These are the best years...but those years were fun.

The party's over and I'm back at home. The whole 30th high school reunion was a fun diversion. I'm sure my daughters would have been interested in the spectacle of a room full of 48 year olds acting like teenagers, except with lots of alcohol. Or maybe I should say lots of legal alcohol. There was plenty of alcohol back in high school, so I heard. I think it's safe to say not a single person in the room got carded by the bartender. I myself stuck with club soda with lime.

Although my family moved a fair amount as I was growing up, we always moved within the same town. The result is that some of the folks in that room on Saturday night I have known since I was six years old. Yes, Brad, you were the best man when I married Mike on the playground at recess the spring of my first grade year. Thanks for the reminder. I don't think we got the marriage annulled before my family moved to the other side of town and I started attending Northview Elementary. A group of us former Northview Roadrunners gathered in a corner to take a photo and reminisce. I was saddened to learn that my elementary school crush was last seen in the county jail due to a DUI. I already knew that our classmate, Patty, had died of a brain tumor a long time ago. And another classmate, Kelly, died in a motorcycle accident - also a long time ago. But the rest of us seem to be surviving and even thriving.

I'm glad to be home again, back in my cocoon of everyday life. Glad that high school is not the end of life even though I distinctly remember wondering at 17 if it was all down hill after graduation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Life is full of opportunities for redemption and make-overs and do-overs and making something of ones self. Thank God for that! And thanks for the memories, old friends.

A lot has happened in 30 years

In a holding pattern while I wait for the big event to start in a bit. We're meeting old friends for dinner before heading to a room full of even more old friends and former acquaintances at my 30th high school reunion. The problem I'm anticipating is trying to determine who's who in a dark room with loud music. So far I've deduced that people either look just like they did when we graduated only with added wrinkles and maybe added pounds, or they are completely unrecognizable.

My only hope is that everyone is provided with a name tag designed for the visually impaired. Or maybe that's vision impaired. There will probably be many, many people in the room who are visually impaired, with an extra chin here or a beer belly there. In fact, I expect most of us to be impaired in some way. You don't get to 48 without some signs of aging. At least that's my story (excuse?) and I'm sticking to it.

Along with the problem of trying to recognize people, there's the fear that I've forgotten everyone. I'm not good at looking all casual and self-assured when I have no freaking idea who you are. Were we best buds in 7th grade home room? Did we eat lunch together every day in the cafeteria? Surely I will remember those folks. If not, I just hope I'm a better actor than I think I am.

I so wish I had been able to hunt down at least one yearbook so I could cram for this exam.

If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy... (thank you, Rod Stewart!)

In about a week I'll be headed to my high school reunion. It's been thirty years since I walked the halls of Olathe High School, in a once-small town near Kansas City. The graduates of 1979 were the last class in an era where there was only one high school in town. Now there are four or five. I've lost track.

I guess I'm one of the rare folks who enjoyed high school. I'm not saying I'd want to do it again. Certainly, there was plenty of drama and angst and questioning and, did I mention drama? I wanted to be thinner, I always wanted new clothes...I wanted to look like everyone else. But it's not like adult life isn't filled with drama too. I mean, do you WORK in an office? There are still cliques and mean girls and incompetent authority figures in the adult world. We'd all like to think that we've left high school behind, but the issues back then are often still the issues today, just in bigger pants!

It's interesting to me that some of the same locations and names are still in the news. In 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after being in exile, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq, and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. Hmmm. Sounds familiar.

I hope in my own life I've moved on from the issues of an 18 year old. I hope I've learned something, grown a little, made some improvements, changed my priorities. I enjoy being 48.

But I do wish I was thinner for that 30th reunion. And I do want some new clothes. Maybe things haven't changed all that much.

Do you have a secret?

I picked up The Secrets Women Keep, by Dr. Jill Hubbard, the other day, because - duh- we all keep secrets. I was curious how someone managed to write a book about it. I mean, the weight on my driver's license hasn't been true in years. I'm keeping that secret from the DMV and the teenage boy at the grocery store who demands to see my ID, and my husband. There are just some things other people don't need to know.

