Hide and Seek

Children love to play hide and seek. When you were raising those kids of yours, it was great fun to join them in that game. Another variation on it that lots of us play with the grandkids is “where’s Grandpa?” This is the one where you hide your face and then suddenly show it to a baby just to see that look of surprise and delight when they see Grandpa or Grandma over and over again.

We grow so used to knowing every little thing that goes on with our children. If they have grandchildren, they don’t really appreciate how much you want to see them every day and enjoy every aspect of their lives. But when the kids live in another city or another state, that becomes almost impossible to pull off.

Sure, you knew as far back as when the kids went off to college that you would go through some separation anxiety. But the desire to be more in touch with your family goes a lot deeper than just a dose of empty-nester syndrome. It goes to the very foundation of who you are.

We are by nature family oriented creatures. For many of us, there never was a time when they were not in the middle of a family situation. If you moved directly from the home of your parents into your married family and had children right away, family life was a continuous flow in your life. So, when the time comes for the children to leave, especially if that means they will be in another state, or country the depth that you miss them is tremendous and the deep desire to be more in touch doesn’t diminish with time.

Is the answer to move to the same town or country where the kids are living? Sometimes that is possible. But we know that it’s the nature of young professionals that they may be moving again and again because careers that are being built often call for that kind of commitment. This is less difficult for the kids if their families are young and they are enjoying the adventure of living in different places. But for you as a senior citizen, living in one place, making friends, finding a church or social group and becoming part of a long-lasting community is important to feeling secure as you enjoy your golden years. 

The good news is that we live in at a time when information technology can help you stay more in touch than ever before. There are new ways coming along every day that you can use to reach across spans of hundreds of miles and feel you are part of what is going on with your children and those precious grandkids. Some technologies that can help include…

While these forms of hiding and seek with the kids were fun when they were little, now that they are grown and you are Grandpa or Grandma, there is a form of hiding and seek that isn’t so fun. That is when the children move far away and it gets harder and harder to stay in touch with them.

• The internet. Through email and other modern technologies, you can exchange messages with your children many times in a day.
• Digital cameras. The ability to take pictures has gotten so much more accessible with cameras becoming part of mobile devices, phones and other machines you and your kids may have on you all the time. So, you never have to miss out on a cute photo of what the grandkids did this week.
• Facebook, Skype, FaceTime and Instant messaging. This is the ultimate in staying touch. You can go so far as to put cameras in different parts of the house so the kids can see mom and dad every day and you can watch the children and grandchildren play and talk to them almost like you are there.

Everybody will have to get used to these new tools of communication. But as much as you will be thrilled to see and talk with your kids every day and see them so much more often with these new tools, they will love being able to have some “mom and dad time” with you as well.

Stop trying to keep up with others

As March roles in a springtime thought for you. 

When I was younger for a time chased after the things of life. I thought that was what you were supposed to do, but I was wrong.

It took me a long time to learn that everyone is on a different path. If you keep chasing after the things or the life you think you’re supposed to have just because it seems everyone else does, you’ll lose yourself and not even know what you’re chasing or why you are chasing. 

I learned over time that some things just need time to breathe and grow and it does not matter how slowly you go as long as you continue to breathe, grow and stop to smell the flowers.

Fun Is Different Now

On this last day of February as March roars in like a lion, you may be thinking of summer and spring fun.

You can probably remember being a child when the most important thing in the world was having fun.  Well, there are some remarkable similarities between your retired life and those carefree days of childhood.  For one thing, when you were a child, you didn’t work for a living, you felt secure that you had what you need.  Hopefully, in your retirement you did a good job preparing for retirement so you have some carefree days to enjoy now too.

Another similarity that your children may have pointed out to you is that, like it was when you were a child, you occasionally did things that you were not allowed to do.  But now it seems to be our children would like to be telling us what is ok for us to do or not do.  But every so often, you have to throw caution to the wind and go ahead and party late into the night, go parasailing or go to a rock concert.  It is always fun and usually a great time when you are willing to take a chance.

