The Next Step in the Life of My Blog

My patient son helping me with one of my many projects. 

I love telling stories about my life, and that’s how “Now I Know” got its start. I think it has a lot to do with my former life as a reporter; I just can’t resist the urge to “chronicle.”

While I still like telling a good story, I’m now interested in connecting with others who like to make things out of discarded treasures. Some people call it recycling, others – repurposing. It just does my heart good to know that an item will find a new life instead of ending in the trash. If that repurposed item also starts a conversation, gets someone to think or makes someone feel good, all the better.

My blog is evolving and is in need of a new name and new look. I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me.

The Zombie Mole from Outer Space

While gardening the other day, I noticed that every time I pulled a weed from my rose garden, a patch of dirt would jump.
The answer, of course, was that a mole had set up camp amongst my Tamora and Heritage roses, and I was making too much noise in its hallways. I was interested in getting a glimpse of the little rodent, so I moved in closer. All of the sudden, I remembered that this was how the lone woman in horror movies ended up dead. She’d investigate, only to be pulled underground by the tentacle of some other-worldly creature that came to earth to hunt humans.

So, I backed away.

When I related this tale to a friend, she asked me if I stabbed the mole with a pitchfork. That’s when it hit me – why was my first instinct to investigate and my second to run for fear of alien moles? Eliminating the little aerator might be practical, but for me, I guess the movie fan part of me took over.

ET Moles Amongst the Roses – sounds like a movie to me.

Married 25 Years Today and Happy About It

It doesn’t seem like Chuck and I have been married 25 years. He even mentioned today that time must have sped up or some time warp developed, because there’s no way we’ve been married this long.

When Chuck and I walked down the aisle a quarter of a century ago, we were both a little nervous. I’d read all those magazine articles about how to have a successful relationship, and it all sounded really hard. You had to think about every little thing you said and did. I’m not sure what Chuck was worried about, but he admitted shortly after we were married that he was relieved he still had some “alone” time to himself.

Time has flown by and marriage has been a lot easier than we ever imagined. Having said that, there is a thing or two we’ve learned that worked for us.

Great Grandma Was Right

My mom told me that her grandmother told her that when you met the right guy, you’ll know. After many years of dating and finding great guys, but not the right guy, I was concerned that I was too stupid to know a good thing when I saw it. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before I realized Chuck was the one; it was the day I realized I couldn’t imagine him not being in my life.

Great Grandmother Dema also said that you should “season a guy.” This is good advice, too. You need to know someone at least a year and see him in all types of situations before deciding to spend your life with that person.

Let Go of Preconceptions

I thought I knew how married life was supposed to be, but it turns out that the definition of how to act in a marriage depends on the folks involved. For instance, I thought as a loving wife I would need to cook dinner every night. Turns out I dislike cooking every night and Chuck loves it. Lucky me!

Be Thankful

When it comes right down to it, no one really has to do anything. A spouse can become a couch potato and not lift a finger and you’re stuck with the situation, unless you opt for divorce. So, when my husband cooks, takes out the trash, etc., I say thank you and he says the same to me. Doing things around the house for the other person is a sign of respect and love; certainly that deserves politeness!

Pollyanna Was on to Something

The author of the book, “Pollyanna” was given a hard time, because the main character was always looking on the bright side. I highly recommend it in a marriage. Focus on the good in your spouse and maybe they’ll focus on the good on you. Leaves room for not being perfect – and having the option of not being perfect is really important.

Be Lucky

This isn’t advice, but it helps if you believe in it. We do.

Here’s to 25 more years with Chuck and 25 more after that.

Debating the Merits of “I Love You” Over “Oh #!”

As I endeavor to teach my son to drive a car, I’m reminded of that fact that my first two years of driving were intense. Every time I thought I was going to have a car accident, I’d let out a string of expletives.
It quickly became apparent to me that I did not want my last words on earth to be the type that would have made the devil blush. I decided that a much nicer response would be “I love you.” It would be my way of telling my passenger in the car, myself or God that I thought fondly of them.

Once when my mother and I were passengers in my Grandmother Roberta’s car, she pulled out in front of a fast approaching car. I thought we were going to be broad sided and let out a loud “Oh #!” The other car managed to stop in time and my grandmother was oblivious. When my grandmother got out of the car, I leaned over and made my apology to my mom for cussing.

“That’s OK,” she said. “I thought we were going to die, too.”

Even though she understood, a nice “I love you” would have been the better choice.

