On: Pet-Peeving Christmas

On:  Pet-Peeving Christmas

Colleen Rogers

Today, my singular, intense pet-peeves of Christmas were re-animated.  Once again, like every year since childhood, I experience a gnawing distaste for the holiday season. 

My husband and I kicked our festivities off as consumers in a big box store.  Although it’s early in the season, merchandise was already “picked over”, and shoppers were eyeballing cart items that did not belong to them.  People were stacked to the rafters, some scrambling for free samples, others jockeying for position in winding check-out lines.  While we were purchasing food items AND deciding on holiday hostess gifts, I was suddenly overwrought.  The stew of unrelenting humanity, predatory greed, and smoldering agitation was well-seasoned, and I wasn’t having any of it.

I have never experienced any youthful trauma related to the “mirthful” season, but I have always seemed to find the whole goings-on difficult to navigate.  Some of the continued seasonal issues I face may be common threads during each of our holiday seasonal events:

1.    Dual invites:  My husband and I do not receive a myriad of invitations, but when we do get asked to holiday festivities, the celebrations are always from two separate families (or groups of friends) who reside in two distant states.  We have traveled overnight on Christmas Eves from Shabonna, Illinois to Etowah, Tennessee.  We have packed two sets of presents, some specialty food items, and our own luggage to make the pilgrimage.  We have seen as few as three cars from Illinois to Indiana, because other than Santa and reindeer, who really travels on Christmas Eve? 

One favorite tradition we found eternally amusing, though, was stopping at Waffle House to hear “It’s a Waffle House Christmas” on the juke box, giving us our own special holiday memory.

Takeaway:  You are blessed in your travels…you have someplace to journey to be with people who love you…

2.  Financial obligations:  Every year we struggle with the amount we should spend on Christmas.  Should we give gifts or gift cards?  Do we know the recipient of our gift well enough to make a memorable selection for them?  Will we overstretch our budget on innumerable, random stocking stuffers, or should we go for one "big ticket item” that may not be valued either?  What is the best way to even approximate a “financial confirmation” of the true feelings we have for the recipients of our gifts?  In spite of our best intentions, we somehow always fall short when serving as Elves or Secret Santa.

Takeaway:  If you are able to have something to give with love, and are lucky enough to have people to receive with understanding…you are blessed…

        

3.  Food prep:  If you are designated hostess for holiday events, it is a daunting task to deal with the festive presentation of gracious holiday “delicacies”.  How much food is “too much” to prepare for your guests?  What foods might satisfy everyone’s special palates?  How much time should be spent in the kitchen cooking at the expense of socializing with family and friends?  How much charity can be expected to extend to the “plus ones” that show up uninvited to your expertly prepared table?  And, most importantly…What should really be done with the annoying aunt who never brings a dish to share, yet hauls out with a stack of others’ “best dishes” when leaving the party? 

Takeaway:  If you do your best in preparation, and are generous in what you do have to share to those “less deserving”, your charity will make your home both a refuge and a memory…

4. Holiday decorations:  The issue of holiday décor grinds my gears every year.  Why do people mix Mickey Mouse with Mangers on front lawns?  Why are there so many dead mouse dirigibles, like misplaced Pub Crawl drunks, deflated in peoples’ yards each morning?  Why do people ignore the careful, tidy placement of exterior illumination by choosing instead to TP fling lights over symmetrical evergreens?  What’s up with the duel re-purposing of gaudy red lights for Christmas AND Valentines’ Day? 

Takeaway:  It’s for the kids…

Image From:

https://www.google.com/search?q=girl+grinch&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjN4r_K1ZPfAhUMeKwKHajuADoQ_AUIDigB&biw=1349&bih=771&dpr=1.71#imgrc=2uDW_RF8iWuVCM:

On: Living in Loserville

On:  Living in Loserville

Colleen Rogers

For the last several months, my life has been summarily relocated to a trailer AirBnB on a small, swampy lot in the figurative town of Loserville. 

After surviving a series of personal illnesses and accidents, family deaths, and financial setbacks, I am hobbling around ensconced in the cave crawl that has become my home.  Everyone tells me that rounds of extreme misfortune come in waves of three, but these double-dosed tragi-shots have kept me propped up and bug-eyed for a sixth blizzard of woe.

