A Whole Day Without Rules or Self-Judgment

April 10, 2017April 12, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

The world is full of rules… Be the exception!

Laura 60th birthday party

Not so happy on my 60th birthday, because the damn house isn’t finished yet!

I just celebrated my 62nd birthday. The gift I gave myself this year was a whole day without judging myself or my actions. I found this to be so much easier said than done: So many rules, so little time!

With every decision I made yesterday, I found someone in my brain there to question it. Should I do this or that? In each case I chose exactly what I wanted and ignored the “shoulds.” In this way I became even more conscious of all the rules in my own head. Wow, who knew what a negative committee I had been dealing with my whole life!

Then last night I started thinking about the many well-meaning (but annoying!) friends (and one ex-husband…) who were constantly offering me advice and instruction in how to live my life better.

DO THEY REALLY THINK I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TOXIC ADVICE FROM THE NEGATIVE COMMITTEE IN MY HEAD YET? SURE, POUR IT ON!

A number of years ago, I was visiting my parents down in Silver City when I saw this dish at an art gallery. I had to buy it, and then displayed it prominently in my living room. Did it work? No. By age 60 I began marking those friends off my list when they turned out to be duds.

Do you really think I haven’t lost weight because you haven’t arrived yet to share your latest tip on taking more walks or eating less? Gee, it might be my fractured ribs, two head injuries, COPD and other lung problems that are making walking at 7,000 feet a bit more challenging for me…

Whatever else I might be, I am super smart when it comes to solving my own problems, and I already have plenty of rules in my head that I’m slowly paring down for reasons mentioned above…

Thanks for trying, but I think I may know myself a tad bit better than you, since I just met you!

following the rules

When Breath Becomes Air

April 5, 2017April 5, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

“No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night.” (pg. 34 of When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi)

I just finished reading this fine book, the last written words of a top neurosurgeon who died in his mid-thirties of lung cancer in March of 2015. With a recent scary cat scan of my own lungs in January, you may wonder why I chose to read this book now. I wasn’t sure myself until I read it.

First of all, Kalanithi is obviously a deep thinker, always searching for the meaning in life. In fact as I read I realized he had the opposite reaction than most of us when confronted with such a daunting diagnosis. Most become more emotional, he seemed to become more analytical. This was not my response to my own recent confrontation with death. My response was along the lines of: “Am I proud of my life?”

One aspect of Kalnithi’s story rang very true to me, the way my perception of time has changed so much since we left the city behind with all its traffic and deadlines.

“Everyone succumbs to finitude…Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed.” (pg. 198)

We are never so wise as when we live in the moment.

I am boundlessly grateful to finally understand the pleasure of living in the present.

April Arrives: Welcome to Spring, Boomers!

April 2, 2017April 3, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

We had our own private April Fools Joke yesterday morning around here, no power again for 13 hours! Absolutely not funny, but at least we know the drill now…

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We also woke up to half a foot of snow…again! Oh well, all’s well that ends well!

We have some beautiful snow-capped peaks to look at this morning with a high of around 55 degrees! This is the view from our front door today…

But enough about us, this is the day I share with you some wonderful Boomer blogs written by my virtual friends everywhere!

First off we have Meryl of Six Decades and Counting. Though not a fashion maven who normally ignores fashion fads, this week two news articles caught her attention and triggered some fashion deliberations. Here she ruminates on the topics of jeans and leggings, and the dilemma of whether or not people of a certain age should ever wear this attire. Go read her comments on Fashion Sense and Nonsense: Leggings and Jeans.

Her final words at left, express her feelings perfectly, from one of the greatest writers of the 20^th century, Franz Kafka. This is also a perfect expression of my general feelings about our present century and watching the news! LOL!

Writer Carol Cassara discusses a different topic this week: Can you really sit back and manifest your heart’s desires? Over at Heart Mind Soul, wise woman Carol gives us some useful instruction in what else is necessary to make dreams come true?

March is Taste Washington Wine Month. To celebrate, Rita R. Robison, blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, decided to go to Taste Washington, a huge gala in Seattle with 235 wineries pouring wines and 65 restaurants offering food this year, the 20th Anniversary of the event.

