew up and had children, that I’d never say, “Just because I said so!” Instead I would explain, lovingly to the questioning child what my reasons were. I’d take time to make sure my children understood. Ha! I probably said, “Just because I said so,” a thousand times more than Mom ever did.

A Little Gin Just Might Improve Your Marriage

Okay, I’m not a marriage counselor so I probably shouldn’t be going around giving advice to married couples, especially since I’m on my second marriage and so is my husband, but the idea of letting a little gin improve your marriage is really a good one at least for Terry and me and I thought I’d share with you why it is.

You probably should know that Terry is a workaholic because that’s one of the reasons I came up with this idea in the first place. He’s never without his cell phone or IPAD and he looks at weekends as catch up days to finish all the work he didn’t accomplish during the week because of overbooking. It seems when each day comes to an end, his “to do” list is longer because for every task he crosses off, he adds a couple more jobs.

Lady In Waiting

Even in our instant news, instant photos, instant everything society, we still have to wait a lot and we don’t appreciate it. We get antsy when we have to kill time in the checkout line at the grocery store so they created jiffy lines to speed us along. We get cranky and horny (over use of the horn) waiting for traffic to budge during commute times and we sure don’t like waiting for our computers to download, upload, reboot and defrag.

Read It and Eat

Kristi, my bonus daughter, is like a real daughter to me. We have such fun and yet we’re so different. This fall we spent three weeks together and the time flew! One of the days she and I went shopping and ended up in her favorite bookstore. While perusing the minuscule section on home and family, I heard her squeal with joy a few rows over and found her holding Diana Gabaldon’s latest novel in hardback.