In Your Easter Bonnet...

So this is the Easter Season!  He Is Risen!
When I was a little girl, Easter was really a special event! It meant Spring, warmer days, sometimes new clothes or shoes.  It meant Easter bonnets or the cute wide hairbands with flowers, lace or ribbons on it.  It meant Easter baskets with candy eggs, dyed hard boiled eggs and fun hunting them. It meant photos of loved ones.

It was Easter that I got my first pair of "high heels" they were black with a 1 inch heel and made me feel so grown up.  It was Easter that I convinced my Dad to let me wear a smidgen of make up, a little lipstick and mascara.  We dressed up with gloves, hat and our best outfits.  With 5 children, not everyone got new dresses, Mom very seldom did, but we were all clean, and ready to go to church.

Church was where Dad was the ruler..if you misbehaved at church you were taken outside and spanked and brought back inside where you more than likely went to sleep.  Church was where we sang "Up From The Grave He Arose".. and "The Old Rugged Cross", and "At the Cross"...

Then we'd come home to a chicken dinner, Mom either baked chicken after she got the fancy new stove with a timer on it and could program our Sunday Dinner, and we would have baked chicken smothered in mushroom soup, or pot roast with French onion soup poured over it and roasted to perfection!

Granny would join us after her church service, it was Easter that Mary and she both had red dresses and even red shoes.  We took photos of the two of them.

It seems like the older I get, the better and sweeter the memories of childhood are.   Just as the song says "Precious Memories how they linger, how they ever flood my soul"

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn 

There is a Season, Turn, Turn, Turn

And a Time to Every Purpose Under the Heaven:

Its becoming fall here in Texas, or Indian Summer, wait I may not be able to use that phrase, is it racist? Anyway, it means some cooler days, mornings where we can open windows, enjoy the fragrance of fresh air, watch the leaves fall and set out new decorations.  

I made my first Pumpkin cake roll last week for my granddaughter's care package.  I have ingredients for another and plan to bake additional care packages for my other two grands in college.  I had this idea to prep care packages with laundry products, stain sticks, first aid stuff, etc. to send them every so often.  

I'm excited to get to baking other things too, its apple season as well so we can't wait to bake apples, apple crisps, and other fun things with apples. Also of course the pumpkins, pecans, and turkey!

I just got a reminder from the Social Security Service of our wonderful government that I will be 65 in a few months and will need to register for medicare. lol I will be able to start drawing from my retirement as well, but I will get more if I wait a year before "retiring". In the meantime, of course, I have to register for medicare. yea!...not.

Its not that I am not aware that I am getting older, when I check the mirror, right?  Just last week, hubby and I had a conversation about my age and medicare.  I do have the benefit of Tricare for my supplimental policy and it has carried me these past 4 years. As my title suggests to everything there is a season and every purpose under heaven.  I guess it is becoming my season.  Look out sibblings, your turn is coming....lol

Thanks for staying with me.

If its too good to be true...

Ok I admit, I am sometimes gullible, I don't consider myself a pessimist, or cynic, but I got caught last week responding to a webinar that promised to give me magic words.  I thought, yeah, I have tried these things before and they always want to sell you something instead of really telling you anything.  But I'll give it a shot.

I showed up at the appointed time to sit for a 75 minute period in which I would learn how to recruit leaders and new people in my Avon down line with magic words.  She pointed out several good points, ie appeal to their feelings, and tell them how the product or business would make them feel etc. Well I said there were a few, maybe only 1, before she started trying to sell the viewers the full course at the special online price of $$$ .  I'm sorry if I didn't stay for the end, but after about 55 minutes of being told the same thing in a different way, I was bored, hassled, and aggravated.  So I didn't stay for her punchline.

I like to try new things from time to time.  Life's too short to remain in the same old routine, or rut.  I took a writers course once that recommended you even try to go a different way to work, to try to re-route your thoughts.  I decided to give a vegan product a try.  I love a good tender steak, don't get me wrong, but as I said I like to try new things.  So I bought the Morning Star breakfast sausage patties, last week, and the Morning Star Bacon yesterday.  I tried them, and admit they were tasty. I think its a good way to include extra veggies in my diet, and not so much fat.

