Young at Heart

/ Ann Coleman / 101 Comments

I don’t need to be reminded that I’m old.  I can feel it in my joints, and see it in the mirror.  I’ve found toys and household items from my childhood for sale at antique malls.  I struggle to keep up with a modern technology that didn’t exist when I was young enough to be able to learn new things quickly and easily.  And my memory, which has never been very good, is rapidly deserting me.  I can’t tell you the number of times I walk into a room and then realize I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing there.  So yes, I’m very aware of the fact that I’m not young anymore.

But the problem is, there’s a difference between what I know and what I believe.  Because while I may know, on a logical level, that I’m on the threshold of “geezerhood,” there’s a part of me that still believes, stubbornly and against all evidence to the contrary, that I’m still young.  Maybe a bit on the achy and wrinkly side, but young nevertheless.

That’s why I’m surprised when I realize my husband will be turning seventy this year.  How can I possibly be married to a man that old?  I don’t remember marrying someone decades older than me, but then again, my memory isn’t always accurate.  Yeah, that’s got to be the answer…

But then how do I explain the fact that the niece I met when she was twelve is now well over fifty?  Or the fact that she’s also a grandmother?  And how do many of my other nieces and nephews, people I have known since they were born, have children of their own who are already in high school and even college?  That seems mathematically impossible, but then again, math has never been my strong suit.

When someone takes one look at me and offers me a senior discount, there’s a part of me that simply assumes they have bad eyesight.  And when I’m shopping at one of my regular stores and realize that two of the other shoppers are using walkers, I think, “Good for those old ladies still buying clothes at stores designed for the young.”  As for my own grandchildren growing up far too quickly (the oldest is already in first grade), I take refuge in denial.  And I suspect I’ll still be doing that when the youngest graduates from high school.

They say we’re only as young as we feel.  If that means our physical bodies, then I admit there are days when I feel positively ancient.  But if that means how we feel in our hearts, then I’m no older now than I was forty years ago.  And I prefer that interpretation, because for whatever reason, it just feels right.

For the Birds

/ Ann Coleman / 92 Comments

My life is fairly complicated these days, so this really wasn’t a good time to add anything new to my list of things to do.  But my grandsons gave me a bird-feeder for Christmas, along with a starter supply of seed.  It seems that my youngest grandson’s daycare class has a clear plastic bird feeder attached to their window, so the children can see the birds feed in it.  He loves it, and when he saw one just like it on a shopping trip with his mother, he very much wanted to get one for my husband and me.  

It sounded like a great idea at the time.  I already have a bird bath in our yard that the birds use regularly for drinking and bathing, so feeding the birds seemed like a logical next step.  We attached the bird feeder to our family room windows, overlooking the back yard where the bird bath is located.  I filled the little trays with food, and waited for the birds to discover it.  

 It only took a couple of days before the Cardinals, sparrows, and a some colorful little birds I can’t identify were dining regularly at our feeder. Everything went well until the squirrels decided that what was good enough for the birds was good enough for them, and began climbing a nearby bush from which they’d leap onto the bird feeder.  Not only did they keep the birds out, but the weight of the squirrels was too much for the suction cups holding the feeder to the window, and the whole thing fell off.

We moved the feeder to our dining room window, and once the birds discovered the new location, there were even more of them enjoying the free food.  I started filling the little cups of food twice a day, and even then it wasn’t unusual to walk into the dining room and see a cardinal sitting in the empty feeder, staring into our house, obviously waiting for a refill.  We were going through a lot of bird seed, but it was fun to see the birds enjoying it so much.  I think they especially appreciated the food on days when the ground was covered with snow and the temps were hovering near zero.

But the cold weather also meant that it was impossible to keep fresh water in the bird bath, because it kept freezing over.  I’d see the poor birds sitting on the edge of it, pecking uselessly at the ice that must have looked like water to them.  So of course the next step was buying an electric bird-bath heater to keep the water above freezing, which also meant moving the bird bath nearer to our house so we could plug it in.

