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Your Senses – Sight

8 February 2010 by Nicki

The senses!  We have five and, generally, it is not until something jars one of them that we give them a second thought.  Yes, I run for the camera when I see something that I like the way it looks – people, storefronts, sunrises and sunsets.  Not everyone does, though.

Sight also draws up memories for me.  A few weeks ago I was driving down a street in a nearby city where I frequently go for work.  This city is close but still approximately 40 miles away so I generally get there once a week, occasionally more frequently.  Last week, for example, I will be there three days as I am going to hear a group play on Sunday evening and then two days for work.  This week I will be there for a class I am taking but not for work at all.  Next week, I am going to a TweetUp there.

Back to the sighting – pun intended.  I was driving down this street.  First I drove by a bar.  At one point in time, my guess would be it had been a hotel but now it seems to be just a bar and nothing spectacular.  The beer is good that they have on tap, always a plus in my book, and they have a pool table.  My memory flashed to a night at the end of September when I was there with a friend.  Just driving past made that night of pool come back to me.

We had spent a bit of time at a Mexican restaurant a couple of blocks away, having margaritas and nachos.  A torrential rain storm had caused me to get drenched out on the patio so we had gone into the bar.  Once the rain stopped, we had gone walking through a shopping area, long closed for the night but still with a few people walking through as we were.  We came to this other bar and went in to play pool.  Beware of playing pool with mobile phones in your pocket – not me, him.  He accidentally dialed someone and left a lengthy voicemail of us discussing geometry because, after all, what are bank shots but geometry proofs in real life?  Got that kids?  You will use geometry again some day.

As I continued on my way heading out of the city as I needed to get home for an activity, I hit the light red at the corner where I needed to turn.  Another memory came rushing back to me.  We had had margaritas and nachos another evening, right after he finished work and I did also.  He needed to catch the bus home so we were waiting where the bus would be stopping except we were a block or so from the actual stop.  We had stood there with some college kids.  They had asked us questions about the bus system which he could answer easily.  Then, his bus had come buzzing by.  He had to run to catch it up the block.  Just thinking about it now is making me smile.  The sight of him running after the bus in dress clothes from work with his brief case/bag is a memory I will always have.

I could go on and on as I have many memories that are triggered by seeing different things.  I still have memories of my son’s football team winning the state championship every time I drive past the Carrier Dome in Syracuse.  Most make me smile as I remember the sights I have seen in my life.  I saw a friend’s photos of some time in the Adirondacks which took me back to the years I lived there.

What memories do sights trigger for you?  Is it a place or a souvenir?  What about photographs?  Do they trigger memories for you?

Posted in Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , | 10 Comments »

Super Bowl Sunday

7 February 2010 by Nicki

Today is similar to a national holiday to all those who are fanatical about the National Football League.  It is Super Bowl Sunday and there will be parties galore, even around my little neighborhood.  The question is what are you doing to celebrate the Super Bowl?

Sushi Pickles

I am running a 5K race.  Before leaving for the race, I will make sushi pickles – thanks for that recipe, Steve – and white bean tapenade.  Chances are I will also make some buffalo chicken dip before the day is over.  When I get home, I will shower and head to a party with the tapenade.  My kids are going to various parties – one with the father at his girlfriend’s, one with a friend.

Do you celebrate the Super Bowl?  If asked, do you know who is performing at half time? What is your favorite football or tailgating food?  Do you watch the football or the commercials?

Posted in Family, Food and Recipes, Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments »

A Love Letter

6 February 2010 by Nicki

The letter below is inspired by the women at Momalom.com.  They come up with some of the best ideas for blog posts.  This blog challenge is to write a love letter to a person, to a thing, to the world and share it on your own blog or on their blog if you need to.  You can read the details of the challenge by clicking the graphic to the left.

Dear Friend,


You should know that I am so happy you are in my life.  You are a steadying influence on me.  When I think I am going to attack a problem, you calm me down, make me see sense, make me think through what I am going to do.

You need to realize I am not as strong as you think.  I have learned how to make the world think I am strong.  As a single mom, there is no choice.  I needed that armor for everyone else to see to get through the life I have lived these last 13 years.

You need to know I love you.  I love you because of who you are, because of what you have been through, because of what you have made of yourself, because of what you have inspired me to become.

You need to know that you are a stronger person than you think you are.  I see the strength in you.  I see the intelligence behind your eyes.  I see the creativity in your soul.  I see the you you want others to see.

You must know you are a good, decent person with a creative, giving soul.

You must know I love you!

Love,

Me


Posted in Family, Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments »

Wearing of the Red

5 February 2010 by Nicki

I am reprising pieces of a blog entry from February of 2008 today as I remind people of the problem that heart health care is for women.