I was invited today to download a cookbook from the Viking River Cruise Company.  I looked through it, and decided to give it a try.  When we took our cruise in 2012, we were served such delicious food, I was curious what this company had to serve their guests.  It was so cool, limoncello, a tasty sounding liquor desert made with lemons,  homemade, poached salmon, a shrimp dish, another salmon dish, a pistachio torte, something sweet I presume. I cant wait to try the recipes, they don't sound too complicated.

Two of my granddaughters are about to embark on their own life course to try new things and new adventures. I pray they stay safe and remember their values and beliefs.  Life is very amazing and it is too important to be timid in challenging situations, or ideas.  But the thing is we also have to think for ourselves and not become gullible to every supposed prophet or "good idea".

Thank you for reading if you've gotten this far. Till next time, and ya'll come back now!


To find the Morning Star products I mentioned go to your local HEB or www.heb.com in the freezer section.  VikingRiverCruises.com  before August 26 to ask about the free ebook download.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

I guess before I start right in with today, I should fill you in on what has been going on for the last few years.  It has been 5 years since I posted to this blog and if FB hadn't reminded me this past week about it, I wouldn't have ever remembered, I guess.  

Its not that my memory is short, but life happens, and before we know it, we are caught up in other activities, and start a new page. However there are times when I walk to the kitchen wondering why I came and start to put milk in the pantry.  I had a friend who once said, "its not that you are absent minded, you just have too many things on your mind."  I choose to agree!

Back in July 2011, I was blogging about retirement, my husband had just retired and I was trying to live with it.  It was for me an adjustment.  He tried to renew his interest in fishing, I tried to go with him.  I would take photos while out on the fishing pier of the sunset upon the water.  It was nice to take a break.  But  "like sands thru the hourglass so are the days of our lives.."; hurricanes and weather changes left the pier almost out of water, and increased the beach under the pier, and the walk to get to water on the pier became long and hot.  Fishing decreased and my hubby hasn't been fishing for nearly 2 years now.  We have been in a drought for several years, and finally God has blessed us this year with abundance of rainfall.  Hubby has learned to load and unload the dishwasher, make breakfast, even pancakes!  He has also learned what can be washed in the DW and what cannot.  He does his laundry, and has read dozens of books.  He put together a great raised garden, and we have had fresh veggies from time to time.  He even vacuums for me, but I haven't taught him to make the bed yet, nor clean the toilets. Oh well!!(big sigh) 

In 2012, we took our first ever cruise, we went to Key West Florida, the Bahamas and back.  It was interesting and fun.  It was very interesting to learn about the different peoples and also to be a tourist in Key West, where we saw Ernest Hemingway's home, another light house along our shores, of which I am a fan, and went on a Pub Crawl to enjoy local refreshments...yum!  Ever tried Conch salad? You wouldn't forget it.  I didn't appreciate the delicacy, too tough. The cruise tho' was so much fun with all the shows and food and we were on deck 12 in the front of the ship,  right by the sauna and hot tub, we could go in any time.  We had a balcony where we drank coffee in the mornings, and watched the different ports come into view.   It was during December so the weather was perfect.

2013 was highlighted by our first grandson's high school graduation, and acceptance into Texas A&M University in the Air Force Cadet Corps.  That was a big year!!  We were very proud of him! At the end of that year, I was given the opportunity to increase my Avon business by 4 times the size of it then.  I advanced in 2014 to Rose Circle level of achievement, which meant, I sold over $40K that year!

2014 was also highlighted by our first ever trip to Disney World in February, courtesy of Avon, all expenses paid!!! and let's not forget our beautiful little Keely Rose Eddleman was born in May! By the summer, we took a vacation to Port A, along the coast to play, fish, and visit.  It was a fun few days.  

2015 was the year we took another Disney World trip a family one, this time for a whole 8 days.  It was a fantastic time, filled with lots of fun, food and laughter.  We need that memory as sadness, began to creep in upon us.  Loss of a few family friends, one very nice man, husband to my friend Judy, loss of other friends, over the year, and great sadness over a marriage collapse. 

2016 We are in the middle of, so far it has been highlighted with 2 beautiful granddaughter's high school graduations, and my learning to quilt.  I promised them each a quilt for the grad. gift.  I have made a few new friends, which was the reason I started selling Avon to begin with, over 20 years ago.  Yet the great sadness hasn't lessened as we still deal with loss.  Our world has become even more dangerous with the media highlighting violence, and death.  We question our safety as we travel and pray for protection as the violence gets too close to home.   