All was well until today, when a particularly enterprising squirrel managed to jump from a tree limb several feet across the yard and land on the dining room window sill, close to the bird feeder.  He was clinging to the ledge, contemplating his next move, when I rushed in and banged on the window to scare him off.  But he didn’t go far……just ran back to the tree where he sat, patiently waiting for me to leave so he could have another go at the feeder.

And so the saga continues.  I’m now buying two bags of bird seed a week, filling the bird feeder at least twice a day, own an electric bird bath warmer, and am waging an endless (and probably fruitless) battle with the local squirrels to keep them out of the bird feeder.  So yes, my life is a bit more complicated now.  But that’s okay, because it’s also more interesting.  Feeding hungry birds is satisfying, and I really enjoy them, especially the cardinals.  The squirrels will always be an annoyance, but face it, they were annoying even before we started feeing the birds.  My grandson may be young, but he’s a pretty smart little guy, because that bird bath turned out to be one of our very favorite Christmas gifts this year.

 

Vacation Fun

/ Ann Coleman / 98 Comments

My husband and I had been looking forward to our annual Winter Florida vacation.  We’d rented a condo on the beach months ago, knowing that once the holidays were over, our tolerance for the cold Winter temperatures would also be over.  And honestly, nothing helps drive the Winter blues away like a week spend on a warm, sunny beach.

So it was with great hope that we packed our suitcases, left notes for the dog and house sitter and headed off to the airport to fly south.  We’d checked the weather reports, and while they weren’t quite as good as we had hoped, they were good enough.  The prediction was a few days with highs in the sixties and a few days with highs in the seventies, and one day was even supposed to hit 81 degrees.  Evening temps (we like to walk to restaurants in Florida) were in the fifties, so we added a couple of light weight sweaters and jackets to our luggage and figured we were good to go.

But as we all know, weather predictions are just that:  predictions.  So while we did get warm and sunny days upon arrival and just before we left, all the days in between were basically the same:  cold and windy, with a light rain thrown in just to keep things interesting.

I really didn’t mind at first.  Looking at an empty beach while sitting in a warm condo and doing a jigsaw puzzle was still better than what I would have been dealing with at home, where the single-digit temperatures created icy sidewalks and miserable conditions for everyone.  We also did a little shopping and toured an excellent local history museum.  But when I woke up on the fifth morning in a row to cold, grey skies and drizzle, I began to feel a bit sorry for myself.  This was not what we had come to Florida for, and it was getting harder to convince myself I was lucky to be here.

But then the miracle happened.  I turned on a local news channel to see the weather report, and learned the cold front would be leaving that evening. The forecast for the next two days was sunny and much warmer.  My mood instantly lifted.  I could take one more day of lousy weather if it meant tomorrow I could sit on the beach, basking in the sun.  And for once I didn’t mind borrowing one of my husband’s sweatshirts to wear over my t-shirt and under my raincoat while I walked the beach, because I knew it was the last day I’d need it.

Sure enough, our last two days of vacation had fabulous weather, the kind that doesn’t require extra layers of anything other than sunscreen.  We even saw a fabulous sunset.  Best of all, I finally felt myself relaxing in a way that I just couldn’t seem to do when I was trying so hard to cope with bad weather.

So when we returned home and people asked me how my vacation went, I could honestly answer that it was great.  We’d gotten away from a daily routine that sometimes feels overwhelming, we learned to be creative when looking for fun on our vacation, and we did get to relax in the warmth for a little bit.  I guess it’s all just a matter of perspective, and I’d finally found a good one.

January Blues

/ Ann Coleman / 91 Comments

It’s no secret that January is my least favorite month.  It’s long, it’s cold, and dark.  My beloved Christmas season is over on January 6th, which means I have to pack up all the decorations I put up after Thanksgiving.  Not only is this a depressing job, it leaves everything looking far too plain and sterile.  My Christmas decorating may be a bit “over the top,” but it least it makes my house seem warm, cozy, and colorful.

