Here is a list of Family Blogs ordered by Most Viewed, posted by members. A Blog is a journal you may enter about your life, thoughts, interesting experiences, or lessons you've learned. Post an opinion, impart words of wisdom, or talk about something interesting in your day. Update your blog on a regular basis, or just whenever you have something to say. Creating a blog is a good way to share something of yourself with others. Reading blogs is a good way to learn more about others. Click here to post a blog.
online today!
Life begins at 40? 50? 60?
I first heard this line from the late Elizabeth Taylor and when I heard her reasons, didn't make any sense to me at all.
I must have been 33 years old and I felt at that time that my life truly began way before that. From her perspectives it didn't hit on me then what she truly meant until 20 years ago.
I was born from a very poor family which made me look at things very differently from others. I worked hard, didn't follow cultural values of getting married to someone chosen by my parents and elders who grew up with arranged marriages. Complete with selection from suitors who is subject to scrutiny as far as providing a good life for me. No romance, no love to consider. I figured if I would go to school and get me a good job, I'd be more than capable to do that myself without being a dependent on anyone. My father and mother agreed. With their support and scholarship I was able to graduate with honors from elementary, high school, college and masters' degree.
To cut the story short, I succeeded in materializing my dreams. Achieved my goals and at 24, my life truly started as I planned. Traveled the world and very happy and felt very blessed. My children were born and had so much fun. I felt blessed and thought life was complete.
When I heard this saying, for the first time, I didn't understand at all.
Fast forward and after so many ups and downs, losing houses and investments, getting divorce and overcome not one but two cancers, it finally makes sense to me.
Life truly begins at 50, or at least for me even 60.
I must have been 33 years old and I felt at that time that my life truly began way before that. From her perspectives it didn't hit on me then what she truly meant until 20 years ago.
I was born from a very poor family which made me look at things very differently from others. I worked hard, didn't follow cultural values of getting married to someone chosen by my parents and elders who grew up with arranged marriages. Complete with selection from suitors who is subject to scrutiny as far as providing a good life for me. No romance, no love to consider. I figured if I would go to school and get me a good job, I'd be more than capable to do that myself without being a dependent on anyone. My father and mother agreed. With their support and scholarship I was able to graduate with honors from elementary, high school, college and masters' degree.
To cut the story short, I succeeded in materializing my dreams. Achieved my goals and at 24, my life truly started as I planned. Traveled the world and very happy and felt very blessed. My children were born and had so much fun. I felt blessed and thought life was complete.
When I heard this saying, for the first time, I didn't understand at all.
Fast forward and after so many ups and downs, losing houses and investments, getting divorce and overcome not one but two cancers, it finally makes sense to me.
Life truly begins at 50, or at least for me even 60.
Memorial Day
Lets not forget anyone, who died with many other different issues & reasons
on Memorial Day. (It`s Memorial Day, every day of my life, to me)..
Almost everyone in my immediate family, passed away from some sort of cancer.
I have no siblings now & I`m alone. - (& why I`m on a dating site even though I am now 84. I am looking for a man to share my life with.)
My son, Johnny, had no chance to start a life with his girlfriend. He was only 23,
& a drunk cause an accident on Valentine`s Day, in 1978, 1/4 of a mile close to my home. I felt helpless. What could I have done? He lived only 6 days in a coma, & I was a single parent, who had to give him permission to die because knowing, in the coma he was in...he`d never know life or wake up
I had to pay for the funeral because the drunk had no insurance.
I miss my child every day...& Valentine`s Day , Mother`s Day, & all the holidays are not happy times at all for me. It "THE MEMORY" of him, is all I have.
on Memorial Day. (It`s Memorial Day, every day of my life, to me)..
Almost everyone in my immediate family, passed away from some sort of cancer.
I have no siblings now & I`m alone. - (& why I`m on a dating site even though I am now 84. I am looking for a man to share my life with.)
My son, Johnny, had no chance to start a life with his girlfriend. He was only 23,
& a drunk cause an accident on Valentine`s Day, in 1978, 1/4 of a mile close to my home. I felt helpless. What could I have done? He lived only 6 days in a coma, & I was a single parent, who had to give him permission to die because knowing, in the coma he was in...he`d never know life or wake up
I had to pay for the funeral because the drunk had no insurance.
I miss my child every day...& Valentine`s Day , Mother`s Day, & all the holidays are not happy times at all for me. It "THE MEMORY" of him, is all I have.
online today!