I notice that this kind of personal shite-storm is a pattern that happens to me a lot.  While others swarm around enjoying well-executed vacation plans, I succumb to watching Fourth-of-July fireworks from the confinement of a hospital bed.  As ladies in over-sized sunglasses ooh and ahh over lavish and extravagant boutique purchases, I carefully budget needed household upgrades and refute all personal makeovers.  Although I recognize that on the overall continuum of Life Grades, I am solidly at “C” level, I am not sure that “Ready Blessings” ever truly roll my way.  While I do have what I need to survive, all gravy trains stop when it comes to me being generously handed what I think I “want”. 

I wonder sometimes if I subconsciously send out some kind of punishing Karma vibe that continues to thunk me on the head for failing to recognize the enigma of life lessons.  Yet, as my headbanging, disastrous, reality bonus round continues, I have come away with these epiphanies:

1.   When you live in the town of Loserville, you are both strong AND resilient.  You have survived numerous physical assaults, the losses of loved ones, and unplanned financial struggles, BUT you know the maze of work-arounds to handily re-group.  Your coping skills are outstanding, and though others may underestimate you, you can truly take a hit and gently weeble-wobble your way back, still standing.  You’ve had a lot of disaster-drill practices, and you can bounce dance through adversity every time.  It’s the surprising coping gift you have been given.

2.  You are the ultimate Underdog. As such, people want to help you.  It makes them feel emboldened when they can extend the best they have to offer.  Give them the chance to be generous and magnanimous, and take each opportunity to show your gratitude and appreciation.  Remember, every Power Player needs an assist on the field.

3.  Someone is always watching you on your road.  How you “fix your flat tire” when you drive over potholes helps others navigate.  Always have your “spare” reserve handy—you may need some extra “air and motion” to get you to your own safe place.  Though it is challenging, keep breathing and keep moving.  Others need to see you act "competently" while you handle your own crisis.  You are always an example for someone, no matter what arrow-slings besiege you.

4.  You don’t completely know your purpose.  Perhaps you were not meant to be the “Real Housewife of Wherever” or the “Corporate Jay-Z-to-Be”.  You may not be one of the yacht-riding, wine-sipping, high-styling, money-trading, castle-owning highly-favored.  You may have been assigned to be something grittier.  Your earthly chore might be to write a tome of bravery, spirit, and survival.  You may falter in some tests, but you cannot cheat or be vacuous—your victories are truly based on the honor of your own demonstration of will and determination.

5.  You may sometimes need to cry it out—use real tears, and as many as you need to dispense.  You will feel life is unfair and stabbing, and you will get angry.  Anger is what you need to “level up”, and tears are what you need to wash away your weak.  Both manifestations are your body armor. 

6.   You will eventually relocate from your sorrow.  The “this, too, shall pass” adage is spot on.  Wait it out, then walk away from your worst. Shove all your difficult memories in the fabric of your hobo pack, and only unwrap the distant recollections of what you’ve overcome when you are in the caboose of your horror.  When the time is right to address your survival, you will do so with a winsome smile, and with the freedom that only a solo wandering traveler can understand--

--while waving goodbye to the town of Loserville.

On: The Happiness Fallacy

On:  The Happiness Fallacy

Colleen Rogers

I am what they call a dowager, a Debbie Downer, a Negative Nellie.  I do not look on the bright side of things.   I have a preemptive contingency plan for when the “other shoe drops”, because, in my view, it usually does.  It is very hard for someone like me to openly recognize joy on-the-daily.  As I “gain experience”, I take note of more in-your-face difficulties, and I woman suffragette the grocery list of tragedies that have befallen me.  I am a "fake it till you make it" kinda gal. 

When I sit in reflection, I customarily focus on losses.  I have lost my beloved parents, some incredible grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I cannot even begin to discuss my rainbowed pets or angel-ed friends without a flow of tears after many years still reigning.  I have daily missed bosses and cherished colleagues I haven’t even seen for years.  I have had little “micro-deaths” from each shift of a job or a home.  It has been a merciless struggle for me to acclimate to new neighborhoods or unfamiliar work sites.  Wrestling with these transitions has sometimes been a brutally tough induction ceremony against newfound expectations.

It is has become a recent habit to second guess the places where I have nested.  I often wonder if I could have done better for myself, or lived more adventurously.  Maybe I should have aligned myself with others who might have stressed me less, or offered me more than they took.  I think about things that have happened to me, and I feel an exclusivity of amplified regret that surely is only mine to bear.  I believe many times that I am solitary in heart-holding these daily “bereavements”.  Of course, I am most assuredly not alone. 