But there’s no avoiding January, and so, year after year, I soldier on.  I eat the last of the Christmas cookies before they go stale (“waste not, want not” as the old saying goes), pack up the decorations and both try and fail to remember where I stored all the stuff I moved to make room for said decorations.  Then I play my favorite Christmas carols one last time while I take the ornaments off the Christmas tree. This year, taking down the tree was a little less painful because a beautiful snow was falling as I was doing so, almost giving the impression of a white Christmas.

Unfortunately, that same snowfall became mixed with sleet and ice that stuck around for days afterwards.  And the results were painful.  Schools, churches and businesses were all closed, and mail service stopped for over a week.  Children who had already had a two-week break from school found themselves off a third week, much to the dismay of their working parents.  The handful of restaurants open the day after the storm hit were slammed with customers they weren’t expecting on a snowy Monday night.  I couldn’t get to the animal shelter where I walk dogs, and neither could most of the other volunteers which meant that the few people who did make it in struggled to do the work normally handled by a much larger crew.

My husband did a great job of shoveling our lengthy driveway, and I helped him chip off the last of the ice from the area in front of our garage when things finally warmed up a little.  But as the ice that had formed in our gutters melted, it dripped directly onto both our front and back porch steps where it promptly froze up again when the sun went down.  Which meant I was treated to the somewhat alarming sight of my husband up on a ladder he had placed on the icy sidewalk, trying to knock the rest of the ice out of the gutter with a long pole.  (He brushed off my concerns by assuring me he had the “right tools for the job.”)

I distracted myself by setting up a bird-feeding station in our back yard, placing plates full of bird feed on our patio table.  It’s gratifying to feed hungry birds during bad weather, although I was surprised by how much they ate because I used up almost an entire bag of bird food in just four days.  That mystery was solved when I looked out the window and saw three squirrels with the birds, all happily devouring the seed.

Thankfully, January is almost half over and I know that soon the days will be just a little bit longer and the sun will be a little bit stronger.  We also hope to take a short escape to sunny Florida in the near future, which always makes Winter so much easier to endure.  (Expect a future post from Finn, complaining about being left behind with a live-in dog sitter…..)  But meanwhile, I’m sure I’ll keep busy, what with buying more bird food, checking to make sure my husband’s health and accident insurance is up-to-date, and spending some time on the exercise bike to burn off all those cookie calories…….

A Good Christmas

/ Ann Coleman / 97 Comments

I was a child and someone asked me, “Did you have a good Christmas?” I would always respond by nodding yes and rattling off a list of the presents I had received.  And in my defense, I did get some nice presents:  a doll that walked, a guitar, and my beloved stuffed pony, which I promptly, if unimaginatively,  named “Pone-Pone.”  But even so, it never occurred to me that having a good Christmas could mean anything other than getting good presents.

But then I grew up, and my perspective changed.  I still appreciate a good present, but most of the things I’d really like aren’t something that can be wrapped up and placed beneath a Christmas tree.  I may want a beach-front condo on Sanibel Island and a lotion that will magically erase my wrinkles and under-eye bags, but I know my changes of actually receiving them are slim.  Yes, I still get nice gifts at Christmas and I definitely appreciate them.  It’s just that getting nice gifts is no longer the way I measure my Christmas experience.

These days, I tend to think of Christmas as series of special moments, most of them spent with people I love.  I think of my sister and I keeping our tradition of decorating our mom’s Christmas tree, carefully hanging the ornaments exactly where she asks us to, knowing full well this could be the last year we do that.   Or my husband and I decorating our own tree, always accompanied by a glass of champagne and Nat King Cole’s version of The Christmas Song.

I won’t forget the magic of sitting in church this Christmas Eve, singing Silent Night and watching my granddaughter carefully holding her own candle, sitting perfectly still as she gazed at the flame in the candle-lit sanctuary.  Or the chaotic fun of our own family celebration as the little ones ripped into their packages with equal parts of enthusiasm and joy.

Sometimes the moments are small, such as turning on the car radio and hearing my favorite Christmas carol that makes my bad mood disappear in an instant.  Or they can be more significant, such as sitting in a theater with good friends who have had a very rough year, hearing an imaginative re-telling of the Nativity story.

