I’ve been battling allergy induced asthma since December. Most will say pollen allergies are not around in the winter. That’s true unless you live near cedar trees. Cedar trees are the only trees that pollinate in the winter. Here in central Texas cedar is everywhere.
Sadly that means I haven’t been productive. Thankfully I’m finally getting a maintenance inhaler which should help a great deal because my list is long of things I want to do and things I need to do.
I won $500 in 1977 in a speech contest. I put in it the bank. I started my freshman year of university, lived at home and worked almost full time.
Advertised on campus was a six week tour of Europe for students. It cost $1800 which was a huge sum of money for me but I took a leap of faith, signed up and paid the deposit.
For the entire school year I saved every possible penny. I even would pick up pennies on the ground and save them. By May I paid for the trip in full.
This entire time, my friends were telling me it was a ripoff and fake. I had faith.
My parents drove me to Los Angeles and I met up with the group. I was scared and nervous. Except for a quick trip to Canada years earlier, I had never left the country.
I spent the next six weeks on a bus, a ship and ferry with other university students, staying in hostels and basic hotels as we traveled to 13 countries.
Outstanding memories: going through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin and being told not to lose our passports because the U.S. couldn’t help us and we’d be stuck.
Not being allowed into Yugoslavia until one of the male students cut off his beard to verify he was the same guy in his passport photo.
Going to our tour guide’s family home in Austria and having homemade strudel.
Some of the countries I visited no longer exist. It was a different time then. But this trip, instilled in me a love of traveling and being brave enough to go when I knew no one.
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
I have heard when people show you who they are, you need to believe them. I wish I had heard this years ago and taken it to heart.
Throughout my marriage my now ex-husband showed me who he was. He cheated but always promised he would stop. He used nasty pornography but when caught, always promised he’d stop. My daughter and I asked him to quit drinking. He said he didn’t have a problem. Her response was why do I find you passed out of the sofa? He was wanted by the police for illegal sexual behavior but always promised he’d never do it again. At the end he admitted to using prostitutes.
And even then I stayed almost another 3 years. My trusting heart always believed he would stop but he never did. He asked for the divorce not me. Crazy isn’t it when I think about it.
Six years into our marriage he admitted going to a live sex act club in Sydney, Australia. I wish I had acted then and left him. I stayed another 24 years. While my heart would have been sad it wouldn’t have been shattered by 30 years of mistreatment.
So when people show you who they are, believe them!!
If you’ve read any of my blog posts you know I have a love of France and the French lifestyle. Food, family, friends all come before work. It’s completely the opposite of the American lifestyle where work comes before anything and anyone.
Years ago I found St. Emilion in Fort Worth. It is a very small restaurant and reservations are needed. From the moment you arrive you are transported out of Texas.
From the menu board, wonderful selection of wine, the delicious food and the unhurried service creates an atmosphere unlike most restaurants in the U.S.
I never felt rushed to finish my meal. Service was attentive but not intrusive. There never was the feeling of we must hurry so someone else can have our table. It was a special time I’ve held on to for years.
So many of the lessons I’ve learned came after high school. There is one lesson I remember well though I learned in high school.
As a junior I entered a pageant, Miss Teenage Nevada. I was named Miss Congeniality, made the top ten but didn’t win. I decided to enter again the next year and I asked my mom to buy me a new formal dress for the contest. Her response was, “ No, you’re not going to win anyway, so you don’t need a new dress.” I didn’t let that stop me. I entered again and I won. Yes, wearing the same dress as I did from the year before.
It doesn’t matter if other people don’t believe in you, you just need to believe in yourself. And go for it.
How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
I work for doctors as their nanny. They had to continue to work during the pandemic. My schedule didn’t change. I show up at 7:15 and stay until 5:30. Preschool was cancelled so I had the boys all day. They are sweet most of the time and fun to be around. It kept what could have been a very lonely time from being so lonely. We didn’t wear masks together since they were so young. Their mom would come in and shower in the back room, changing her clothes as not to bring Covid in the house because she had patients who would come in despite knowing they had Covid putting her, the entire staff and all their families at risk. The dad contacted a mild case of Covid early on but had to quarantine for 3 weeks. None of us caught it.
I was unable to go and see my mother who was 83 at the time. I went over 2 years without seeing her. I did risk getting sick to go see my daughters, SIL and grandkids at Christmas. The thought of being alone over Christmas was too much to bear. I did wear a mask if I had to get out.
I stopped going grocery shopping which I didn’t do often anyway. When I was suffering from severe depression I had switched to pickup and I just did pickup all the time during covid.
While life changed dramatically for a lot of people, my life changed very little. I think I may have had covid the end of February 2020 but nothing had been said about it at that time. Since then I have never contracted covid.
The pandemic brought out the worst of people. They became ruder, pushier and greedy. People hoarded basic necessities because they would never dream of doing without or with less.
It has made me aware of how unprepared we are as a nation and how unprepared I am as an individual for another pandemic. The Trump administration handled it so poorly and lies were spread, so normally intelligent people were duped into believing falsehoods, just like they believe the lies about vaccines now. My friend’s young adult brother died because they refused the vaccination, believing the lies.
I pray there is not another pandemic in my lifetime, my children’s lifetime and my grandchildren’s lifetime but I know that is unlikely.
My life on an unexpected path 