But fun is different now than it was when you were a child.  Now there is nothing better perhaps than spending a day trying to improve your golf game.  A long rainy afternoon with a good book is just the thing and it will be a day of fun you will remember for a long time because this is what it means to be retired.  Some other ways to have fun that are notably different from childhood or even when you were a working adult might include…

·       A day sorting yarn for a big knitting project or laying out the fabric to make artistic quilts to sell for a charitable cause can also be a day of girl talk, giggling and gossip that seems almost like the sleepover scene from Grease as much as it is a gathering of mature women enjoying the afternoon together.

·       Getting together with the boys and going out to help build a shed gives you the chance to play with tools, mess around with building materials and remember what great fun it is to just build something.

·       A bus tour to Branson or some other exciting nearby attraction takes on a whole new sense of adventure when it’s the big day when they change the lunch menu at the cafeteria downstairs.

·       Going to a high school or college football/or hockey game used to seem like a nuisance when you had to attend to watch your child play third-string centre or your child cheer and hope they don’t break their collarbone.  But now when you get to go, even if you don’t know a soul on either team, being in that exciting setting is the kind of good clean fun you look forward to for weeks and think back on for months.

Just as the fun is different now, so are the toys.  Now, enjoying an afternoon stuffing envelope for the church is as much a fun as a game of playing chess as long as you can do it with your friends and chat and share stores as you play.  Now, going to a military base to look at their archives is more than just mildly interesting.  It’s a trip through your own past and if you can enjoy that with others who served their country so you can honour them.

Yes, we have fun differently now and it is different then young people .  But anyone who thinks for a minute that we never have fun are as far off from the truth as they can be.  Because we have laid down the cares of career and raising children, we can really relax and let the fun of each day sneak up on us.  By putting ourselves in the mindset, that life is still a great adventure, just about anything we do can become a source of joy and fun.  But even though fun is different now, life is still worth living because it is tremendously fun.

Homographs and Heteronyms

This is a wonderful and funny piece of writing, for all of you who suffered through English classes, hated grammar and wonder why folk from other countries have a bit of trouble with the English language. 

I wish I had the skill to put this together but I don't. This was sent to me by a friend of mine, he did not know who the author was, so I did a search. The author is Liv Hambrett an Australian writer living in Germany. She wrote this piece in 2013. Her writing and her books can be found on her website which is http://www.livhambrett.com / 

Liv did a lot of work on this, so please enjoy and check out her website for more of her writing.

*Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.

A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.*

*You think English is easy???*

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1) The bandage was *wound *around the *wound.*

2) The farm was used to *produce produce*.

3) The dump was so full that it had to *refuse *more *refuse*.

4) We must *polish *the *Polish *furniture

5) He could *lead *if he would get the *lead *out.

6) The soldier decided to *desert *his dessert in the desert..*

7) Since there is no time like the *present*, he thought it was time to *present* the *present.*

8) A *bass *was painted on the head of the *bass* drum.

9) When shot at, the *dove* *dove* into the bushes.

10) I did not *object* to the *object.*

11) The insurance was *invalid* for the *invalid.*

12) There was a *row* among the oarsmen about how to *row*.

13) They were too *close* to the door to *close* it.

14) The buck *does* funny things when the *does* are present.

15) A seamstress and a *sewer* fell down into a *sewer* line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his *sow* to *sow.*

17) The *wind* was too strong to *wind* the sail.

18) Upon seeing the *tear* in the painting I shed a *tear.*

19) I had to *subject* the *subject* to a series of tests.

20) How can I *intimate* this to my most *intimate* friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.  

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger;  neither apple nor pine in pineapple.  

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. 

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.  

We take English for granted.  But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. 

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?  

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth?  One goose, 2 geese.  So one moose, 2 meese?  One index, 2 indices?  

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?  If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?  

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?  

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.  In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?  Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?  Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?  You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.  That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?  AND If a male goat is called a ram and a donkey is called an ass, why is a ram-in-the-ass called a goose?