So I guess that catches me up! Can't wait for the next installment.  Thanks for listening and hope you enjoyed reading.  

"The Only Thing We Have to Fear, is Fear Itself" FDR

As I opened a new box of toothpaste the other day,  struggling to get it open because of the glue that held the box flaps sealed,  I had to get the scissors to cut the box open.  While struggling with this silly contraption, I wondered when  the date was that the FDA decided to step in and protect us consumers from ourselves. 


I looked it up, on http://uclue.com/?xq=845 , and found that it was back in 1970 when congress passed the Poison Prevention Packaging Act (PPPA) http://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/pppa.pdf  requiring that poisons, some house hold chemicals like furniture polish should be sold in child resistant packaging.  That was the year Doug and I got married, while we were busy adjusting to marriage, we didn't know that congress had plans to change our lives in other ways.   The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was established in 1973 and they determine whether a drug or product falls under this act.  The first drug which came under this act was aspirin.  The CPSC was given the authority to establish child resistant packaging standards. These regulations subsequently required that prescription drugs with some specific exceptions be dispensed in packaging that met the child resistant requirement.   


When our daughter ingested the grape flavored benedril medicine in 1977, the bottle had an easy open cap.  She just drank it right down, because it was yummy to her.  Of course we spent the rest of the afternoon in the ER getting her tummy pumped and she got a taste of the nasty charcoal and 'epecac'. So it must have taken a while to legislate the act.  Well in my research I found that by 1982, the CPCS required tamper resistant packaging, on all products, and I guess the rest, as they say, is history.


Packages of chips, crackers, cereals, medicines, and toothpaste all have been made tamper resistant, to the frustration of some senior citizens who then decided they wanted a choice in 'child' safety caps and lids.  So now, if we remember to ask the pharmacist, we can get easy open lids.  Maybe it was always available, who knew to ask?


Now I want to switch gears for a minute, hang with me. My mother-in-law was a very vibrant, lively, adventuresome woman.  After her husband's death (20 years before her own) she took a job in San Antonio, Tex. at the Buckner Home for Teenage UnWed Mothers www.buckner.org/about .  She flew to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit us while we lived in Wyoming.  She took care of a friends cat because her friend had decided to move to a retirement village and couldn't have animals.  That friend didn't sell her house or close it up, so the cat stayed with the house.  As my mother-in-law began to age, however, she became fearful, finally afraid to live alone any longer.


I fell down at the grocery store one day awhile back.  I stepped off the curb, twisted my ankle in a hole which was the opening to a grease trap next to the curb, and fell.  I landed on my knee ripped my pants, skinned my hands catching myself, and bruised my hip.  I am fine now, but here's the thing, I was wary if not a little frightened to step out of the front door for about a week after that happened. I didn't like that feeling if fear.


As a 'Boomer' who is entering this life transition and tsunami of change called retirement, I wonder what else the FDA or some other concerned committee, administration, or organization is going to enact to protect us seniors like they did to protect our children.  Oh wait! We have AARP for that don't we? http://www.aarp.org .

Too Little to keep, too much to throw out, so the happy housewife eats it, and that makes her stout!

I was going to introduce my husband in this my third blog post.  Most of my readers know him already, but I have changed my mind, as I reserve the right to do, and will instead talk a little bit more about us, the "Baby Boomers" instead.
That is what I have been blogging about, my goal in starting this blog was to talk myself through a challenging  transition of becoming a "retired" baby boomer.  My husband, is not a 'boomer', he is just one year shy of our social trend. 

I am an Avon Representative, I have enjoyed the role of "small business" woman for a long time.  I have not only been in Avon for 15 years, but I have been a Home Interiors Decorator,  and a Tupperware Dealer in my efforts to be able to have an outside job, and still be home when the girls got home from school, make dinner and as they say.."bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, ever let you forget your a man, 'cause I'm a Woman...W O M A N"...huh! Yes, well, enough of that!

As I was saying, I have tried many different forms of work in an effort to please almost everyone in my family;  my Dad, whose philosophy was 'a woman shouldn't work at all outside the home, ever', my Mother, who found the direct sales way of life interesting and rewarding and who also recruited me into the home interiors and Tupperware companies, my children, of course, and my husband.  I had a home business because I was trying to help with  income taxes and because I was told by well meaning others, that if I were to work and make real money, I would only be placing my husband into a higher income bracket and therefore would make him pay more in taxes.

