Share Your World – Page 5 – Change of Perspective

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 20

When do you feel most connected with others?

I feel most connected with others when reading a good novel. This sounds counterintuitive, I know, since reading is a solitary activity. However, since childhood fiction has introduced me to new ideas, new people, and new possibilities for life. Reading about loving families and people who achieved great things despite life’s adversities gave me hope for who I could become and what I might accomplish. Fictional characters have helped me better understand both myself and other people throughout my life.

What daily habit would you like to introduce to your life?

There’s one habit that I definitely need to re-introduce into my life: daily journal writing. I got out of this habit when I (not a morning person) had to get up early for jury duty for an entire month. During that month I didn’t have the time to write in the mornings, and I was too emotionally drained to do it when I got home in the late afternoon. I have now spent an additional two months without pulling my current journal out of the desk drawer, and it’s time for me to get back into the habit of daily writing once again.

Thanks for the reminder.

What one mini-little-adventure would you like to have in the coming week?

Although we live within walking distance of a great zoo and have annual passes, it’s been a long time since I went to the zoo. There aren’t many activities on the calendar for next week, so I should pick one day and make a trip to the zoo. In addition to all the animals, our zoo has marvelous and exotic flowers and bushes that should be lovely to see now that spring is firmly entrenched.

List at least of things or events that changed your Life: It could be as simple as a book or meeting a certain person?

Childhood reading. Although I don’t remember specific titles, the books I read introduced me to ways of life beyond my own experience.
My maternal grandmother, who loved me unconditionally. She was a bright spot in my otherwise bleak childhood.
My in-laws. My husband and I began dating in high school. I came from a dysfunctional household, but his parents obviously loved each other and cherished their children. They were welcoming and nurturing, and they showed me what life could be like. And my husband and I will be celebrating anniversary #45 early next month.
My friends Anne and Frayne, who both loved and liked me. I’ve never had a large group of friends, but because of them I know that true friendship is possible.
I can’t tie this one to a particular event, but at some point in my young adulthood I came to realize that everyone is dealing with something in their lives. I should never assume that another person’s life is necessarily better than mine. Conversely, I should not be quick to criticize someone else because I don’t know what-all that person is dealing with at that particular time.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Our weather continues to be pretty awesome here in the Pacific Northwest. Since this is one of the reasons why we moved here, I’m hoping for more of the same in the upcoming week. I also hope that the Seattle Mariners can continue their hold atop the American League West.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 18

Who was your best friend in elementary school?

My best friend in elementary school was Esther. Esther and I were born just two months apart in a small New England town. As was the nature in small New England towns back in the late 1940s, our mothers had also grown up together. Because Esther and I lived near each other, it wasn’t long before we were best friends.

Our paths diverged after high school, but we’ve always managed to keep in touch. Esther and I have known each other all our lives. How many people can say that?

What things could people do for you on a really bad day that would really help you?

Probably the best thing would be a quick smile. The next best thing would probably be to just give me my space. I’m one who likes to be alone when having to deal with life’s bad stuff.

If you could make a 15 second speech to the entire world, what would you say?

I have way too much to say to be limited to 15 seconds. Seriously, it would take me much longer than that to explain to everybody in the world why they should all just get along.

Would you rather be an amazing dancer or an amazing singer?

An amazing singer. As a young adult, I actually was a pretty good singer. I made All-State Chorus my senior year in high school. I would have liked to have had voice lessons, but that just wasn’t in the cards when I was growing up.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

My new hometown Major League Baseball team, the Seattle Mariners, are now playing the best ball since my arrival here in April 2013. In fact, they now sit atop the American League West. I just hope they can continue to win in the upcoming week. Watching the games is so much more enjoyable when you think your team has at least a chance of winning.

Have a good week, everyone. Go Mariners!

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 16

If you had to have your vision corrected would you rather: glasses or contacts? Or what do you use if you need to have your vision corrected?

As a young adult I had no vision problems. It wasn’t until I hit about 45 that I began to need glasses for reading. I did not take well to that change. Eventually I needed a slight correction in my distance vision as well as progressively more correction for reading.

Then last fall I went to the eye doctor for what I thought was another necessary correction for reading. I was flabbergasted when the doctor said, “We can’t correct your vision with glasses any more. You need cataract surgery.”