Women and men....Tears at funerals, soap operas, sad movies......
Admittedly anecdotal, but we boys didn't tear up this week end, but sisters did. Yet, when youngest Sis delivered eulogy, not a tearless eye in the house. Mostly of laughter at Mum's funny nature. Is there a difference between the sexes over tearing up?
All that glitters is not gold
My name is grace am proud woman of color lol ?? sorry I have to point out that!! being brought up by a single mother who sacrificed her happiness for the betterment of us her children ?? we’re are born 4kids and am the first born .this gave ma so much questions y and how did my father just easily forget us and throw us behind him like we never existed This has affected my dating life so much that I have o trust every time I want to be serious then trust issues kicks in please if anyone has gone through the same experience with me help me on how to overcome this it’s really eating me up
Dad's Home
My Mom is a super 84 yr old woman, SUPERwoman! Against all odds and the nursing home that did not want to release their cash cow, I mean my Dad - she got him home.
What a nightmare she went through with all the beuracracy and redoing her house to make it wheelchair friendly. Fighting with doctors and insurance companies. Getting home health care lined up while fighting her "falling" which bruised and cut her up, she succeeded. Dad is home. He sits in a wheelchair during the day and is put to bed fairly early in the evening. He still spends most of his time doing what he enjoys the most, SLEEPING. He likes to sleep as much as dogs do.
My mother seems happy to have her husband home even if it is making her look a bit more frazzled. Between 12 hrs of home health care and us 5 brats, we will make sure our parents are happy. I heard my Dad say once that he wanted to be "carried out of his home" (of 50 years) when the time was up. While he spent two years during a pandemic in that nursing facility - those words haunted me. Just maybe he will get his wish.
The time may come when us siblings come together and have to put them in an assisted living facility but not today.
What a nightmare she went through with all the beuracracy and redoing her house to make it wheelchair friendly. Fighting with doctors and insurance companies. Getting home health care lined up while fighting her "falling" which bruised and cut her up, she succeeded. Dad is home. He sits in a wheelchair during the day and is put to bed fairly early in the evening. He still spends most of his time doing what he enjoys the most, SLEEPING. He likes to sleep as much as dogs do.
My mother seems happy to have her husband home even if it is making her look a bit more frazzled. Between 12 hrs of home health care and us 5 brats, we will make sure our parents are happy. I heard my Dad say once that he wanted to be "carried out of his home" (of 50 years) when the time was up. While he spent two years during a pandemic in that nursing facility - those words haunted me. Just maybe he will get his wish.
The time may come when us siblings come together and have to put them in an assisted living facility but not today.
Going to California...
Last month my nephew (living 10 miles away) accepted a job in California. He scooted out as the position required him to start immediately. Small problem: Wife and 2 young children in Florida. The icing on that cake is my niece is in the finals of graduation. Read: dissertation.
A few weeks ago, my wife volunteered to help pack and for a few days each week she filled boxes, sealed them with tape and stacked them in the garage.
They arranged a storage container (with a roll-up door) from a company called PODS that was 16 feet long that now sits in the driveway. My nephew flew back to Florida one weekend and worked 2 days packing as much as possible before he had to fly back... this time with his wife, 2 young children and 2 cats. Personally, I would have left the cats behind, especially the moody one who will scratch you in a heartbeat simply because he knows he can.
With no developed plans, they left 2 cars (with keys under the tires) a rented house (with key under the doormat) and less than 2 weeks before the lease expires and they have to be out!
In desperation, I was called (by my brother) as the 'clock was ticking' and he realized their plans were about to fail.
Cars
The Avalon was older and in need of repair. I pushed the issue to unload it. A friend dropped me off Friday and I drove it to a parking lot near my warehouse to buy time for a future decision.
They are keeping the Camry and will pay a car carrier to transport it to California.
Furniture
About 80% made it to the container, with the exception of a king size 12" thick memory foam mattress. Well, duh, while that should have been loaded in the front with the bed frame, my niece wouldn't have a bed to sleep in. No win.
Electronics
We boxed up 4 TV's, laserjet printer, DVD player and a few miscellaneous items.
My nephew pleaded for the mattress, so we unloaded a bunch of boxes to make room and schlepped the mattress from the 2nd floor out to the container, pushed it up over the boxes and wedged 2 TV's over that!
What goes, what stays
Infant swing, a gift from his sister a last minute must and some baby cradles.
We took apart all those items and shoved them inside.