In my experience with Tupperware Products we were told, "Tupperware seals in the freshness",  2 weeks longer than any other product at the time, which was like, foil over a bowl in the refrigerator, or at best a lid that went over the proctor silex bowl, or the corning ware bowl, what did we ever do without Tupperware!  So we thought, and many people still do, that Tupperware was the end all, solve all to our food spoiling problems.

There was the cereal keeper, the lettuce keeper, sandwich keepers, bread keepers, square storers, round storers, oh, and let's not forget the square/rounds,  butter keepers, cheese keepers, etc. etc. ad infinitem...  My favorite was the pickle keeper/server.  It stored and kept the pickles crisp while providing a way to pull the pickles out of the pickle juice so you could remove them to put in your salads, or to eat all by themselves.

Then there were the serving pieces.  My husband remarked recently while we were having dinner with one of our daughters, that he was so used to having plastic  serving bowls, he didn't know how to use glass ones.  We had so many serving pieces, the Cake Taker, the pie Taker, the beautiful colors in the Wonderlier Bowls with the snap on lids that matched and the Servelier Bowls, with matching lids.

Then speaking of the lids or seals, there was a seal for every bowl and every bowl was stamped with a specific letter in the alphabet which coincided with the seal.  The cereal bowl was stamped with a big C and the cereal bowl seal was stamped with a corresponding C.  Or the small storage bowl was stamped with a S and the seal was also stamped with a S, etc. Don't forget about the "burp", the seal 'burped' out the air to seal in the freshness!  I had to explain the Tupperware conundrum to my husband just this week.  We were emptying the dishwasher, a chore which he has started helping with now that he is retired.

The old Tupperware circa 1975, I explained, wasn't Microwave safe, nor dishwasher safe.  However, the new Tupperware is stamped on the bottom with icons stating whether they are dishwasher safe, or microwave safe.  You must know these things, and you would if you had been using Tupperware for over 35 years!  If you 'nuke' Tupperware it will cause it to bubble and then it isn't guaranteed.  It came with a lifetime guarantee!  If you washed it in the dishwasher it would warp.  I must confess, I put mine in the dishwasher on the top rack for a long time, but I didn't 'nuke' it because it melted or bubbled in the microwave.

We swallowed the sales pitch hook line and sinker, that food stored in Tupperware would keep fresh for a loooooong time, to the detriment of our health, perhaps.  That food that has been in the refrigerator for two weeks sometimes looks like something that has started growing in there and who knows if it will multiply once opened and leap out of that cereal bowl, or storage bowl, or wonderlier bowl! 

We sold tons of Tupperware!  The parties, ah the parties, you carried  this suitcase full of Tupperware products and a table cloth and set the stuff up in your hostesses home.  Then you had hostess gifts, games, prizes, and gifts for each guest.  Those prizes, some of them were worth more than the party and the Tupperware itself.  Like the little bitty tiny bowls with seals, or the towel or recipe hangers, or the orange peeler so many cool prizes.

Then if you were a top sales Dealer, you received lots of incentive gifts.  You'd be awarded with lots of Tupperware, cookware, and if you were really great, you recruited and became manager and then you got a car, a Ford Station Wagon.  The one my mom got was blue.  She sure was proud of that car.

phenomena in America.  The fact that Tupperware, their products and all things plastic, was produced from oil and oil byproducts.  My husband worked for and retired from a company whose main purpose was to take the gas from the oil, compress it and send it down the line to be used by consumers like you and me.  

So Thank you Tupperware for using the oil and byproducts, because in a way Tupperware kept my husband and thousands, maybe millions of other people. employed through the years.

Thanks for listening, ya'll come back now,
A.
 

