On My Mind

Llama,

Yes, I do remember her. She was a total nutcase! She was completely obsessed with Barbie.

You know, it’s sad. Actually, I blame the plastic surgeon for doing so many surgeries on her. They are supposed to conduct a psychological exam on patients to see if plastic surgery is done for the correct reasons. That was all about the almighty dollar with that surgeon.

Barbie may well have preferred Joe as her boyfriend (if I had owned a GI Joe)... as Ken wore a lot of dresses at my place 😁 Sadly his feet didn't fit the heels but he did wear makeup. Barbie once suffered a bad haircut with the Play-Doh scissors but had that patch coloured with pink texta (an early adopter of the pink hair look). She may have also dated dinosaurs.

Beatty! 😂 😆 😝 LOL, too funny!!!

My mom would not have approved! LOL MY kid would take Barbie’s clothes off to take a bath with her. Her hair would be a complete mess! My mom got upset because she was a bit of a perfectionist! LOL 😂 Mom would fix Barbie’s hair, and my daughter would throw Barbie back in the tub! I told mom to not fix her hair anymore.

My daughter took scissors to her best friend’s hair in preschool and this kid loved her so much he let her! She somehow got ahold of my sewing scissors and cut his hair which was blonde like Barbie’s hair. I thought she cut Barbie’s hair because she did that before too. No, it was her friend’s hair! His mom put a hat on his head until it grew back! 🤣

My daughter was something else when she was a little girl. She had a lemonade stand with one of her friends. I made the pitchers of lemonade and put out cookies for them to sell on one of our hot and humid days. She sold a cup of lemonade to a boy that liked her for $5.00 instead of 50 cents! I called the kid’s mom and told her that I was going to make my daughter give him his money back. The mom told me not to do that because her son had a huge crush on my daughter and to let him find out that he wasted his money. My daughter wasn’t the least bit interested in him!

Guess what my daughter majored in at her university? Business! She landed a position with a company shortly after graduating. Other people applied for her job and have worked there for years but weren’t considered for that position. She’s always been a go getter! She drove me crazy at times but those qualities got her to where she is today.

A fair time ago the fella I was then going out with was invited to a fancy dress party, the theme being Barbie and Ken. My fella was a bit of an exhibitionist, and decided to go as Transvestite Barbie. You can imagine, the full production, wig, falsies and all. Obviously I had to go as Cross Dressing Ken. It wasn’t too difficult, as I had very short hair in those days, never had much in the way of frontage, and easily fitted into a man’s shirt and sports jacket. I just painted on a neat little mascara mustache, and that was my Ken costume. The interesting thing was that fella was a scream, hit of the party, while no-one seemed to know how to take me. The costume was just a little bit too convincing!

Downsizing is a big challenge. Downsizing the contents of my parents' house was difficult because they were taking some things with them (to MC and my home) as they moved. My mother was wonderful, having chosen the furniture she wanted to take for her room to what the room would actually hold. The only separate thing she wanted to take was her china cabinet and its contents which I made room for without a strain. My father was a collector and so more difficult and many things had to be securely stored during his lifetime. Turning to my own stuff has been a different challenge but I realize as I age it is necessary.

I have a memory chest of stuff that only has some value to me. I do not want to throw the stuff away and probably will not in my lifetime and keeping it in one chest makes it easy for me to view it occasionally and will make it easily discarded when I'm gone. This includes childhood crafts (mine own and other children's) and small gifts (like a cuff bracelet my grandfather made for me and some books). The beautiful dress my mother made for my high school prom is in that chest. My mother was a great seamstress and the dress reflects her skills working with good materials. I'm not sure whether I keep it as a remembrance of skills not generally practiced today or the fun we had planning and making the dress, but I have accepted I won't be discarding it.

I have better luck with things - if I haven't used it in a couple of years and can't see using it in the next year, it can generally go. I have more of a problem with some things for entertaining because I'm in a transitional form of life taking care of my mother. I have containers for pies so I can take four to a family potluck. A crockpot with a cover that allows you to carry the pot with a strap over the shoulder worked well for potlucks at work. I still use some of this a couple of times a year when our cousin's lunch is hosted in someone's home. I hope when I not tied down I will get back into church and club events and use them more in the future.

One of my big downsizing struggles is with my nice clothes. I have had jobs requiring strict business clothes and dressy business casual. Most of these conservative suites were expensive to purchase and don't go out of style. So far they have all remained in my nice walk-in closet because I may wear them again someday although I probably only wear an outfit once or twice a year now. I am much more likely to wear my long shorts together with a comfortable t-shirt or polo shirt.