Literally, we're out of room and have more boxes and baskets to pack.
I opened a few brief cases already in the container... EMPTY (insert a slight episode of Tourette's) but we've got a plan! I was able to repack some boxes into those empty cases. Pillows and bedding that wasn't going to make the trip got squeezed in between every gap we could find.
By then, it was dark, windy raining and the PODS truck was a few hours late for the pickup. I guess he knew we were in 'Coolie mode' all afternoon, so it worked out best.
With relief we did our best, I padlocked the container, closed the garage and we headed back to the condo for dinner.
Next week, my nephew has to arrange for some charitable agency to pick up the rest of the furniture as donation that will require my presence and I'll do a walk-thru with the landlord to get the approval that everything is clean, because they are going to California!
A few weeks ago, my wife volunteered to help pack and for a few days each week she filled boxes, sealed them with tape and stacked them in the garage.
They arranged a storage container (with a roll-up door) from a company called PODS that was 16 feet long that now sits in the driveway. My nephew flew back to Florida one weekend and worked 2 days packing as much as possible before he had to fly back... this time with his wife, 2 young children and 2 cats. Personally, I would have left the cats behind, especially the moody one who will scratch you in a heartbeat simply because he knows he can.
With no developed plans, they left 2 cars (with keys under the tires) a rented house (with key under the doormat) and less than 2 weeks before the lease expires and they have to be out!
In desperation, I was called (by my brother) as the 'clock was ticking' and he realized their plans were about to fail.
Cars
The Avalon was older and in need of repair. I pushed the issue to unload it. A friend dropped me off Friday and I drove it to a parking lot near my warehouse to buy time for a future decision.
They are keeping the Camry and will pay a car carrier to transport it to California.
Furniture
About 80% made it to the container, with the exception of a king size 12" thick memory foam mattress. Well, duh, while that should have been loaded in the front with the bed frame, my niece wouldn't have a bed to sleep in. No win.
Electronics
We boxed up 4 TV's, laserjet printer, DVD player and a few miscellaneous items.
My nephew pleaded for the mattress, so we unloaded a bunch of boxes to make room and schlepped the mattress from the 2nd floor out to the container, pushed it up over the boxes and wedged 2 TV's over that!
What goes, what stays
Infant swing, a gift from his sister a last minute must and some baby cradles.
We took apart all those items and shoved them inside.
Literally, we're out of room and have more boxes and baskets to pack.
I opened a few brief cases already in the container... EMPTY (insert a slight episode of Tourette's) but we've got a plan! I was able to repack some boxes into those empty cases. Pillows and bedding that wasn't going to make the trip got squeezed in between every gap we could find.
By then, it was dark, windy raining and the PODS truck was a few hours late for the pickup. I guess he knew we were in 'Coolie mode' all afternoon, so it worked out best.
With relief we did our best, I padlocked the container, closed the garage and we headed back to the condo for dinner.
Next week, my nephew has to arrange for some charitable agency to pick up the rest of the furniture as donation that will require my presence and I'll do a walk-thru with the landlord to get the approval that everything is clean, because they are going to California!
Cute article in the NY Times this week on Walking your pet cat.
In response to:
Yes, You Should Walk Your Cat
Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
By David Grimm
Mr. Grimm is the author of “Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship With Cats and Dogs.”
Dec. 5, 2018
About 13 years ago, my fiancée and I started to go for walks in our neighborhood. When we’d step out of the house, cars often lingered at the intersection out front a bit longer than they should have. People would stop us to ask questions. And the patrons of a restaurant across the street framed by large, plate-glass windows would occasionally run outside and shout, “It’s you — we’ve heard about you!”
Perhaps this wasn’t so surprising. We were walking our cats, after all. On leashes.
We weren’t trying to start a movement. And we weren’t the only people in the country who had the crazy idea to buy a small dog harness, strap it onto a nonplused feline, and pray that the tens of millions of years of evolution that separate dogs and cats would suddenly evaporate. We just wanted our two kittens — Jasper and Jezebel — to experience more of the world than our cramped 800-square-foot apartment in the heart of Baltimore. We also wanted to keep them from running out into traffic.
In the past two decades, there has been a growing movement to confine our feline friends indoors. Veterinarians argue that this significantly extends their life spans, protecting them from disease, cars and predators. Wildlife advocates contend that outdoor cats are a blight on ecosystems, killing countless birds and small mammals every year. Increasingly, it seems, no one wants to cross paths with an outdoor cat.