The first Friday in February has been designated as Go Red for Women to draw attention to the top killers of women – heart disease and stroke. Women, and the men who love and support them, are asked to don red clothing to draw attention to heart health for women.

While heart health and the causes of heart attacks and strokes in men have been center stage for many years, more women than men die from heart disease each year.  Heart disease is the number one killer of women in America.  The American Heart Association sponsors Go Red for Women day. You can find out all kinds of information about keeping your heart healthy at various ages here.

Go out today and wear red. If you are a man, do it for the women in your life – your mother, your wife, your daughter. If you are woman, do it for yourself and for those strong women in your life that you want to live longer and healthier.

If you are looking for more information, please visit the links below.

The American Heart Association

Campbell’s Address Your Heart

Go Red for Women (This site seems to be having some issues first thing this February morning.  Hopefully, someone will fix it.)

Posted in Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments »

What To Blog About?

4 February 2010 by Nicki

This post has been weighing on my mind.  When I started blogging at Yahoo! 360, I didn’t write all that frequently.  When I moved to WordPress, I started writing more often.  There have been days when I have put up three or more posts – short but still.  Then, Yahoo! announced 360 was closing.  There was no import so I started moving posts over manually.  An import was finally made and I imported all my posts.  Some came as duplicates but I think I finally, one day, managed to get all the duplicates down.  So this post, this rambling is my 1000th blog entry.

I wondered.  Should I write about something going on in my personal life?  Should I post the next in the series I started last week about our senses and memory?  Should I write more about my journey to a healthy lifestyle?  Should I write about some of the issues from the State of the Union?  Should I write about other issues that are near and dear to my heart?  Should I do a review?

I did a lot of writing yesterday.  Some writing was for work.  Some writing was personal.  I wrote out an apology and practiced – yes, I said practiced – it so I would not forget anything I wanted to say.  It reminded me of a friend who prepares diligently for job interviews.  I wanted the apology to be perfect.  I forgot most of what I had written when face to face with the person to whom I was apologizing.

So what is my 1000th post going to be about?  It is going to be about writing for my blog.  That is truly ironic.

I write all kinds of things here in my blog.  I noticed, as looked through to pick a post from each month last year for my best of 2009, that I have gotten away from writing about news and politics.  I want to get back to that.  I noticed that I wrote about a lot of great things I did last summer and fall.  I want to continue that.  I noticed that I write a little about my life – though usually through the looking glass of mother.  I want to do more of that.

I also want to continue to write about our senses as mine seem to be developing anew.  Maybe they have always been there – of course, they have always been there – but I am discovery their connection to memories anew.

I am off to get ready for a weekly meeting of Moms.  We call ourselves the Lonely Moms’ Club as, with most of us anyway, we have our children in school and are not employed in a 9-5 type job.  We get together during the school year once a week for breakfast.  Maybe  I will even write about that some day.

Posted in Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , , , | 28 Comments »

People Pleasing

2 February 2010 by Nicki

As a follow up to my post on saying no that was hosted over at Making The Moments Count, I want to take some time to discuss another issue that seems to effect women more than men – people pleasing.

A while back, Kristen at Motherese posed a question via a quote from American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld.  The question was essentially are you mutable and shape-shifting or fixed and unbending.  Not only did that question and the accompanying quote from American Wife make me think about people pleasing, so did the quote I received several days later in my email.

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

- Bill Cosby, comedian

It seems that the females in society, myself included, tend to spend time trying to make everyone happy, bending to please every person.  As Bill Cosby said, that is the key to failure.

If we cannot set our own goals and work towards them – not trampling on others but keeping our own aspirations in mind, how can we consider ourselves successful?  I am not saying that we should all just stop trying to please others.  I think helping others, within reason, is important to all lives.

Often by trying to put everyone else first, by not saying no, we put ourselves in a lower place in our priorities than we should.  Women tend to do this more but it is by no means a female-only trait.

The same email with the Cosby quote contained these last few lines:

Remember that helping yourself and doing what you feel is important should be valued. Find worth in your own opinions and viewpoint, and don’t let your desire to please others compel you to keep yourself in the background. Falling short of perfection only proves that you are a normal human being.

Do you value your own desires? Do you occasionally put others first? Do you realize that you are human and not expected to be perfect?

Posted in Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments »

Lights on but Come Over to Amber’s

1 February 2010 by Nicki

As part of Amy’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” you can find me over at Amber’s today.  I encourage you to visit Amber and find out about her faith-filled life and read my thoughts on saying no.

Posted in Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Women in Politics

1 February 2010 by Nicki

As I have said many times, I am a huge fan of “The West Wing.”  That show is the first place I ever heard of Emily’s List as CJ Cregg – Alison Janney’s character – had worked with the group prior to working in Hollywood.  Emily’s List is all about getting pro-choice Democratic women elected to office.  You can read their mission on their web site.

