The Final, Hair

Hair, How to Wear It

By Leisa M. Clement

           I have more hair than most people I know. I almost always have. In fact, I  remember very few times that I have not had my hair long. Once was for convenience, once was an accident, and once I had it cut on purpose. Excepting for those three times in my life, I have always had it long enough to sit on, get stuck in the car door, and in general be a pain in my neck, on a regular basis.

            The earliest time I can remember that I had my hair short was the summer when I was going into third grade. My family lived in Seymour, Connecticut, and we were moving up to Maine, where my parents were originally from. I remember that we were packing up the house and my mom was very busy. I remember my Mom at the next door neighbor’s house, mad because I had gotten gum in my hair after she had just washed it. I can still see her in my mind’s eye, stopping what she was doing and looking at me for just a moment, then asking me if I minded if she could just cut the gum out. I, in my youthful naiveté, went ahead and gave my permission. The next thing I knew the back of my neck was getting sunburnt. It must have affected me greatly because I can still remember the episode vividly. I also remember my mother saying, “it will grow back, it will grow back, don’t worry.”

            My mother was right and my hair eventually grew back. It took a couple years before it was almost where it had been when she whacked it off. We were settled in our new home in Orrington, Maine by the time the next episode with short hair arose, when I was in fourth grade. That was right about that time when I became aware there was such a thing as hairdo styles, and clothes and cliques. The shag cut, either short or long, was THE hair style to have. I begged my parents repeatedly for that haircut. I smartened up and talked to my grandmother, who came to Brewer every week, just to have her hair done at the beauty school. That must have worked because Gram came and picked Mom and I up one Saturday afternoon, and took us to the beauty school. I can still see the old storefront, and remember the odd smells inside the salon that first time. I remember being excited and proud when I told the lady that I wanted a long shag. I fairly strutted to the chair and hopped up on the little stool they put in the chair because I was so little. In the large mirror in front of me, I watched with pride, as the “beautician” snipped and snipped at hair on the front side of my head, and then my pride turned to absolute horror, as the next thing I knew, the woman continued on, right around my head. At that first wrong snip, my eyes welled up and the tears started to roll. The beautician, noticing this, asked if there was something wrong and I can still hear my mother’s reply, “No, nothing’s wrong. She is just so excited about her haircut.” I heard the quiet tones my mother used and knew what she was trying to say. We were in public, the deed was done, and couldn’t be undone now. “Don’t worry,” my mom said, when we got home, “it will grow back.”

            The last time I ever had my hair short was when I went to boot camp. I was nervous about boot camp to begin with, and wasn’t sure what to expect from the whole process, but cutting my hair was not something that had crossed my mind. It ran across the pathways when the new company commander reminded those of us with long hair, if it fell out of being put up, then the whole company was going to have to do push-ups. She used the only argument that could have worked with me, which was, others would have to pay for my hair falling out of the updo that I put it in. Eventually, that would have pissed off someone, so I chose to be proactive, and to have it cut. I was the only one with long hair that chose to do so, and I am glad that I did.  For the few girls that opted to keep their hair long, we in the rest of the company, had to pay for it with a few extra push-ups . Life is not good when you have 79 girls all mad at you because your hair fell out of the hat you stuffed it in. I kept it above my shirt collar for the next three years. It was not until I knew that I would not be enlisting again that I began growing out my hair again. It has remained as long as I could possibly get it since then.

             Many things about me have changed throughout the years, where I live, the accent in my speech, my weight, the one thing that never has changed is the length of my hair, unless it was to get longer. Taking care of my hair is the one ritual that I have kept throughout my lifetime. It relaxes, and soothes me. I do some of my best thinking at night, when I am combing out my hair and giving it a few healthy strokes with the hairbrush.  I spend much time each day washing, combing, styling and in general, fretting over the state that my hair is in. My children have learned that that is a time that they can have my complete undivided attention, and every time my son wants to sorely aggravate me now, for whatever reason, he sneaks up behind me and, quick as the pesky little varmint that he is, will pluck out a gray hair, all the while laughing like a loony and saying, “Don’t worry Ma, it will grow back.”

Hobbies or Life,What's It Going To Be?