I'm 57 and plan to move into my condo with care services available in 10-12 years when the grand-nephews are finished with college. I do enjoy being in the middle of the cooking, homework, and sports schedules for now. I am very lucky my aunt wanted her condo sold to me and my cousins offered it as a bargain after her death. Today it is paying for itself as I rent it to pay the mortgage. I know exactly how much space I will have there and periodically go on a "downsizing" cleaning with fitting into that space in mind. The hardest to let go of will be my pianos and organ... yes I have an antique upright grand piano I learned to play on in my bedroom, a more traditional piano in my living room, and an antique pump organ I restored in my living room too. The pump organ must go but I have almost convinced myself I can accommodate both pianos. If the arthritis in my hands allows, I will enjoy them too.

Found the beetle. Thank goodness!

Books, need - I am finally tossing them. The library here used to take them but not now. We don't have second hand hook stores and the lovely big coffee table books aren't in fashion any more.

Golden,

Yay! I am happy that you found the beetle!

Me too! The whereabouts of that beetle would have given me sleepless nights until found!

TN,

I enjoyed reading your posting. My mom was an excellent seamstress but I don’t still have my prom dress. I can describe it though, hahaha 🤣 because I loved that dress. It was a beautiful aqua blue. I loved picking out fabric with my mom!

I have my grandmother’s sewing machine that she bought from a door to door salesman! She gave it to me after I was married. Everything mom owned was destroyed in hurricane Katrina, so I didn’t inherit any of her belongings. Very little was able to be saved from her home.

I do like that you have your special memories all in one spot! That’s a great idea!

I used to keep books. I must have had over 650 of them at one time. Now I read the book and then donate. Some I have given to a friend once I'm done with the read.

My brother stored things in our mother's house for DECADES. She lived in Massachusetts and he lives in California. So when I was living with her, having had to leave my Maryland home, he gave me the duty of donating his over 3,00 Life magazines. I had to beg the local MA antique shop to accept them, then lift the magazines into my car. They weighed a ton. I get to the antique shop, it had been raining buckets creating a mud pit at the antique shop, but someone the antique shop owner and I got them out of my trunk. That was tough!

Llama.

Geeeeeez! What a collection!

I just got the shock of my life. I was on the couch watching a movie when I went to check on my mom in her bedroom. I did not see her in her bed and I screamed at the top of my lungs for my niece who came flying down the stairs. I was actually shaking and got horse from screaming. I thought my mother fell out of bed onto the hardwood floor. I did not hear her. When I checked her bed she had the pillow over her head and top of her body. Oh my if I ever survive all of this. I need a drink and I do not even drink.

EB,

Heart racing moments!

EB: Oh, my! Scary for sure.

Need: I don't know how I got stuck donating those Life mags, other than the fact that my brother, who is an attorney, had to get home when our mother was near death, after her stroke.

TNtechie: You're right about downsizing. I had to live out of state with my late mother, who owned her own home. Long story short - she refused to leave, then took a health downturn, precipitating me to move in with her from 7 states away. She suffered a stroke, ending her life. As I had been living there for an extended period, my energy was zapped. Fortunately my husband was a great organizer and we emptied her entire house of possessions so that we could sell the home. We vacated the home, leaving the reactor's lock box outside and drove 600 miles to OUR own home. Difficult much? Yes.
I do understand purging your own items. The dress that your mother made sounds magnificent.

Need: I agree about it being the plastic surgeon's fault. I think that woman held the record, sadly, for having the most plastic surgeries. Crazy. I doubt if she achieved perfection, since her mentality was skewed.

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share my good news with you all. I received my breast biopsy results today and it is negative for any cancer. It was just a benign adenoma.

So thank you all for your prayers and well wishes.

God is great!

Gershun (((((hugs)))) so glad for you.

Oh Wow, that is some good news Gershun!
Everyone is going to want to celebrate!

Someday, there will be the technology so no one has to wait to get results.

Yeah, your lips to God's ear Send!

Gershun: That is very good news!

Gershun: Fantastic news! PTL!

So happy for your results, Gershun. Every woman I've known who faced this had so much worry. It's good to have that off your shoulders. (((hugs)))

Great news Gershun, worth celebrating!

Gershun,

I am so very happy for you!!!

I remember having a biopsy done many years ago that turned out to be benign also. It’s so nerve racking waiting for the results to come in. I was extremely happy to hear my news. I was 40, with two young daughters at home. That’s all I could think about, leaving my sweet husband and daughters.

Hello all. Could I please request prayer for my dear cousin, who underwent a bilateral mastectomy on Monday? She is hoping that her lymph nodes are cancer free. Thank you so much.

Of course Llama. 🙏

I will certainly pray for her, Llama.