I know that all those moments, the big ones and the small ones, are the true gifts of Christmas season.  And these days, they’re what I think about when someone asks me if I had a good Christmas.  These memories will last l long after the decorations are taken down and packed away for another year, and I know I was lucky to have many such moments this year.  And my hope is that everyone else who celebrates the holiday has the same kind of memories to carry with them throughout the coming year.

Ten Years Old

/ Ann Coleman / 140 Comments

This month marks the ten-year anniversary of Muddling Through My Middle Age.  I’m not sure how a blogging anniversary is supposed to be celebrated, since it’s impossible to share cake and champagne with online readers, and I firmly believe that all good celebrations include cake and champagne.  I suppose I’ll have to settle for a brief reflection on my ten years of blogging and consider that one of the many sacrifices writers make for the sake of their art.

The truth is I would never have started this blog without the urging of a good friend.  After years of struggling, and failing, to become a commercially successful writer, I was intrigued with the idea of trying a new writing platform, but also scared I wouldn’t be particularly good at it.  Still, I was at a point in my life where I was willing to try something new and writing about the issues of (late) middle age seemed to be a worthwhile endeavor.  And so, with equal parts of hesitation and hope, I launched my blog.

In the early days, I published a new post every four days.  (I had read that all successful bloggers post every day, but I knew I couldn’t keep up with that schedule.)  Most of my family and some of my friends read it, and so did other bloggers, especially once I learned the ways of the WordPress blogging community.  I posted a link to my blog on my Facebook page, which also helped draw readers.   I knew my blog would never be big, but it was nice to know that at least some people were reading and appreciating what I wrote.

For me, blogging is primarily about writing.  And writing (with the exception of journaling) is all about communication.  Knowing that something I’ve written has “spoken” to someone else is the best result I could ever hope for, so it’s always gratifying when someone leaves a comment to that effect on one of my posts.  Honestly, the comment section was one of my happiest surprises when it came to blogging, because often my readers would leave insightful comments that expanded on the point I was trying to make.  Their comments “spoke” to me, and to anyone else who read them.

Beyond the satisfaction of writing, blogging connected me to interesting people from all over the world.  I learned that blogging friends, even though we don’t meet in person, are real.  I subscribe to tons of really good blogs that I would never have discovered if I hadn’t started my own blog, and my relationship with many of their writers really does feel like friendship.

Sadly, I have reached a stage of life in which I don’t have as much time to devote to blogging as I would like.  I’ve gone from posting every four days to posting once or twice a month.  My personal life has become more hectic, and I feel guilty for not posting more often and not keeping up with other blogs as much as I would like.  WordPress’ constant changes don’t help, either.  I’m not sure how much longer Muddling Through My Middle Age will exist (although if it keeps going much longer I’m going to have to change the word “middle” to “old”).

But for now, I’m hanging in there.  I’m not ready to walk away from all the gifts that my blog has given me just yet.  So I’ll celebrate my ten years of blogging in the best way I know how:  I’m going to go find myself some cake.  And I’ll think of you all with gratitude while I eat it…….

Requiem

/ Ann Coleman / 118 Comments

When it’s time to create a new post, I usually just write about whatever happens to be on my mind.  But that hasn’t been the case for the past few months, because I’ve been mostly thinking about a dear family friend who had been battling a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer.

I couldn’t bring myself to write about it for many reasons.  Obviously, I wanted to respect Kelly’s privacy and the privacy of her family.  And as anyone who has loved someone undergoing treatment for a serious illness knows, emotions run high, fluctuating between hope, despair, and everything in between.  I didn’t want to do anything that would cause even more pain for her parents, husband or children.  So I did the only thing I could do: offer my love, support and prayers.  Writing about it just didn’t feel right, so I pushed those emotions aside and wrote about safer topics, like our recent remodeling project.

But even though Kelly fought bravely against this terrible cancer, with the help of excellent medical care and the unwavering support of her family, she did not beat it.  Everyone who knew her is devastated, but no one more so than her parents, husband and young children.  This is the kind of loss that shakes us to the core, reminding us just how unfair and cruel the world can truly be.

