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Granny, Hermiony Vidalia Criony Fiddlestadt from Granny Hooks A Crook, Gives Advice.

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Granny_T-shirtLife is interesting at time when you hang out with Granny, Hermiony Vidalia Criony Fiddlestadt from Fuchsia, Minnesota.

I was talking to her today. We were talking about her crime solving abilities. This is the advice she gave me. “If you don’t know something, pretend you know something. The person you’re talking to won’t know that you don’t know what they don’t know. Because they think you know what they don’t know they won’t know that you don’t know. It works every time.”

Should I take granny’s advice?  It left me a little confused. I don’t know if she knows what I don’t know or do I know what she knows that she doesn’t know? I need some coffee to figure out what I just said. It is hazardous being around Granny.

Scattered Time?

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Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” — Carl Sandburghttp://time photo: Time Time.gif

Have you heard the words, “I am in a time crunch?” How often during the day do you take a little time to do something fun, but feel guilty because of all the things that are running through your mind that you have to do?

I read an article recently in Redbook by Brigid Schulte. Schulte did a study on time and found that there was leisure time in her day that she hadn’t considered. A phone conversation with a friend, a cup of coffee in the middle of the morning or listening to the radio before we get out of bed can all be considered leisure time.

According to Schulte, the problem with this leisure time is the fact that when we are taking this leisure time, our brains are always looking on to the many tasks ahead. We are multitasking leisure time by running this to-do list though our heads and not relaxing.

I can resonate with that. I was used to fitting in my writing while I was doing something else, now that writing is my career, I feel guilty. It makes me anxious sitting and concentrating on one task. I feel there is something else I should be doing. I have lived the multitask life for so long it feels lazy to do one thing at a time.

Schulte points out that we need to look at our conversations. The Christmas letters I write are about our busy life. If I look at the ones I receive, they say the same thing. When we have conversations with our friends, our busy life is the topic. I wonder what would happen if I would answer the question: What have you been doing? with the answer: I have been so lazy.

What kind of reaction would I get? Being busy peppers our conversations. Is it a contest to see who can be the busiest because we don’t want to be known as a slacker?

We all know busy people and have busy friends. These people seem to love their life and are involved in many charitable activities that benefit others. That is a good thing if they are happy with their lives. Do we do things and keep ourselves busy because we feel the need to be busy? Or do we stay busy so we won’t be seen as slacking off and not doing our part in a busy society?

Do men feel that busy crunch? Redbook is a woman’s magazine but according to Schulte, men feel they deserve the leisure time while women feel they have to earn it. I wonder if our busy life is because we feel we have to live up to others expectations.

I too have a hard time quieting my mind. I decided to try an experiment. I downloaded an app called Insight Timer on my phone. It is a meditation app. The app chimes a tone when it starts, I chose 10 minutes and it chimes a tone when the 10 minutes are up.

The first time I used the app my mind was racing on all of the things I had to do for the day. Ten minutes seemed long. It was hard to quiet my mind, to let it go to thinking about nothing. The next couple of days the time flew by. It was amazing. I was finally able to settle to mush in my brain. At the end of the 10 minutes, the creativity flowed and the tenseness left my body. There was something about that chime that relaxed my mind the minute I heard it.

I loved the above quote by Carl Sandburg. Occasionally, even in our work situations and home situations, we do have some control over our time. Perhaps it is a state of mind. Stopping the running list in our minds when we are supposed to have leisure time, may give us a little more peace and energy when we tackle the actual to do list.

Let the mind rest for a few moments. Those moments rest might give us hours of rejuvenation.

Who is controlling your time? Or maybe the question should be: Who, or what, is controlling your thoughts? Or perhaps the most important question is: How is your busy life affecting your health?

By the way, I have been so lazy.

The article mentioned above by Brigid Schulte can be read in the March 2014 Redbook. It is titled “Desperate For More Time?”

Granny: My Kids Have Turned Into My Parent?