The regretful dowry I bear may not often be public, or visible, and sometimes can only be seen as a glimmer of coined shrouds that only I can count, but my dowry is no more weighty than the offerings presented by us all.

I watch us in our common areas, and I see our situational barbells pressing down upon us, causing our bodies to ground down, our choices crushing us into reactive zombie-bees.  We live beneath a fake whimsical umbrella of our own notions of control.

I used to think that my life would be the result of a series of full-bodied, free-willed choices.  I was certain that I absolutely would never land anywhere without well-considered, cautious deliverance.  I felt that every decision I adjudicated would be a direct bulls-eye hit on a planned trajectory.  I played confident that I would end-game exactly as I preordained the victory of my life to be. 

In reality, I have often ended up with the “Life Of Not”.  This is NOT the job I would have wanted, NOT the house I would have picked, NOT always the people I hoped would surround me.  The evolution of the “How Did I Get Here” autobiography really sneaks up on everyone.  The true trek of a our destiny is actually more like “The Pokemon Go of the Unexpected”. 

The fact is, we never really determine our lives.  We are wholly delusional if we expect to construct a life of our own perfect selection.  Things happen on our journey that we don’t consider--there may be an unexpected opportunity, an uncoupling, an unfathomable loss, some unhealthiness, or a road of unanticipated detours. 

Because we are in flux so frequently, achieving perpetual happiness is a fallacy.  We can’t easily find joy when it falls between the cracks of our own challenging re-adjustments.  Happiness is rarely harvested naturally because our lives are never in corn rows of alignment.  The fallacy of happiness is that we will somehow just fall into its’ state of being.  Somehow, happiness will "just appear before us", like a single four leaf clover in an expansive meadow.  In actuality, happiness is truly a search and recovery mission. 

Every day, we have to seek out tiny moments where just a few things are in place, and in those tic tocs of grace, we see our thread-beam of joy.  The happiness fallacy can dissolve when we pet our dog, hug our child, kiss our partner, or take a brief nature walk.  It is not the grandiose, overt moments of the obvious “special event” happiness that we should all wait to embrace. It is truly the "in the moment" small parcels of joy, those that are on-the-reveal daily, that we should attempt to detect.

We need to expand our vision for recognizing happiness.  We should realize that happiness is often a quietly restorative, surprisingly momentary gift.  What characterizes happiness as time-fleeting and rare is exactly the reason why it is so precious, and why we cannot expect to find perpetual, unyielding joy. 

For those of us who believe that life has left us bereft of happiness, it is truly because we have failed to do our detective work.  We are not discovering our little, nearly untraceable, moments of joy.  We have exclusively focused on seeking something on the "larger, bigger, better" scale.  But, if we wait for the “grandiose”, we will never sustain much ready joy. 

Few of our days boast events like weddings, promotions, graduations, the anticipation of moving day, or the excitement of the "new car smell".  So, it behooves us to take in and requisition something fleeting, "petite", and more sweetly subtle to give us pause and make us smile. Only in these briefly accessible moments will the cracks in our happiness remain filled. When we master this unearthing, something more grand will only make the joys of life just a little more clearly visible.

   
"I'm beginning  to recognize that real happiness isn't something large and looming on the horizon ahead, but something small, numerous, and already here.  

The smile of someone you love.  A decent breakfast.  The warm sunset.  Your little everyday joys all lined up in a row."--Beau Taplin

On Back-To-School: The Teachers

On Back-to-School:  The Teachers

Colleen Rogers

As a retired teacher, this is actually the first August that I have not had an overwhelming wistfulness over not returning to the classroom.  It has taken me several years to not identify myself solely and exclusively as a teacher. 

The withdrawal process I have experienced has been painful.  While teaching, at the end of a teacher-summer, I would whimsically head to my Mecca, the “Teacher Store”, and shore up with an inordinate amount of posters, bulletin board materials, content area books, and background paper.  This initial supply hunt would be followed by a trek to Target or Wal Mart, to also load up on requisite markers, pencils, pens, notebook paper and the like—essentially getting everything on every Parent’s School Supply list as well.  Whatever I bought, I knew would be disappear or be depleted long before October.  I would “replenish” with some freebies by covertly foraging for pencils from the floors of the school hallways by the onset of fall.