Women sometimes have secrets that pertain to bad behavior or poor choices. But plenty of women have secrets about their perfectly good, average life. I've had those kinds of secrets.

"I'm so disappointed in how my life has turned out. This wasn't what I had planned."

"I don't really like my husband right now and don't feel like sticking it out in this marriage"

"The bottom of the pond seems like a better place to be than my life".

Wow, Cari. Heavy stuff for a sunny Friday! I don't mean for it to be heavy. I'm just pointing out that we all keep secrets. Anyone who knows me well knows that "Transparency" is my personal mantra. Sometimes we even keep these secrets from ourselves, pretending that everything is lovely, when it just doesn't feel lovely. There are all kinds of reasons for these feelings. They often are seasonal and pass as life goes on. By seasonal I don't mean hay fever season, because in Oklahoma that season never seems to pass. I mean seasons in a woman's life. Or seasons in any marriage, good or bad. It's not possible to always like each other every day, day after day. I often tell Mark I couldn't imagine having lived with anyone else for these 28 years. But that doesn't mean he's not on my sh__ list sometimes. Of course. I'm NEVER on his list.

The point of all this self disclosure is that I'm happy to say I'm learning to identify those secrets, acknowledge them to the appropriate people, and make the changes necessary to get my life back into balance. Here's what the author says...

"It requires an enormous reservoir of energy to maintain two distinct
selves--the external front we show the world, and the internal, true self.
This pretense drains us and robs us of the energy we could be using in
countless other ways, from improving our relationships to deepening our
spiritual lives to putting the laundry away or making dinner. Getting our
insides and outsides to more closely match is an important goal in
psychotherapy. The more aligned we are, internally and externally, the more real we can be. 'What you see is what you get' is a trusted motto. We simply can't live full, passionate lives of integrity if we are not being
authentic. Having secrets is a sure way to avoid authenticity."

I feel the need to add a disclaimer. We as women do NOT need to air everything to everyone. But we do need to be honest with ourselves and a few trusted folks.

Have a happy, transparent weekend. And tell somebody a secret. Just make sure it's your secret to tell!

It's a Bundt

So I've been thinking about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Bundt Pan thing, because it's more fun to think about than, say, the economic downturn, Oklahoma's breathtakingly poor health statistics, or how I should really lose some weight. After reading the original "Traveling Rules", I came up with some of my own rules. They really only make sense if you read the original rules (see link above). So here goes.

You must always wash the bundt pan.
You must never make jello in the bundt pan. It's jiggly.
You must never say the word "fat" while eating what was baked with the bundt pan.
You must never let a man bake something with the bundt pan (although you may bake something in his presence).
You must not pick your nose while using the bundt pan.
You must document your experience with the bundt pan on your blog for the other bundt sisters.
You may only possess the bundt pan for the specified length of time before passing it on to one of your bundt sisters.
Remember: bundt cake = love. Love your bundt sisters. Love yourself.

Hmmm. It might be fun to pass something around like that as a way to connect with others with whom you've already formed a sort of connection through bloggyness. Kind of an experiment in building community. According to Wikipedia, bundt comes from the German word "bund" for gathering. That seems appropriate. Or am I just crazy and need to go back into my hole?

My friend is 50!

A life long friend of mine had her 50th birthday this week. Some people come and go, and some seem to become a permanent part of your life. My early memories of her are of us playing together on my Grandma Johnson's living room floor. Grandma Johnson was a sewer and a quilter, and she had made us some matching outfits out of scraps that were cuter than anything you could buy at the store. In fact, I remember my Grandma made her the sweetest bedspread for her canopy bed out of pink gingham.

She was physically much more mature than I, with an early onset of curves and a tiny little waste that most grown women would die for. As we got older she had a ridiculous crush on this scrawny guy with a gelmet. Seriously, the guy had no balls at all. I never really knew what she saw in him with his early 70's spandex outfits. She had a little sister who was as flat as a pancake and it was always funny to see the two of them side by side. Nobody ever said life was fair.

It was her pink convertible that I was most jealous of. Long before I could drive she was jetting around with the top down, stopping at her dream house only long enough to change into yet another sparkly set of clothes before heading out to another party or tennis match. OK, I was also jealous of those tiny feet that slipped so easily into impossibly high heals while I skipped along in my Keds.

