Friday, December 30, 2011

A New Day Dawning


This above all; to thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any men.

This is my new mantra, catch-phrase, philosophy -- one I have always subscribed to but seem to have forgotten in the recent past.  However, it will be in the forefront of my days from now on.

So, as we forge ahead into this new year -- yes, I realize it isn't New Year's Eve yet -- my only resolution will be to be true to myself.  If I do this, then all things will fall into place as they should.

Even though this year has not been a bad year in most respects, it wasn't the best either.  Our unexpected retirement had made me do a lot of thinking, mostly about time.  From childhood until now my time has been spent doing the things that need to be done during that time -- school, raising children, taking care of parents --all those stages of life and now I feel my time should be my own to be spent as I see fit. 

The first thing I intend to do is quit spending time worrying about being "old".  In the great scheme of things I am not that old -- not young but..well, you get my point.  My body might be aging but my soul is young and vibrant and interested in things and I am compiling a list of new things that I want to try and see.

The second thing that I intend to do is get back to some of the activities that I have always enjoyed but put on the back burner for a while.  I love old movies and I am going to make a list of those that I would like to view again and have "vintage movie night" once a week. I just love black and white movies and the first on my queue is "Bunny Lake Is Missing" -- a 1960 something psychological thriller.

Reading is, of course, one of my main interests now and always has been.  I have joined two new reading challenges for the new year.  The two books I am reading now will, of course, count among those completed early in the year. I didn't do so well on my 2011 challenge but, in fairness to me, I did start later in the year.  I love to read and, unfortunately, it was neglected to a large degree for many years and now I plan to indulge my desire and need to pick up the pace again.

My genealogical quest will be ramped up as will creating scrapbooks of the many boxes of photos we have.  I don't like "scrapbooking" as we know it today so mine are going to be more "vintage" -- black paper, photo corners and  photo descriptions written in white ink.  Even though I am definitely a 60's kind of gal, I really love all the trapping of the 40's -- just love it.

My family is the most important thing to me.  I will spend time with them, as much as I can, and be a benefit to them as much as I can.  However, in looking back at A's and my "middle years" much of our time together was separated by his job, sometimes for months on end.  It was a difficult time and now we need to take the time to try to recapture some of that time for ourselves, whether it is on short road trips, gardening, cooking, or sitting here staring mindlessly at football -- it doesn't matter -- we just need time.


The main thing that I will not be spending ANY time on is trying to be somebody other than who I am just to please other people.  I have served myself well for all these years and I think I like myself well enough to continue on.  That is not to say that I don't make mistakes -- I do -- or that I can't learn something -- I can but I will no longer worry about what other people think of me and I will not change one thing about myself to meet somebody elses expectations.

Update

 Ok, so we visited our cardiologist yesterday to get the lay of the land for the Hubs.  Seems there is an issue with one of the grafts from ...