Author: nananoyz

I'm a semi-retired crazy person with one husband and two cats.

Social Media Storm

In the wake of the horrible terrorist attack in France social media sites are in an uproar. Anger, fear, and hatred fuel the conversations. 

In the midst of a heated debate with someone I don’t even know we both paused. I said something about political arguments not ever changing minds, and I offered a virtual handshake and a hug.

He agreed and posted this:

  Maybe we all need to take a deep breath, and stop second guessing every action from the right and the left. Stop demonizing our leaders and those who seek to lead. 

None of us can grasp the whole picture, yet each of us has an opinion based on the tiny piece we do see. That’s never very productive or helpful.

So I’m stepping up, opening my arms wide, and embracing everyone. Now, don’t crowd in too close, there’s room for everyone. There, there. You, the good looking one, over here….

Seriously, peace, people.

  

Conundrum

I roused myself from bed fairly early Monday morning, showered, drank a couple of cups of coffee, and did my best to look presentable before leaving Doright Manor on a minor shopping expedition. On most days my efforts at self beautification are wasted, and I leave the house looking, at best, like a third generation homeless woman on a epically bad day. 

On this Monday, though, the stars were aligned, the makeup gods full of good will, and I looked really good for a 59-year-old grandmother. Dare I say I was glowing? I blew myself a goodbye kiss in the mirror and took off in search of items Studly Doright wanted for his new diet. (More on that in a future post–if I don’t kill him first.)

 

No, this isn’t me, but if you squint and pretend then it’s almost me.
 
While pushing a cart around Whole Foods I stooped to pick up a can of cranberry sauce from a bottom shelf and felt my back suddenly go “squitch!” I winced in pain and attempted to stand up in the throes of a full blown muscle spasm. Abandoning the cranberry sauce I crab walked to the checkout and paid for the things in my basket. 
 
Again, not me.
 
My face must have reflected the squitching going on in my lumbar region because the lovely young cashier found someone to carry my groceries to the car for me. Truly sometimes age and its accompanying pains have their perks. 

Once in the car I thought in my practical self voice, “Go have a massage.”

My vain self answered, “But, but, your makeup looks so good today! You know that only happens once ever decade or so.”

For a heartbeat I listened to my vain self. Thank goodness I decided to go with practical me, but for a heartbeat I was faced with the ultimate conundrum: Is it better to feel good or to look good? In a perfect world I could do both.

 

This is what I think I look like when getting a massage.

 
This comes closer to the truth.
  
Peace, people!

Janie’s Gift

In the real world I have a lovely friend who has a gift. Janie Christie Heniford writes the most beautiful, inspirational, heart warming posts and shares them on Facebook during the month of November. 

I look forward to these posts. They make me laugh, cry, think, and nod my head in ardent agreement. Today I asked if she’d be okay with me sharing her post on Praying for Eyebrowz. Of course then I wondered if I was savvy enough to do that. 

To my delight, Janie consented. Now let’s see if I can get this done. I’ll be sure to share any comments with Janie. It’s a real pleasure to share Janie’s gift with my readers. Enjoy. And as always, peace, people.

 

Janie’s photo
 
Janie Christie Heniford at Sooner Lake

I am thankful today, for changes. Changes of all kinds, actually. Circumstances. location, mind, weather, leadership, looks, understanding, time, hairstyles, position, jobs, almost everything.  

One of the first times that i can remember thinking about how things change is when i was a young girl. To join the Christian church, one of the things asked of me by our pastor, is, “are you willing to give as much of yourself as you know and understand, to as much of God as you know and understand?”. I was smart enough to realize that i might not know every SINGLE thing in the world, but I thought that I knew God. I did. I knew all that my sweet and untried young self could really know. I grew to realize, of course, that one’s walk with God is dynamic, in as much as our experiences and understanding of life are dynamic.

When Rick and I decided to retire to Oklahoma, we chose it mostly to be near our family, but also because of the seasons here. We found that we missed the definite four seasons. Our circumstances will change some with retirement, a fixed income, a lower income, and hopefully (this is the plan anyway) lower expenses. 

Over the years our health will change, our abilities will change, absolutely our looks will change. It’s all a good thing. It is likely that I will never love the storms here, but as we have weathered the storms in our lives, we will stand fast in the storms here. We will be prepared. We will take precautions. I will learn to accept them as part of my life.  Today as I was out driving, I noticed that I was following right beside the back end of a front. The clouds further out were ominous, but the ones up close were breaking up, beginning to let light through, and a much different pattern than the clouds further out.  Closer they held the promise of sunshine, and beauty. Further out they threatened storms. 