Robison decided to taste wines from the wineries that she’s personally visited. Among her favorite wineries whose wines she tasted at the event are Airfield Estates, Woodinville; Silver Lake Winery, Zillah; and Tsillan Cellars, Chelan.

And finally, Tom asks: Did you play an April Fool’s prank on someone this past weekend, or have one pulled on you? In Are You Ready? Tom Sightings admits to a good one he fell for a few years ago. But then, you too might have gotten a little nervous in his situation.

Wishing you the best of Aprils! I know I am going to enjoy it because my birthday is always right around Easter, and I have every intention of celebrating surviving the worst winter of my entire life health-wise!

Easter chocolate Bunny cartoon

A Drive Northwest of La Veta Colorado…

March 31, 2017March 31, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

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Since we finally had a sunny day yesterday, we decided to take a drive out west of La Veta. We took off west on Francisco street on the county roads and soon started seeing wild turkey everywhere…

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and amazing rock formations too!

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There were also abandoned cabins.

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As we made our way back up to Highway 160, we saw a different side to Mount Mestas than we’re used to from our home.

And on our way back to Navajo,

I took a few more photos of the old adobe school house on County Road 510,

as it continues to tumble down…

Romantic Expectations & Reality

March 29, 2017March 22, 2019 / Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

So I’m watching some show on HGTV, and the woman who’s looking for a new home says, “I’m looking for a home that feels magical when you walk in!” From this brief comment I launch into my own version of a song from this 1965 Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella television special. Sure, you remember it, don’t you? With Leslie Ann Warren?

I LOVED THIS SHOW AT AGE TEN! I memorized the songs.

“Magical, mystical, miracle, can it be, is it true? Things are incredibly lyrical, is it me? No it’s you. I do hear a waltz. I see you and I hear a waltz. It’s what I’ve been waiting for all my life, to hear a waltz.”

What a lovely thought, and how unrealistic can you get? I know Rodgers and Hammerstein were probably just trying to think of words that went together well, but instead they helped to create the most unrealistic expectations in a generation of young girls!

Besides the story, which promotes the idea of waiting for a prince to rescue you from your grim surroundings, the words of the songs, which have stayed in my mind for over 50 years now (!) suggest we will most certainly “hear a waltz” when Mr. Right arrives in our lives. And they say we don’t have brainwashing in the USA… No, we have commercialism instead! Just as powerful and encouraged by our culture.

To be fair, by the time I was more interested in looking for a partner, around 1975, this song by Jefferson Starship was popular, and it also promised miracles.

No, I’m not saying that falling in love isn’t magical, I’m just saying the first time I met my “prince” in 2005, I didn’t hear a waltz OR believe in miracles. I had finally gotten past all of that garbage at age 49. I was now ready to meet a real person who had the self-awareness and emotional capability to love and give to others in their life. As it turned out, nothing about his outward appearance or natural talents were what I expected. No, I had no expectations of falling in love with a motorcycle man who knew how to fix things. But I went with my gut and inner wisdom. Good thinking Laura!

Now that we live almost off the grid in rural southern Colorado, I have so many more reasons to appreciate his abilities to wire up the generator when the power goes off for days at a time. No magical, mystical miracles. I don’t remember hearing a waltz when he appeared, but I knew instinctively that he would help me make it through the rest of my life, with love and affection every single day!

Trump, Marriage and the Blame Game

March 28, 2017March 28, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 3 Comments

As we gear up for another “Winter Storm Warning” here in southern Colorado, I thought I might discuss one of my favorite topics when it comes to marriage or cohabitation of any kind.

The biggest problem with marriage is that it makes blaming others far too easy. And I suppose that goes for the presidency at present too. Is anyone taking responsibility for their actions these days?

Have you ever noticed how automatic it feels to see a problem and say, “Who did this? It wasn’t me!” I have observed over my 62 years on this planet, that marriage just makes this worse. As kids it definitely is automatic, even if it isn’t true. But in marriage you have one other person who is far too handy to blame!

Having lived alone for most my adult life, I have learned to laugh at this tendency. When you have no one else to blame, you tend to take responsibility.

Now I say find the solution, not the blame.

Would somebody please tell President Trump to stop acting like a child and take responsibility for his own choices? Is that too much to ask from a 70-year-old man? His childish behavior is annoying.