"You can't have your cake and eat it too"

Yes, I'm a baby boomer!  Big Surprise! It seems like that is all we ever hear about are the Boomer's and what they are or are not going to do.  Growing up, I don't remember ever being categorized as a 'boomer' or as anything important in the world's view.  I just did what I thought I should do in order to get through school and life.  I remember being in Mrs. Carter's sixth grade classroom when the Principal, Mr. Miller, came on the loud speaker (which is what we called it, not the P.A. system), to announce that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.  Mrs. Carter was crying and wringing her hands and her poor old head was wagging as though the end of the world was coming soon.  For the rest of the afternoon, we listened to the broadcast by Walter Cronkite about the events unfolding in Dallas, Texas. I don't remember ever being in Dallas before this event, although I had an Aunt and an Uncle who lived in the area and who raised their families there. 
I know lots of you remember where you were too on that unfortunate event, but I just needed to get that off my chest.  We baby boomers have lived through some remarkable events and changes, and we have had a hand in causing some of those changes!  We  were specifically targeted by the world of merchandising to test their products.  I didn't know that!  I was just a kid, but I do remember feeling envious of my friends who perhaps had more money, and could buy new clothing, records, and magazines.  Of course I grew up with three sisters, and a brother, so what little we had, from my dad who worked at the "City Water Department" (and we all know that civil servants didn't and probably still don't get paid very much) had to go a long way.
My clothing was hand made or hand me downs.  Since I was the first child (how did you like the way I said I was the oldest?) in the family, I had hand me downs from my older cousins.  There were, however, special times when I got a new hand made dress, birthdays or Christmas.  I never had "spending money".  My dad didn't believe in an allowance, so I was never able to get records, or movie magazines to keep up with the latest in the movie world, or go very frequently to a movie for that matter! (boo hoo, don't you feel sorry for me!)
Records, now that's a blast from the past! We boomers have seen the start of hard vinyl records and players, through the 4-track tape players to the cassette tape players and now a whole new world of digital.  Records brought a whole new way to enjoy music.  It was clear, not staticy (if that's a word) with the radio signal interferance like when we listened to the radio.  Living 15 miles from the nearest town didn't help that radio signal, but records put the Beatles, the Raiders and Gary Lewis and the Playboys right in our bedrooms, (which is where our record players were because they were "portable"). Oh and I forgot to mention, "The Archies".
Before the portable record player, I remember Dad's old phonograph player.  It was a piece of furniture and played two speeds, 78 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM.  When I got my brand new 'stereo record player', stereo, because it had two speakers, I could put it anywhere in the house and it played all three speeds, including 45 RPM.     This was all about information, we were beginning the information age.  The 78 RPM records only held one song on each side, but they were huge, thick, heavy records.  The 33 1/3 records held whole albums on the two sides, they were big records, 12 inches maybe in diameter,  then came the little 45's which again held only one song, but it was smaller (about 6 inches in diameter) and it may even had had a better song on the reverse side!
As I grew up, going on through Jr. High school, and then High School, I did what I  was supposed to do.  Started dating when I was 15, memorized Bible passages, played the organ and piano at church, graduated high school in the Honor Society, made good grades.  However, being a girl, my only choices encouraged by teachers, parents, pastors, etc. was, going to college to become a teacher or nurse then getting married and of course having children. The world of women executives was just formulating, and of women in the military was only by way of the medical field and was again only being formulated by those willing to pave the way ahead of me.
Now for some other "facts"...
 We 'boomers' didn't want to be like our parents were.  According to the wikipedia a baby boomer is someone who was born between the post world war II years 1946 to 1964.  It seems that over seventy six million babies were born during that time in America alone.  No wonder our generation is so influential, sheer numbers alone makes it so.  When you look at the fact that various marketing companies started out pitching their product at boomers and their parents "almost from the time they were conceived", it makes sense that we, the "boomers" should "control over 80% of personal financial assets and more than 50% of discretionary spending power. They are responsible for more than half of all consumer spending, buy 77% of all prescription drugs, 61% of OTC medication and 80% of all leisure travel."  I fit the norm for the average "baby boomer". We kind of rejected or redefined traditional values, some of us going so far as thinking we were a 'special' generation.
Me, I got married at age 18, I loved my husband, had my children, felt guilty for not going to college. Then felt guilty because I didn't have an outside the home job, or career, like so many women who entered the work force.  When I eventually found work outside the home, I felt guilty because I was leaving my children at a day care!  Oh, and I did my fair share of rebeling, still do from time to time. 
My mom once said to me "You can't have your cake and eat it too."  I know that statement may not make much sence to some, but it meant that in making a decision, I couldn't get both sides of the decision.  So when I found a job I was good at, I had to feel guilt about being away from my children.  Or when I went to college, I had to feel guilty about taking family income to afford my class, etc. etc. etc.!  That's what Being Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place is like for me.