What???? I thought people got cataract surgery in their 80s, not in their 60s. But I decided to have the surgery, and I’m so glad that I did. After I had the first eye done, I would alternately close one eye and look through the other, and I couldn’t get over the difference. I can illustrate the difference with a couple of photographs I took on a recent cruise. The bedspread was white, and every day the room steward would make an animal out of white towels. Here are two photos, one taken without flash and one with:

After my first cataract surgery, the corrected eye saw like the photo with flash, while the other eye saw everything like the photo without flash. I was truly amazed by the difference and couldn’t wait to get my other eye corrected about a month after the first.

One nice thing about cataract surgery is that the new, implanted lens corrects your distance vision to 20/20. I still need some correction for reading, but the amount of correction is nowhere near as drastic as before the surgery. I can now use reading glasses from the drugstore.

But the biggest difference since the cataract surgery is in how much brighter the world is. I didn’t realize how much colors had dimmed until I had the first surgery done. Both surgeries went very well, and I’m more than glad that I had them done.

If you had to describe your day as a traffic sign, what would it be?

This isn’t a traffic sign, but it does describe something I try to tell myself about life every day:

Was school easy or difficult for you? How so?

Grammar school and most of high school were pretty easy for me. I had to study, but I was able to learn things easily. I didn’t come up against something that I couldn’t handle until calculus in my last year of high school, which I dropped early on.

I’m glad I’m not in high school right now. I’m fairly certain quantum physics would also do me in.

Would you rather take a 1 or 2 week vacation with an organized tour or take a cruise of your choice?

I think of a cruise as an organized tour, and cruises have become our first choice. In 2014 we took a group tour of Ireland that had us repacking our suitcases early just about every morning to move on to the next destination. It was a wonderful trip, and we got to see a lot of different places, but I like a cruise because once you’ve unpacked in your room, the hotel moves with you. You can’t see everything this way, but you can see a lot without having to repack.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I know you’re all probably sick of hearing this, but last week was a great one, and I hope for more of the same this week (And we’ve just signed up for a European cruise in the fall.)

I hope everyone has a great week.

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 15

Name one thing not many people know about you.

Most people probably don’t expect that I sometimes have dreams in which I’m caught not being able to do something I’m supposed to do. This is known as imposter syndrome. Its frequency has lessened since I moved 2,000 miles and had to make a whole new set of friends, but I still occasionally feel those twinges of fear, usually for no good reason.

If a distant uncle dies and you were always his favorite and leaves you $50,000 (any currency) in his will, what would you do?

I’m beginning to worry about perhaps needing long-term memory care (dementia runs in my family). So I think the first thing I would do is set up some kind of fund that would use the money for such care for my husband and myself, if need be. If we didn’t exhaust that amount before we died, I would leave the rest to the local food bank.

Where do you hide junk when people come over?

Why, in the junk room, of course. The junk room is also known as the guest room, but in between visits it tends to collect stuff. When someone is actually going to come use the guest room, we have to do a major cleaning. During that process most of the junk gets moved into the garage, where it awaits the annual junk collection drive.

Complete this sentence: I want to learn more about …

… just about everything I come across. My life has been a series of research projects. Whenever I come across something I know little or nothing about, I read up on it. It’s a good way to learn new things, but it sometimes distracts me from staying focused on what I need to do.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

We are starting to have the beautiful spring into summer weather for which we moved to the Pacific Northwest. I’m loving it right now, but this week I look forward to (NOT!) having to put away my turtlenecks and heavy-weight jeans and get out my summer clothes.

I hope you all have a great week!

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 14

If you could hire someone to help you, would it be with cleaning, cooking, or yard work?

When we moved into a retirement community, we say a forever goodbye to yard work, which is taken care of by the institution.

With a choice between cleaning and cooking, I would definitely opt for help with the cleaning. In fact, what I’d want wouldn’t exactly be help, since help suggests that I would do part of the job and someone else would help me out by doing the rest. What I have in mind is that I would hire someone to do ALL the cleaning. I spent my adolescence as essentially a live-in maid, with responsibility for all the house cleaning. That’s a memory I’d just as soon be able to forget by now having someone clean for me.

What makes you laugh the most?

I’m a sucker for all those laughing baby videos on Facebook. Other things that make me laugh are a good pun and shrewd, insightful commentary, particularly about politics.

What was your favorite food when you were a child?