Our lives surely don’t follow a line that is clearcut like a front line. The clouds of life are different day to day, and minute to minute, and the shapes that change are our own. I imagined today, as i watched the clouds, even took pictures of them as they spoke so deeply to me, that maybe that is part of what I have learned about God. There are storms, and there are fresh new beginnings. There must be changes wrought within as we battle the storms, to allow the fresh new starts to come through.  

Yep. Sometimes i figure things out when i travel alone. I’m a lucky, lucky girl to have that opportunity.

Friends I Don’t Know

Thanks to social media and WordPress I’ve become friends with a large number of people who* I’ve never actually met face to face.  (*Should that be whom? I’m sure one of my friends will let me know.)

I enjoy these friendships formed over creative writing, political leanings, and witty comments. In many ways they are as important to me as friendships formed in old-fashioned ways, such as over a shared love of hopscotch in elementary school or while playing hooky together in junior high (not that I ever did that, of course). 

Social media friends tend to be extremely forthright and plain-spoken. If one thinks you’re full of cow manure or a post is weak they’re likely to tell you, knowing they’ll never have to look you in the eye. If a fellow blogger doesn’t “like” or comment on a post their silence might indicate that they didn’t care for the piece or that they didn’t have time to actually read it. The Pollyanna in me always believes it to be the latter.

A friend I don’t know with whom I play Words With Friends (Roy S.) went missing from the game for more than a week, and I began to worry about him. Because the game is our only link, I had no way to inquire after him. Finally this week he played a word and in chat said he’d been unwell for the past few days. Whew! Of course I’d imagined poor Roy S. dangling from a cliff by one hand while trying frantically to type “a-p-r-a-x-i-a” with the other.

Similarly, if I don’t hear or read something from a blogger I follow I start feeling anxious. My imagination goes on overdrive and trust me, in my mind some of you have met spectacular ends. I’m so very relieved when I see a post from your site, and your make-believe death gets saved in my future fiction file.

This leads to the following question: Shouldn’t there be a way of making sure the friends we don’t know are ok? Maybe I’ll invent an app that generates one final note on social media upon one’s death. Something like:

Hey there. Leslie’s dead. She wanted you to know that your support meant so much. Here’s one last poem composed in advance of her demise to be shared on this occasion.

Gone

By Leslie aka Nana 

Life was so wonderful

But my time has come,

No one thought I was sick

Guess they feel pretty dumb.

But I lived a full life

Full of all that is good,

Now sit and weep for me

Like any real friend would.

Leslie knew this wasn’t much of a poem, but, hey she was really sick.

Peace, and good health, people!

  

Drunk History

tonight’s episode
chronicled the
timely invention
of the brassiere
among other key,
innovative products.
oh, breasts, thou
art worthy of TLC
and proper support.

Celebrating Thanksgiving

She just always writes great posts! One of my favorite bloggers, Ellen Hawley at notesfromtheuk.com.

Ellen Hawley's avatarNotes from the U.K.

“I think we Brits are a bit short on things to celebrate at this time of year,” DoneDreaming wrote when I asked what people might like to read about. “With Thanksgiving coming up I wondered if you could give us the lowdown on how we could join in. Do we Brits have what it takes to re-instate Thanksgiving over this side of the pond?”

Well, as every card-carrying American knows, the most important element in a Thanksgiving dinner is canned pumpkin, and—shock, horror, and I hope I don’t create in international incident here—it’s not sold in British supermarkets.

Okay, all you Americans who buy a prefab pie, settle down out there. I’m not bad-mouthing you or your pies or your dinners. My mother did the same and she was a wondrous and wise human being. Not a great cook, but if I had to choose between the two qualities…

View original post 1,080 more words

Nothing to Say

  

I had nothing to say today

So I’m not going to say it.

Of course if I’m being honest

I’ve already said something.

Dadgum it’s hard for me,

This wordless disposition.

I’m sure it’s a temporary

State of my current condition.

I was listening to NPR’s TED talks series on Sunday. The main story that morning was about a man who decided to stop talking for one day. That one day turned into twelve years. I couldn’t imagine going without speaking for ten minutes unless I was sleeping. But twelve years? 

When I commented on this to Studly Doright he smiled politely and said, “I’d sure like to see you try.”

I’m not sure how I should take that.  

  
Peace, people!