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Sunday, January 17, 2016

Sharing a Laugh...



Image result for powerballReal Life is not winning a Power ball Ticket. But I bought one anyway. There’s a hefty number of shrinks who will tell us all that “it’s gambling”, “it’s the thrill of it”, etc. that keeps us buying those little orange tickets. I would agree with most of that over-analyzing, but I don’t feel guilty for falling prey to the hype of winning a billion dollars.

My Mom and I sat in a Chinese restaurant last week and made a pack to buy two tickets using our the numbers from our recently opened fortune cookies. We would split the billion in half. We shook on it. Sounds relatively innocuous for a lunch time topic, but what ensued after that was far from our normal days together.

We laughed. And laughed again. And again – coming up with all the things we were going to do with our winnings. My Mom and I used to laugh all the time over silly things, but as we have both aged, it doesn’t seem to happen that we act like high school freshman, giggling and belly-laughing at our own humor. Ours was an irreverent humor that we shared, laced with sarcasm and cynicism, often totally ridiculous and usually not PC.

If I listed all the things she said, you would probably yawn…it was clearly one of those moments where “ya had to be there” to laugh now. As we were driving over the bridge to Marysville, she dead panned “I know, I’ll buy Marysville”.  If you grew up in Marysville, a town surrounded by a levy system that is stagnating because of  it’s non-growth and old school politics, you’d get how funny that was.  At another point in the car, she told me that even if we one $4 dollars, she wanted her half…because she needed some stamps. I was dying! I told her for a million bucks I would manage her money for her, which sent her off into a coughing fit. And I reminded her that when she croaked, I would still get more money that she did, as I would inherit my "daughter's" share of her estate.

It wasn’t so much the notion that we had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning, it’s that it was a “good” day.  Mom is soon to be 91 and she said that day that she’s starting to “feel” old. We have our shopping days together every two weeks, and usually talk about innocuous things. I bring her up to speed with the going-on with the kids and their families, etc. 

She’s from a different era than I, lived in the country the better part of her whole life. We have the typical mother-daughter issues that I have spent years trying to overcome. I pretty much avoid the tricky topics (I leave those to Dave who adores his occasional porch-side political chats with her). I guess I hadn’t realized that we hadn’t laughed a lot together in years like we used to...until we laughed together over Power Ball. The price of the ticket was worth it.

It was a good day. Even if we didn’t win.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

If you don't write it down...

Does it still count as a resolution? Well, last year I wrote down my dreams for 2015 (Carpe Diem) on this very day and I still didn't do very well at achieving much success, so I'm thinking "not".  But it's the same day in January and I feel that a couple of thoughts might be worth noting (or not):

1) Let Go. Period. Really. Maybe I should get Amy's tattoo...



2) Let creativity rule.

Yep, that's it. 

I am looking forward to more wrapping my head around sewing and creating this year and more letting go of old habits. I'm not really talking about healthy eating, less drinking, more exercising or any of those hackneyed, trite promises that we make in January (although, aren't they a given?). I just want to surrender this whole beautiful mess that I am to someone who has that power to change it, because, obviously, I don't. So I'll leave the whole body/mind/soul thing up to God and I'll focus on the good stuff that I can control:

1) Continued collaboration with the team at Stonemountain and my muse, Zan. May we create more magic in fabric this year, FabricLady!!!



2) Less Facebook and more Instagram!! I love all the sewists and designers and fellow creatives that I have discovered on Instagram.

3) Organize and divest, organize and divest. All things simple, easy, clean, fresh, etc.

4) Continued giving of my time to worthwhile stuff...Dress a Girl, Women's Empowerment.

I finally got to actually sew at yesterday's sew fest

More of this...


And this..

 
Maybe less of this...

Let's not get carried away, Laurel.  You know you won't do that.
A little more of this...


Maybe more of this?


No, I'm not becoming a drinker...but a tiny sip of this is pretty nice.
Definitely more of this...

Taking better care of me, inside and out.
And this...

Capturing life...

And finally, most definitely less of this...


It's going to be a great year...


Laurel
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