My mother was not the most creative cook in the world, so my childhood meals were pretty unremarkable. However, the one thing my mother excelled at was her New England baked beans, which I loved. I have never been able to duplicate her results, even when using her recipe.

Other favorite foods from my childhood were grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup made with milk, hotdogs, and my grandmother’s beef stew, biscuits, and chicken and dumplings.

List at least five favorite flowers or plants.

lilacs
crocus
iris, especially purple ones
rhododendrona, especially purple ones (the official flower of my new home state of Washington)
roses
lilies of the valley
bleeding heart
tulips

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I greatly enjoyed last weekend’s men’s and women’s college basketball championships. This week I am enjoying the return of baseball and hope that my new home team, the Seattle Mariners, might actually contend this year. We also have minor league baseball right here in my hometown, the Tacoma Rainiers (the Mariners’ AAA club). We attended their opening night on Thursday and were rewarded with a win.

I hope everyone has a great week!

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 12

Wanting something to quench your thirst, what would you drink?

I have never liked water, even as a kid. So now when I need something to quench my thirst, I usually go for iced tea with lemon and sweetened with stevia. At home I make sun tea with decaf tea bags so that I can drink it at any time of day without worrying about it keeping me awake all night.

For commercial drinks, I usually go for Vitamin Water Zero (non-carbonated) or Sparkling Ice (carbonated). Both have no calories.

What made you feel good this past week?

We had a couple of days of at least partial sunshine, which always improves my mood. We also saw spring advance with the blooming of more flowers and shrubs. I still love the beauty of spring blooms, even if they do make my nose run and my eyes sting and water.

When you’re alone at home, do you wear shoes, socks, slippers, or go barefoot?

Almost always slippers, because I’m one of those people whose feet are always cold. Even though I often wear sandals outside in summer, I still put on my fleece-lined slippers when I’m hanging around the house.

Would you rather live where it is always hot or always cold?

If I had to choose one of these, I’d go for always cold because I can put on enough clothes to keep me warm. One of the reasons why we moved away from St. Louis, MO, is that it’s always hot and humid, at least in summer. I finally couldn’t stand it any more.

However, my real first choice is to live where the climate is moderate while still featuring different seasons. Life in Tacoma, WA, where we now live, is perfect for me. Summers aren’t too hot, and winters aren’t too cold. I love living here.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

This time of year is a sports dream: men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments and the approach of baseball’s opening day. I’ll be watching a lot of TV by next weekend. Bring it on!

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 11

How many siblings do you have? What’s your birth order?

My mother was married twice. I resulted from her first marriage. I have a brother 13 years younger than me and a sister 15 years younger.

My sister was 15 when my own daughter was born. This half-generation difference between my siblings and me means that I sometimes have to stop and think about how the ladder of relationships works. Perhaps because I was a second mother to my younger siblings, I sometimes think of my sister as a cousin to my daughter when in reality my sister is my daughter’s aunt.

In a car would you rather drive or be a passenger?

Many times I enjoy being a passenger so that I can look around and really see the scenery instead of having to concentrate on driving. I love to try to take photos as we drive along, although many of those photos and up being worthless.

However, I’m also very happy to drive on a solo long trip. One summer I drove round trip between St. Louis, MO, and CT for my sister’s wedding. About three days after I returned to St. Louis, I drove my daughter’s car from St. Louis to Tacoma, WA, where my daughter was attending college. So within about three weeks I drove more than the distance between the east and west coasts. What I like so much about these long drives alone is audiobooks. I line up a whole bunch on my iPod and take off. One books melts into another as the miles melt away.

When you lose electricity in a storm, do you light the candles or turn on the flashlight? How many of each do you own?

I can’t even remember the last time we lost power. But I know I probably used the flashlight to find the candles and matches, then lit the candles. However, if we were to lose our power now, we’d be dependent on flashlights because we haven’t collected a lot of candles since we retired and relocated.

List at least five of your favorite types of animals? (any animal to domestic to wild to marine life)

giant Pacific octopus
polar bear
muskox
giraffe
all cats great and small

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Spring has finally arrived, and more and more flowers and shrubs are blooming. They are beautiful, even if the pollen does irritate my eyes. I hope we’ll continue to have an occasional non-rainy day to get outside and appreciate the beauty.

Have a good week, everybody!

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