Every year, I would “homing pigeon” my way to school the week before the first day. With grand flourish, I would “decorate the classroom”, moving desks and hanging posters.  I always had to first track down my assigned classroom key, which was held in the Main Office, guarded in a secret portal by the school secretary.  When She begrudgingly  placed the key in my zealous, enthusiastic hand, I knew I would be beholden to her for the remainder of the school year.  And so it began.  I schlepped my new stash of supply-purchases from boxed carloads to a barren classroom.  I would look like a wrestled, wilted flower by the end of my runs. 

It would always be hellishly hot in the classroom, and the posters I hung would slide in protest like paper lava down the concrete walls.  I finally found a tape that cemented each of the laminates without ripping paint off the janitor-treated walls.  (Teacher Rule #47:  Never tick off the Head of Maintenance by tearing off paint with tape).  In a few short days, I would gleefully share my Poster Affixing Secret with all the new teachers, like the dutiful Sage Mentor and Torch Passer that I one day hoped to be. 

When I finished arranging my modest "Learning Center”, I would circle the building, peering into the nondescript classrooms with a false sense of preparedness for what was to come.

The first week of school was Teacher Initiation Hell Week.  There was a round of Goal-Focused Teacher Strategy Meetings to kick things off.  Teachers would show up, groggy and heavily caffeinated, still wearing the Summer Shorts of Denial.  The secret meeting subtext for all teachers was to assess the Administration’s Support-‘O-Meter, eyeball the new colleagues, and groan over the building shifts.  There was a lot of sarcastic eye-rolling, some sneaking away for dibs on the Xerox machine, and lots of horse-trading of instructional materials.  Because I, by nature, am such a Suzy Cream Cheese, I was golly-certain that this year would most definitely be different.  So wrong-oh...

No teacher ever sleeps the night before school starts, no matter how seasoned they might be.  Like Opening Night on Broadway, there is a cross-training level of anxiety like no other.  Though your classroom rules are done, your syllabus is finalized, and your “instructional strategies” are “on firm”,  you never feel truly ready.  When you wake up on the first day, it seems like you are leaving to work a wretched night shift in a coal mine.  Week One is always a tsunami of incompetency.  You are training for a grueling Educational Marathon designed to break your once-spirited soul. 

Your rosters change daily, textbooks don’t arrive, the Xerox crashes and burns, and you realize that your worst nightmare will be your last class of the day...for the next nine months.  You look to colleagues for support, but each of you is quick-sanding in their own School Swamp.  All the motivational summer workshops, the restorative beach margaritas, and the promised positivism for a better year is now bent and spent.

By Week Two, you know student names, have started identifying Hell Raisers, and no longer need to tutor anyone on “How to Open A Locker or Tie A Shoe”.   You are rocking your day as a surrogate Parent and Confidante, problem-solving it all like a Ninja Warrior.  You still don’t have enough rest, but you are getting your rhythm back, and sort of have a routine.  You have scoped out your bathroom break area, and mapped your twenty minute lunch errands route.  You start to wear your school shirt on Fridays, and You Own It.  Still, when your friends invite you for a Friday night beer, it’s a “no go”.  You can’t, and it’s not because of any professional moral superiority.  You can’t because you’re exhausted.  You’ve given your brain and your physicality to instructing “your” kids at school.

By Week Three, you start calendar projecting...when is the next holiday, the next early dismissal, the next In-service, etc.  "Will we have a Snow Day this year, and will we need to make it up in June?"  You are not looking for the breezy day because you’re lazy, you just need a break from the school tsunami.  When I was teaching, it would take me a solid couple of weeks to wind down for each inviting June arrival. 

After nine months of dealing with bone-headed decisions over which you have no control; logger-headed parents who let their child run amuck; and limited successes with zero resources, you appear non-functional.  You need those “break” days throughout the year to re-charge.  You do NOT want to become one of those teachers seen on the Nightly News—the ones who initiate a brawl with a parent or an administrator, finally snapping under the weight of professional restraint.  You see, it is not always the kids.  Sometimes professional dissolution originates from the behavior of other adults —the very ones who should know better and “have your back”.  