 

Today I was reading an op-ed piece in The Boston Globe. The authors of the piece hold that a “critical mass” of females in politics would help greatly influence discussions on public policy.  That “critical mass” is rather high, 30%, especially if you live in Massachusetts as there have only ever been five women elected to statewide offices.

 

Two summers ago, during the 2008 presidential primary season, I was reading an article in More magazine.  While I cannot find the article online, I can summarize it.  It talked about why all the power brokers in politics were men – because they contribute to political campaigns.  Women do not.  Not only do we not support fellow females who are running – and I do not advocate supporting someone just because that candidate is female, we do not support any campaigns.  This means that in an arena where cash is king and contributions buy you power or at least a bit of an ear with someone in a campaign, women are falling behind.

 

Unfortunately, the truth is that when women fall behind so do the issues women care about – women’s health care issues, education, family issues, and equal pay for equal work.  These issues are not exclusively female or woman issues.  Everyone should care about each other’s health.  Everyone should care about education and its escalating costs.  Everyone should care about family issues – from sick leave to be with ill children to paid parental leave.  Everyone should care about equal pay for equal work as we all benefit from equality, don’t we?

 

Should politics interest you, I suggest a few pieces for reading along with the links in the beginning of this post.

Posted in Just my Thoughts, Politics | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments »

Apologies

31 January 2010 by Nicki

I just finished reading a great piece on apologies in the New York Times.  The writer truly made me stop and think.

I need to apologize to a friend.  I know I do but am not sure if the friend is willing to listen or not.  I did something that caused a huge rift between the two of us and I do not like the space that I have received from this rift.  I am not sure if the friend does or not but I need to find out as I don’t like myself because of the problem.

I will say that the author talks about the good essentials of an apology:

an acknowledgment of the fault or offense, regret for it and responsibility for it — and, if possible, a way to fix the problem, said Holly Weeks, a communications consultant and author of “Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them” (Harvard Business Press, 2008).

While I have acknowledge the offense, I am not sure if the person who was offended thinks I take responsibility for it or if that person thinks I have regret for it.  I have deep regrets for the entire offense – both the part that I did and the results of that action.  I own my actions so am totally responsible for this and the pain I feel.

I want to ask this friend for forgiveness.  I don’t want the friend to totally forget but to know that I am working on being a better person.  I am working on fixing what caused me to commit the offense to start with.

I am not perfect nor strong.  I need to be reminded occasionally of my imperfections.

Have you ever had to apologize when you didn’t think the other party wanted to hear it?  Have you ever had to apologize and not known if it would be accepted?  Do you think apologizing is the same as asking for forgiveness?

Posted in Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments »

Your Senses – Smell

30 January 2010 by Nicki

I have been doing some creative, or possibly not so creative writing involving memories and senses.  Your senses trigger so many things but one of the most important things they tend to trigger is memories.  I am going to, over the course of several days, post different memories triggered by one of our five senses.  These are creative writing pieces but most are based in fact.  Not sure what that makes them – personal essays?  Here is the first.

I folded up the towel he use to use when he was here today, knowing that he would never use it again.  My mind went back to the first time he used the towel, the smell of his hygiene products in my small bathroom, the sight of him getting dressed in my bedroom.  These are things that will live in my memory for a long time.  They will not be in my life again.

The memory of that scent, his scent drew me to another item in my home.  It was a shirt he had given me.  I was his support person for a large event in his life in October.  Two weeks later he had another event and I did not see this accomplishment.  We both have very busy lives.  The time we spent together was whittled out of those busy lives.  As he once paraphrased someone else, if we want to be with people, we MAKE the time.  Anyway, he gave me the shirt from that second event as he thought it was ugly.  Not only did I love the colors, I have memories of putting it on the first time.  I threw it on as a night shirt.  I immediately, the next day, asked what laundry detergent he used as the smell was wonderful.  It was not laundry detergent.  There is atradition to wear the shirt the day/night of the event.  He had showered and worn the shirt that half day and then given it to me.  The scent was him.

The scent of him.  Smell.  A sense we use only infrequently and when we talk, when we write, the sense of smell tends to be associated with food or with stenches.  In my mind, the sense of smell is associated with people.  It may be a stink, that smell after you finish exercising and really need a shower.  It may be a cleanness, that smell after you have showered and done nothing else – no body lotion, no hair products, just soap/gel.  It may be a scent, that smell of his cologne, that smell of his body lotion.

The sense of smell tends to be strong.  I have read a fact that people can recall a smell with 65% accuracy after a year where as visual recognition of a photo is only 50% after three months (http://www.senseofsmell.org).  Now I know why the memory of that scent has drawn me to write this morning.

What smells do you have in your memory bank?  Do they remind you of good times or not so good times?  Are they smells associated with people, events, holidays, food?

Posted in Just my Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments »

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