Hundreds of people attended her funeral.  Her husband gave the eulogy and her daughter sang a solo.  The service was beautiful and moving, even with the overwhelming feelings of sadness and loss.  And it made me realize just how much Kelly had accomplished in her too-short life.

Everyone who knew her had a story to tell of how she had enriched their life.  Her many friends (including my daughter) spoke of her loyalty, her fun-loving spirit and her willingness to help them whenever they needed her.  Her coworkers talked about her endless compassion for her patients and their families.   Her family knew they were her number-one priority, and that there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for them.  I don’t believe any human is ever perfect, but I can honestly say Kelly was the best mother, wife and daughter that anyone could possibly be.

Kelly will be missed by so many people, and life without her physical presence will be a challenge for those who loved her.  But I know her legacy lives on, in all those who knew her and have the good sense to learn from her example.  She showed us what true compassion, loyalty, courage, and most of all, love, looks like.  And the best way we can honor her life is to carry on in her footsteps…..

In Between

/ Ann Coleman / 112 Comments

I’ve always liked November.  It’s a modest month, arriving just after Halloween, and its holidays tend to be low-maintenance, with very little decorating or shopping required.  November makes few special demands on my time, providing a much-needed rest before the craziness of the Christmas season arrives.   Traditionally I use that extra time getting my house in order, but literally and figuratively.

 This year has been a little different.  First of all, I have to dispose of the six pumpkins I used to decorate our yard in October.  I don’t usually buy that many pumpkins, but every time I brought home a new pumpkin, the local squirrel population promptly made a meal out of it.  I knew they were struggling with the abnormally dry weather, so I moved the gnawed-on pumpkins to the side of the house for their dining convenience and put the new ones on my front steps.  I even hid a dish of water for them under our bushes.  But it didn’t work.  The greedy little things kept right on eating the old pumpkins and chewed huge holes in my new ones.  Which just goes to show that you can’t reason with squirrels.

And while I always move the last of my Summer clothes out of my closet and replace them with my Winter wardrobe, this year I have a brand new closet to store them in.  I love the extra space, but it also means I have to figure out exactly how I want to utilize it.  Any decision regarding fashion doesn’t come easily to me, but I’m confident I’ll have it all figured out by late March, just in time to pack it all away again to make room for my Spring clothes.  I guess that’s the price you pay for expanding and redecorating your primary bedroom.

I’m doing my usual late-Fall thorough housecleaning in preparation for my annual, over-the-top Christmas decorating, so at least that feels normal.  And I made my usual disgusting revelations while doing so, such as my discovery that a jar of honey had been quietly leaking on the top shelf of one of my kitchen cabinets for who knows how long.  What I do know (now) is that dried-on honey is very hard to clean up.  And while I was up there, I also found some condiments that were at least two-years past their “sell-by” dates.  I must have missed them in my last couple of cleaning sessions.

But despite it all, I’m thankful for November.  I’m thankful for this time of year that gives me a little breathing room before the hectic holidays, as much as I love them.  I’ll never be one of those people who decorate for Christmas as soon as Halloween is over because I value this time too much.  Yes, my favorite holiday is coming soon, but until it arrives, I’ll just enjoy this time spent “in-between.”

Against the Wind

/ Ann Coleman / 96 Comments

Life is nothing if not unpredictable.  So when my husband and I made plans to vacation in Florida with our entire immediate family, I knew there was a chance it might not happen.  I was looking forward to it very much, but knew better than to count on it.  So I wasn’t all that surprised when, the week before we were set to leave, I began to hear talk about a potential monster storm named Hurricane Milton.  And of course it was headed for the west coast of Florida, just north of the home we had rented on Marco Island.

My first reaction was deep sympathy for the residents of Florida, who were still reeling from Hurricane Helene.  But then, selfishly, I also hoped the storm would die down because I didn’t want to cancel my family vacation.  Having everyone in the same house for a week, free from the distractions of our usual busy schedules, gives us a chance to connect and enjoy each other’s company in a way that our ordinary lives simply don’t.