So, as children are being gifted the shiny newness of shoes, clothes, backpacks, and laptops in preparation for returning to school this year, consider what teachers lack as they return to class.  This year, be sure to think about what each teacher does to set up your child’s classroom.  Consider the things teachers purchase, organize, arrange and prepare.  Think about the emotional investment each teacher gifts--how teachers “parent” in your place, and instruct the “moral compass” that your child’s classmates may not possess.  Imagine how teachers in a techno-world advance humanitarianism  for the children they see daily.  Visualize what your child would miss if their classroom was solely the log-in on their home computer.  Remember all the teachers who were such cherished life characters, whose influence you still talk about... even now... as an adult...with your own kids.  If your child admires their teacher this year, think about sending along a small gift card or a box of classroom supplies to support them.  This considerate gesture will be appreciated beyond measure.

 Or, if you know a teacher personally, drop off a pizza on a Friday night...along with a cold six pack of beer.  Trust.  They'll be home...and in their pajamas.

    

On: Frozen Fashion

Frozen Fashion
Colleen Rogers

While walking around our world-class city last week, I was noticing some of the trendy attire worn by the young professional women, comparing their "fashion chic" with my "retirement casual" sensibilities.  The method to my madness in observing was to have a selective road map for an "upping-my-style-game".

My current designer of choice from Milan, Comi Fourt Ahblei, seeks to retire his fashion house, leaving behind a legacy as Chief Fashion Designer for the cast of "Dynasty".  So I, now, must Goodwill what remains of my pumped-up-shoulder-padded jackets, and transition from the 80's wardrobe of Kris Jenner to the classy re-invented panache of Caitlyn. 

I have always been a laughable dresser, so bad, in fact, that my when my outfits have been decent, selfies have been requested.  One of my worst "fashion don'ts" was when I wore an 

A much smarter version of my sweatshirt

oversized sweatshirt, 
with a large Santa decal,
and the words "HO, HO, HO" emblazoned 
across the front.. 
in gold glitter...which
I wore to work...and 
it was not "Ugly Sweater Day".  

The worst thing about this fashion faux pas, though, was that...

until I heard cackling as I walked my perkiness down the hall at work, did I surmise the alternate significance of the phrase "HO, HO, HO".  Embarrassingly clueless.

Nonetheless, here follows my little comparative analysis on Generational Fashion, and the inception of my upgrades...

Hairstyles...
Millennials--Pony Tails or long, windblown locks
Boomer Gals--Boy-Short Dos, Wedgy Bobs, or Long, Homeless Grey Dryness

Jacket Selections...
Millennials--Short and "smart"
Boomer Gals--Long, boxy, and full of down or shoulder pads (sometimes with menopausal linings that zip out)

Shirt Selections...
Millennials--Fitted and Athletic
Boomer Gals--Loose-as-a-Goose "Blouses" or Concert T-Shirts (i.e., Grateful Dead stuff)

Pant Selections...
Millennials--Leggings in Regimented Black
Plus Size Women--Leggings, in eye-blinding Wallpaper, Leopard, or Geometric Prints 
Boomer Gals--Jeans, for our eternally rebellious nature

Shoe Choices...
Millennials--Athletic wear or ankle boots, heels if they're from another country, or are hookers
Boomer Gals--Coffin-resembling, lined, stogey shoes with straps, no laces...similar to children's foot ware from the turn-of-the-century

Purse Accessories...
Millennials--Backpacks
Boomer Gals--Totes, with treats for the Grand
kids

My conclusion is that the key is to an enviable look is...

wearing smartly loud accessories.  

If you're my age, divert your lack of style and crepey neck with one distracting statement piece.  Go for a large piece of jewelry, bold eye wear, Isadora Duncan scarves, blood red lipstick, or even that flipping Mary Tyler Moore beret.   

Look as wild and mismatched as you dare...if you do, you will be pegged as eccentrically fashionable or gloriously wealthy.

It's a win-win.















 


 

On: Phobic-ering

Phobic-ering
Colleen Rogers

In my random, meandering ruminations today, I thought I would consider ranking my phobias by fear-tensity.   

So, I came up with the following list (with number one being my greatest terror, and number three being the least fear-inspiring)...here goes...

1.  Blood draws (not shots, though)
2.  Mice and Rats (or any other scurrying animal with a long tail)
3.  Worms (but not snakes)

I had an honorable mention short list, too, which included  clowns, heights, and open closet doors at night where I sleep.