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http://inspiration photo: MOTHERS_LOVE.jpg

I finished the next book in my Fuchsia, Minnesota series this week and popped it off to Cozy Cat Press. In my new book, that hopefully will be titled Granny Skewers A Scoundrel, I spent some time thinking about the relationship of parents as they get into their sixties and beyond and their adult children.

Granny’s adult children, Thor, Starshine  and Penelope play a larger part in this book as do Franklin’s children. In Granny Hooks A Crook, Book one of he Fuchsia, Minnesota Series, Granny is forever in danger of her children sending her to an assisted living or the wrinkle farm, a nursing home. Granny’s age is never mentioned on purpose. Is she in her 60’s, 70’s or 80’s? It is anyone’s guess, as the series continues it will be understood. The reason Granny’s age is up in the air is because of the stereotype we put on older people.

Granny does some unbelievable stuff. Elderly people aren’t supposed to act that way. Would we think differently if the character was in their 20’s or 30’s? We would probably put their strange behavior down to a night of drinking or other weird drugs or their youth.

As I was writing I was thinking about my relationship with my adult children. When my children were young, and still today, I worried about them. They are now in their 30’s and 40’s and I still worry about them but I am not used to them worrying about me. The tide has turned. They have become me. I tried to help my mother when I thought she was at the age she needed help, probably earlier than she did. Now it is our turn for our kids occasionally to try and parent us.

On a recent Minnesota Blizzard night, us old people decided to journey out with the blizzard roaring to spend time with friends. Our children when informed of this journey but at first didn’t believe we were going out and then made sure they heard from us to make sure we got there. How many times have they gave me a hard time when they were younger about calling? It felt kind of daring at our age to do something that we would have done in our youth. It was nothing in those days to bundle up, get in the vehicle, brave the blizzard and spend some time with friends while the blizzard roared outside the window? I have to admit it was exhilarating. I wondered why we didn’t do it more often but then I remembered, we are old, and it isn’t something that we normally do because we might get hurt.

Granny’s kids have a concern that she is going to fall in her flip flops, get lost with her car and is not eating right. My kids, now that they are adults bring food to make sure we are eating right, especially when we are sick. When our finances have been low they have offered money although we didn’t take it. When we balked at going to the doctor they came and took us even though we might protest going to the doctor. They have become us.

Granny does many things to outsmart her kids which doesn’t help her cause any. She likes her independence. My mother was independent and I didn’t understand it and perhaps that is why I make Granny the way she is in my book. It is a way, if my mother up above is watching, for her to know that I am sorry I didn’t understand her independence. I had bought into the stereotype that older people must act a certain way and my mom didn’t fit in. to those guidelines.

I do have to say that I think I learned that stereotype from my Grandmothers and the fact my parents took care of their parents. It was what you did in the 50’s and 60’s. Older people were not as tuned in to health and exercise as they are today. I didn’t know anyone like Granny until I my mother who broke my ideas of what old is. And then, I didn’t appreciate it because I didn’t know how to cope with it.

I expect more and more, my children will want to help me out of love and I will let them. Granny loves Thor, Starshine and Penelope and she would not do anything to hurt them. They would not do anything to hurt her and in the coming books of the series Granny’s children will have a new idea of what aging is. Granny’s children will continue their journey with Granny and learn many things about what it is to age, from the fact, older people can fall in love, dance, and even crawl on their garage roof if they are in good condition. The stubbornness keeps them going and keeps them living, loving and laughing.

My kids want to take care of me. We have switched roles but they also have become my friend. I know in the future I can depend on them if I do need help. Someday our roles might be reversed. God gives us each other to love, to learn and help each other  through the seasons of our lives.

I leave you with a Grannyism, she has instructed her children that if she ever tells them this, they should believe her; “It’s my life, but I forgot where I put it. Help me out and I won’t pout. Don’t remember where it’s gone. Is it on Mavis front lawn?”