As the weather predictions grew worse, I researched alternative spots for our vacation.  It’s not easy to find a house big enough for six adults and three kids, but I found a few up in the Florida panhandle that were in our price range.  Unfortunately, our rental company in Marco Island was quite confident our vacation could go ahead as planned.  And unless they cancelled our contract, we didn’t get our money back.  I didn’t want to book a house on the panhandle until I knew we weren’t also paying for a house on Marco.

So we waited, constantly checking the news, weather reports, and availability of the potential rental houses in the panhandle.  The hurricane hit Wednesday evening.  On Friday morning, we learned Marco Island had mostly been spared and our rental house was fine.  The airport was open, although our flight schedule was changed twice.  We breathed a sigh of relief and packed our bags.

On Saturday morning, we were told our rental house had a power surge that knocked out half its electricity, but the rental company offered us an alternative house.  Upon boarding the plane, we learned that standing water at the airport might mean we’d be redirected to another airport where we had no rental cars reserved, but by that point we were beyond caring.

But you know what? After all the stress, the worry, and the changes in plans, we had a fabulous vacation.  The new house was bigger and nicer than our original rental, for the same price.  We landed at the airport where we had cars reserved.  The weather was beautiful.  By the end of the week, we were even able to take the kids to the beach to collect seashells.  Honestly, it was one of the nicest family vacations we’ve ever had.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in here about not giving up and hanging onto hope, but this post is long enough without going into all that.  So all I’m going to say is that sometimes, against all odds, things really do work out for the best.  And for that, I’m so very grateful…..

My Turn

/ Ann Coleman / 85 Comments

As my regular readers know, my family lived through a renovation this Summer.  Mom and Dad decided to add a dormer to their upstairs bedroom, which almost doubled the size of their bedroom and also gave them two windows overlooking their front lawn.  (Apparently, they needed more space and Mom was tired of having to go downstairs when she wanted to spy on our neighbors.)

As a dog, I’ve become used to not being consulted in the major family decisions, even the ones that directly affect me.  So no one asked me if I minded having the crate I sleep in moved from the upstairs landing to the downstairs family room.  Nor did they ask if I minded being regulated to the back of the house all day so I “wouldn’t get in the way of the workers.”  Just because I’m a sociable fellow who likes to spend time with visitors, they decided they couldn’t trust me not to make a nuisance of myself during the construction.

As if I could ever be a nuisance!  I know for a fact the workers adored me.  Fox example, once when Mom left the doggie gate open and I snuck upstairs to say hello, one of the workers actually carried me back down!  Obviously he was worried I might fall down the stairs, or he just wanted an excuse for a quick cuddle.  Either way, it proved just how much they liked me.  But did Mom or Dad wake up and realize there was no need for gates to keep me in the back of the house?  No, they did not.

The good news is they often took the gates down in the evening, so I was able to go upstairs and inspect the work.  Which I did, repeatedly.  And a good inspection must be thorough, so I even checked out the exposed attic area with the new insulation.  And I found out two important things:  1) insulation and dust sticks to dog hair, and 2) my parents freak out when I come back down stairs covered in the aforementioned insulation and dog hair.  They also get testy when I roll on the furniture to remove it.

The work is over now, and my parents have returned to their newly-expanded bedroom.  (Mom promised to post pictures of it, but she’s waiting until the curtains she ordered are delivered and hung.)  They have returned my crate to its original position in the upstairs landing.  But here’s the thing:  all three of us lived through a lot of inconvenience, dirt and noise this past Summer, but only two of us are enjoying the reward.

Mom and Dad have a new bedroom, complete with new carpeting, bedspread, heating/cooling system, closet, etc.  I have the same old crate and blanket I’ve always had.  You would think that if I can’t actually sleep in the new bedroom, they would have the decency to buy me a bigger crate.  Or at the very least, a new blanket.  But obviously, that never occurred to them.  All I can say is it’s a good thing I love them so much and have such a forgiving nature, because otherwise there would be a “mad dog” in this house……