Yet cats belong to a proud race of savanna kings and nomadic carnivores. Their ancestors slunk out of the deserts of the Near East 10,000 years ago to hunt mice in our early villages, and they have been free to roam our backyard jungles since. They have not evolved to slumber in our living rooms.
People began to keep dogs as indoor pets in large numbers in the late 1800s, thanks to the invention of flea and tick shampoos. And yet, cats remained outside. Even the advent of Kitty Litter in 1947 could not contain them completely; tomcats still prowled alleys at night, in search of a mate — or a fight. Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
So how do we honor cats, while protecting them from the world — and the world from them?
The solution lies in what we’ve already done with dogs for decades: We need to start walking our cats. I’m not saying that you should put your cat on a leash like we did. They don’t like you telling them where to go. But we should let our cats outside for 30 to 60 minutes a day to rove yards, stroll sidewalks and disappear into shrubbery.
And we should be there to watch them. We should pick them up when they head for the street. We should whistle or clap our hands when they begin stalking a bird. And we should have a bag of treats ready when it’s time to call them back indoors.
We don’t let our dogs wander unsupervised or destroy whatever they want. We should exercise the same responsibility with our cats.
Yes, You Should Walk Your Cat
Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
By David Grimm
Mr. Grimm is the author of “Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship With Cats and Dogs.”
Dec. 5, 2018
About 13 years ago, my fiancée and I started to go for walks in our neighborhood. When we’d step out of the house, cars often lingered at the intersection out front a bit longer than they should have. People would stop us to ask questions. And the patrons of a restaurant across the street framed by large, plate-glass windows would occasionally run outside and shout, “It’s you — we’ve heard about you!”
Perhaps this wasn’t so surprising. We were walking our cats, after all. On leashes.
We weren’t trying to start a movement. And we weren’t the only people in the country who had the crazy idea to buy a small dog harness, strap it onto a nonplused feline, and pray that the tens of millions of years of evolution that separate dogs and cats would suddenly evaporate. We just wanted our two kittens — Jasper and Jezebel — to experience more of the world than our cramped 800-square-foot apartment in the heart of Baltimore. We also wanted to keep them from running out into traffic.
In the past two decades, there has been a growing movement to confine our feline friends indoors. Veterinarians argue that this significantly extends their life spans, protecting them from disease, cars and predators. Wildlife advocates contend that outdoor cats are a blight on ecosystems, killing countless birds and small mammals every year. Increasingly, it seems, no one wants to cross paths with an outdoor cat.
Yet cats belong to a proud race of savanna kings and nomadic carnivores. Their ancestors slunk out of the deserts of the Near East 10,000 years ago to hunt mice in our early villages, and they have been free to roam our backyard jungles since. They have not evolved to slumber in our living rooms.
People began to keep dogs as indoor pets in large numbers in the late 1800s, thanks to the invention of flea and tick shampoos. And yet, cats remained outside. Even the advent of Kitty Litter in 1947 could not contain them completely; tomcats still prowled alleys at night, in search of a mate — or a fight. Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
So how do we honor cats, while protecting them from the world — and the world from them?
The solution lies in what we’ve already done with dogs for decades: We need to start walking our cats. I’m not saying that you should put your cat on a leash like we did. They don’t like you telling them where to go. But we should let our cats outside for 30 to 60 minutes a day to rove yards, stroll sidewalks and disappear into shrubbery.
And we should be there to watch them. We should pick them up when they head for the street. We should whistle or clap our hands when they begin stalking a bird. And we should have a bag of treats ready when it’s time to call them back indoors.
We don’t let our dogs wander unsupervised or destroy whatever they want. We should exercise the same responsibility with our cats.
(Continued in my first comment below)
A Blog is a journal you may enter about your life, your thoughts, interesting experiences, or lessons you have learned. It's your own page on Connecting Singles that you can update on a regular basis, or just whenever you have something to say. You can write about an opinion, impart words of wisdom, or talk about something interesting in your day. Creating a blog is a good way to share something of yourself with Connecting Singles members. Reading blogs is a good way to learn more about members you have met here. Please be sure to read the blog rules before posting.
Would YOU like to post a blog on Connecting Singles? Have you written blogs that you'd like to share with other members? Posting your blogs shows your skill and creativity and helps members get to know you better. Your blog will appear on the Connecting Singles Blogs page and also in a link on your profile page. Click here to post a blog »