That woman never seems to age either. By the time my own children came along, she was just as slim and curvaceous as always, but with even better hair and a darker tan. Some people warned me not to let my impressionable young daughters associate with her. After all, with her impossibly perfect face and figure, she might somehow send them the message that they weren't good enough - that all women were supposed to look like her. But I ignored the warnings, and I think my daughters turned out just fine. I hope to someday introduce my granddaughters to this fabulous, ageless friend.

I recently came across some picture of what she looked like when we first met. Seriously, we should all be so lucky to age as well.

A few things off the list. And you know I love lists.

Friends don't let friends do home repairs alone. Our home repair guru/savior, Berry, came over on Sunday and spent four hours going down my list of things that just haven't gotten done over the years of home renovation. That light fixture that has been sitting in the box since 2004 after the winter of bedroom wreckovation. Ah those are good memories. Attempting to sleep in our king sized bed while the arctic wind rattled the insulation in the exposed ceiling. Stuffing Angela up into the attic to do electrical work 'cause she was the only one small enough to fit. Don't worry, she was at least 18 years old. And she volunteered. Don't call DHS. That was the winter we ended up sleeping on a blow-up mattress in the living room for weeks because I had this thing about not liking to sleep under the stars while inside the house. I know. I'm high maintenance.

He also took care of a couple of thresholds, repaired an electrical outlet, fixed the off-center ceiling fan, glued in the new kitchen sink. Am I forgetting anything? You get used to having things undone for so long you almost forget they aren't done. I keep marveling at how much better that light fixture looks hanging from the ceiling than it did sitting in the box on the shelf.

He didn't do all this alone though. Mark helped. Although the one time I peeked into the bedroom to see how the fan project was going, Berry was on the ladder and Mark was laying on his back across the bed. But he was lending his moral support. Which would be different than his immoral support I guess. Odd phrase.

Tessa is home for a couple of days since it's a long weekend. Her comment? "This house is getting less embarrassing all the time". So there it is in a nutshell. Like we ever put things in a nutshell. Another odd phrase. To what nut are they referring? Peanut? Since it's Oklahoma, they must be referring to the pecan. But why would we put our thoughts in something even the squirrels throw out.

Anyway, I digress. I'm just tickled pink to have the list done. Now what does that mean? Is that a phrase only a person of Caucasian descent uses? I mean, not everyone can be tickled until they are pink. OK, I'm done now.

God bless America on this, our Presidential Inauguration Day. Few countries do it like we do. Thank you, Lord, for a nation that believes in a peaceful transition of power.

What is my problem?

I read a lot of blogs on a wide variety of topics. Of course, the humorous ones are my favorites because who doesn't enjoy a nice, lighthearted read. But I find there is one kind of blog that I just don't like to read. And I don't like that I don't like to read them. And I don't know why I don't like to read them. And I try to make myself like to read them.

Deep breath...confession time. I don't like to read devotional, preachy blogs. And there are a million of them out there.

I know. I'm a complete heathen.

But that's just it. I'm not a heathen. God IS my existence. There is no life for me apart from God. I want others to love God too. So what is the freaking deal? It really bugs me. Possible reasons?

1. Been there, done that. Booorriing-I hope that's not the reason. God by His very nature is fresh and eternally creating and creative.


2. I'm emotionally stunted and don't want to share the deepest parts of myself, much less hear that from other people - Wow. Hope that's not it for obvious reasons.
   
3. Most of what I read doesn't speak to where I am - possible, maybe, hmmm.

I don't know why it matters. It just makes me think there's something wrong with me. Oh, wait. Maybe it's somehow related to my dislike of makeup/plastic storage container/jewelery parties, women's retreats, mother-daughter-hat-wearing teas. I'm just not a joiner. Maybe that's it! I'm not a joiner. I don't follow well. I don't do groupie things.

Ah well, I'm done with tonight's self-obsessive analysis. I delight in hearing from and being with my friends and precious family members. And to say I love God doesn't do that relationship justice. So I guess that's what really matters.