You are probably laughing hysterically right about now at the nonsensical, laser-specific nature of my list.  You are also probably thinking that I might require intensive residential therapy.  Be that as it may, many of us do have some irrational fears.  

Even though the National Institute of Mental Health reports that only eight percent of us have such phobias, everyone I know mentions something that makes them a little queasy and uncomfortable.  Many of the symptoms people experience with phobias include nausea, trembling, rapid heartbeat, and a preoccupation with the feared object.

Phobias tend to be divided into categories--fears of the natural environment, fears relating to animals, fears of medical treatments, and fears related to a specific situation.  Women are primarily the phobic ones, so it seems.  

I was surprised to discover that virtually any object or situation can be a source of a phobia.  The last time I went to have blood drawn and shared the reason for my extremely sweaty palms, the intake nurse tried to reassure me by revealing that she was claustrophobic.  

The shocker phobia reveal for me, though, was when the phlebotomist explained that she could never stuff her own Thanksgiving turkey because she was truly physically afraid of putting her hand inside the bird. 

I found myself choking a chuckle over the absolute ridiculousness of her hilarious phobia.   

Really, now, who is actually afraid of stuffing their own Thanksgiving turkey?

Then, I thought about a clown drawing my blood in the closet of a skyscraper with a nest of mice and worms on his head.  Hope I can sleep tonight. 
 



Image from:
https://www.wikihow.com/Tell-if-Your-Fear-Is-a-Phobia



 

On: Date Days

On:  Date Days

Colleen Rogers

My husband and I, now in our 60’s, have a little “Date Day” each Monday afternoon.  A quiet lunch, then some coffee (and maybe dessert) at our favorite Coffee Bar is an “outsourced” pause in our week, during which we just enjoy each other’s company. 

I think about the evolution of our “Date Days” over the thirty plus years we have known each other.   I am grateful for these memories and for the evolution of our time together.  Every couple has their own story, but there are truly commonalities in all of our romances.  When I speak to other couples, I sense a definite continuum in the trajectory of all the “Date Days” in each of our individual relationships.

When my husband and I met in our twenties, for example, our “Date Days” were grand—there were fancy dinners, careful dress-ups, roses, and the lovely vamped excitement of passionate kisses and whispered plans for a next rendezvous.  There was the thrilling roller coaster line of anxiety that coincided with a peek over the cliff-of-future-plans.  The fear of the tentative finality of our connection rode shotgun with the possibility of a significant fork in a life-path. 

In those early days, even a low-maintenance woman like myself stepped up her best-impression-game with an armory of perfumes and lipsticks.  Any less-refined male counterpart decidedly learned to open doors and pull out chairs for their lady fair, and wondered all night if a tie was straight.  Chess pawns we were back then in all these high stakes games of life partner Uno. 

As we (and our friends) finally wed and decided to build

families, many of us balanced child-rearing with “Couple Alone Time”.  We  began to approach “Date Day” as though it were a Getaway Strategy Session at the White House.  Every couple procured a sub (a babysitter or grandparent) who would uphold the family fort in parentis logo.  The sub, of course, required a well-documented Agenda of Expectations. 

Offspring’s bedtimes and snacks were detailed, and fixed House Rules and Codes of Conduct were briefed before a couple’s departure on “Date Day”.  “Date Day” activities generally included drinking and/or absorbing the comforting affirmations of another couple.   This “buddy-couple” provided sound parenting advice and/or humorous barbs about their own family lives and misfortunes.

If couples chose to “go-it-alone” on “Date Day”, the event became a problem-resolution team workshop.  The primary “romantic utterance” whispered at the outing was “what-are-we-going-to-do-about”…  The goal of “Date Day” evolved into an opportunity to work out some of the more pressing household issues without children underfoot.  Finances, home improvement plans, family dynamics, and the soap opera of exes got “hashed out”.

Ultimately, these “Date Days” concluded with a debriefing and report from the subs, a tucking in and checking on children, and an exhausted snuggle snooze in the Parental Boudoir.  So many “Date Days” over the years morphed into “Family Time” without even the whisper of notice or concern.

In our retirement “Date Days”, my husband and I have relished the continuation of the complexities of our coupling.  We recall the fiery passion of our earliest “Date Day” adventures.  We also remember “Date Days” that served to strategize and establish our “home fires”.  So now, in our more subdued and quiet “Date Days”, we review the glowing ember of “together lives” well-lived.