I rarely find the mood to scream out while driving because my maneuvering skills have improved. Still, I worry that I might someday say that to someone I would never say that to, like a male coworker or longtime male friend.

“I love you! Wait, I didn’t mean that. I thought we were going to die. And not that I don’t like you, although not in the case of “like” like, but I often say that instead of #$**## which isn’t nice for a person to say, so, and I never want my son talking that way, so what I’m really trying to say….”

Geesh. In that case, a simple “Oh #!” and slam of the brakes would need no explanation.

Food Transformed

Food that looks like what it isn’t is incredibly fun to make. Eating the creation can be an odd experience – I mean, biting into something that looks like a meatball but tastes like chocolate can be a shock – but the decorating and viewing process is the real point of the exercise.

I’ve passed my love of weird looking food to our son, Eric, and he’s already bought me two cookbooks featuring outlandish cupcakes. He loves the challenge of making cupcakes that look like they should be served on April Fool's Day. The results of our experiments can be seen in the photos on the left. If you haven’t guessed, that is our attempts at spaghetti and meatballs, a scarecrow and apples.

We once tried making popcorn-like cupcakes, but we quickly ran out of enthusiasm for cutting several hundred marshmallows into quarters and gluing them together with frosting. Even we have our limits.

For those brave enough to eat our creations, the cupcakes piled high with more frosting than cake are sugar highs just waiting to happen.

 The Boy Scout mother-son bake off is being held in early December this year and we’re ready to show our decorating talents. Eric has decided our project should be reindeer cupcakes surrounded by holly leaves painted with green icing.

Oh deer/dear! Hope the Boy Scouts like frosting...lots of frosting.

The Natural Way of Getting Clean

Our dog cannot hold her licker. No, I don’t mean liquor; I mean licker, as in tongue.

For some reason, Kiki, our Shibu Inu, thinks it’s a sin not to pay back every pat she gets with a lick. One or two licks are fine, but sometimes I want to breathe in her nice furry smell, and instead, I get my face plastered with dog breath.

Is she just giving me a kiss or are am I really that dirty?

Dressing in the morning can be really complicated when I decide to wear lotion on my legs. While I’m struggling to get a leg into my slacks, Kiki is licking off the burnt vanilla scented lotion. That can’t be good for her. I end up hopping around the rug, trying to get away from her, while trying hard not to fall on our cat, Lilly, who has decided that she, too, needs attention and has stationed herself in the middle of the action.

The up side of all this licking is that Kiki and Lilly have the cleanest ears around. Kiki will thoroughly clean Lilly’s ears until it’s obvious Lilly is concerned her brains are about to be sucked out of her tiny skull and she quickly scoots away. She will eventually reciprocate and Kiki seems to appreciate the attention. I’ve never seen animals with such clean ears.

The rest of the family will stay with the old fashioned method of using cotton swabs for cleaning ears.

There are certain types of cleanliness we can live without.

We Can See Clearly Now, But What Do You See?

As new contact wearers, my son, Eric, and I are now getting mailings to buy contact-related products. Our favorite solicitation was for contacts designed to complement a Halloween outfit.

Dead X eyes, zebra eyes, spiral eyes, Manga eyes…no Halloween outfit would be complete without them.

Eric really wants to buy the red contact lenses to wear to school. I would never allow that, but if I did, I’m sure the school would have something to say about the disruption Eric would cause wearing those lenses. That would mean he only would be able to wear them at home, and I’d have to spend each evening trying to have a sane conversation with my son while he looks back at me with red demon eyes. I no more want to see Eric run around the house looking like the spawn of Satan than he wants to see me wearing dead X eyes.

If I had money to burn and could be assured of the safety of patterned lenses, I’d go for cat eyes. I always loved the way Madam Hooch looked in the Harry Potter movies, and I think I could almost get by with that one in social situations.

But why stop there? Imagine the fun of having contacts that matched each outfit. I adore gemstones, so diamond eyes would be just right for a night on the town. A nice paisley would look good with my fall clothes. Holly and red berries would work for Christmas. Perhaps some nice dragon eyes for a night on the town.

It’s just possible that some day we’ll be able to run off designs for contact lenses right off our own computer printers. Just imagine. I could have a photo of Eric on one eyeball and a photo of my husband, Chuck, on the other. Or, for my more playful days, one of our dog, Kiki, and one of our cat, Lilli. For earth day, I could have pictures of our green Chinese water dragon, Norbert, on my eyes.

I can see the possibilities.