            Among my many talents, or faults depending on your point of view, I have a hobby that I find totally relaxing. In moments of stress I go off in my own little world "doing my thing" and it calms the chaos in my inner being, enough so that I can come back to the real world and act like a quasi-sane person. I like to take photos. I usually like the scenic photos, but I will snap a picture of anything given half a chance . Taking photos is a relatively new hobby for me and now, in this digital age, it is quite inexpensive to dabble in it on a regular basis. There is a great difference between the me that is taking photos and the me that everyone meets on an ordinary regular basis. In the process of getting the picture and developing it at my local drugstore photo kiosk I am a very different person, I am physically stronger while getting the photo, I come back spiritually recharged, and I am definitely mentally quicker than when I woke up that morning. Especially after spotting the perfect picture, getting it on camera, and getting it developed that same day. Only cost 29 cents but the benefits to me are priceless.
            I have always liked taking photographs, but with the 35 mm rolls that had to be sent off to be developed, which cost an arm and a leg, I never really had the time or the money unless it was a special occasion such as a wedding, funeral, or a school play. A couple of years ago I was given a small digital camera by my company when I started my new job as a newspaper delivery person. This was so that when I was out and about delivering papers and happened on a story, I could get some pictures to go with it. From that moment on, when I realized how easy it was to take the pictures, develope them right there in the store and it took just a few moments to get it done, I was hooked like a hungry trout in a river full of fishermen. I especially love to take photos of the sunrise and since I travel through three counties in Maine, at different times of the morning, I often have the opportunity of doing so. When snapping my photos, I become so totally focused on getting the picture, I am not aware of the rest of my surroundings. I am not afraid to crawl out on a tree limb to get a different angle of the stupid bird that flew off anyway, or to follow the stream flowing off the side of a mountain to see where the water ended up and maybe catch the sun off the water or something. I have snapped a few of those. In my ordinary life I can't focus on a gnat and have to look at the road when I step off the curb for fear of falling, but put a camera in my hands and a sunrise in front of me and I am someone totally different, fearlessly focused and driven to get the shot. I allow nothing, not even time to get in the way of my quest. I do not understand why that is, I only know that if I want a shot with my camera no branch is too small, no mountain to steep, or water too cold for me to try to get my shot.
              After taking the perfect shot or I should say thinking I did I hurry through the rest of my paper route, or whatever else I am doing, and get to my local drugstore as quick as I can while hoping I don't have to knock anyone off the developing kiosk that is my favorite one. It is the one that prints them out right then and there. I remove the little card out of my camera, then as if I was Dorothy stepping out of the house over the rainbow, there is another world for me, full of color and light. As I am cutting and cropping and adding a bit more of color to this picture or subtracting some of the glaring light off a body of water in that one, I tap into my personal creativity, which generally, in the dull humdrum of my life, is damn near strangled right out of me. It helps that I have the computer right there and can reset and do over, if I don't like this or that thing that I have done to the original picture. I can edit my photo and keep both versions of it  although I do that on a hit and miss basis since my jinx with mechanical stuff still applies. When I am completely done withall the photos I want developed I walk out of the store grabbing my little treasures and more alert than I have felt all week. I have gotten into the habit of balancing out my check book on these days as for some reason it goes smother for me at this time. I try to balance it right to the penny. Sometimes I succeed. I also can figure out my budget and I often remember all the bills in my budget. I think there is truth tto the fact that artmakes you think. I certainly prove it when I am done with my pictures.
            Spiritually the quest to take a perfect picture is like beginning an adventure. I am alone when I am picture snapping usually and happy to be out in the woods and in the elements. Something about walking in the woods fills me full of life. Maybe it is the smell of the air, hearing the wind, feeling the sunshine on my face listening to the sounds of nature, but when I walk out of the woods I am so full of life that my hair is just about standing on its' ends. If it were possible I literally soak the life of the woods in through my pores. I come home happy full of life, love and an appreciation for all the living beings around me. I am literally in love with life at that point, and those endorphins or whatever it is that I am so high on, last me for days.  I don't know of anything that charges me up like that if there ever was anything in my life that did.
           Taking photos for me is the best hobby that I have ever found for myself. Maybe someone else feels the same about a different hobby such as building birdhouses or collecting stamps, or a different place, like the beach or the desert. For me nothing will ever come close to the way I fel when I am taking a picture of the sunrise over a small pond or the sun coming up behind the mountains. I am constantly amazed at the beauty all around me and the fact that tomorrow I will wake up and there will be another sunrise just for me to take a picture again. Tomorow I will be able to emerse myself in the color and the light of the morning sunrise, and my body, my mind, and my spirit will be renewed and ready to face another few days of the dull drudgery of my day to day existance. My hobby is a part of me now, as important to me as going to church sometimes. I feel closer to my God out there in the vast expanses that He has created, then I ever really have in any of the buildings I have worshipped in. After all He made the sunrise just for me to photograph.
        

Examples of Time

       Getting old is a as natural as the river behind my house. For a long time I did not want to admit that I was getting old. After awhile, in the face of overwhelming evidence, I can no longer hide the fact of what the rest of the world already knows, I really am getting old. The deterioration of my vision, the fact that I seem to feel every little ache and pain as I never have before, and the overwhelming preoccupation with my body weight. It doesn't mean that I think that I am ready to move into the local retirement home or subscribe to AARP yet, but I am realizing that I am not the spring chicken I used to be anymore, and I  completely regret the wasteful excesses of my youth that cause my discomfort today.
             In my youth I had the vision that would allow me to spot an ant on a duck's behind at a hundred yards as my father likes to tell it. I can say that this was probably mostly true, my eye exam when I enlisted in the service was better than twenty-twenty.  Although why I would want to look at a duck's behind always escaped me and Dad could never explain why I would want to either. Regardless, as time flowed onward to whatever destination it is always working towards, my eyes have slowly lost the ability they once had to focus on that ant and right now I have to sqint to see the duck as well. I think of all the times I stayed up past my bedtime reading under the covers with a flashlight, the marathon computer work that I had to do for the service or even all the times that I was out in the sun without my sunglasses and I have to wonder if my vision would be as bad as it is if I had not done all those things. Maybe, maybe not, I will never know. I do know that I now cannot read the print on cans, boxes, bags, and even my paycheck. Yesterday I had forgotten my glasses and had to ask Stephanie at the bank to read the balance to me. Quite often I have to have my children read me instructions on the labels so that I know what I am doing. It grates on my independent soul like salt in an open wound. It is a small inconvenience though, and at least I do not have the accompanying headaches.
             As I get older I more and more of the aches and pains that I have acquired through the years. I know now why people speak of athletes as having a limited career. If these aches and pains are what they feel every day, then I understand completely. My feet swell and ache, my back is stiff every morning, I have tendinitis in both shoulders, although it is worse in my right one. Guess what hand I use most of the time. I can barely lift a coffee pot on rainy days. Due to an accident in 2001 I have quite a bit of metal in my left forearm so again on cold, wet, days there is aches and pains there as well. I remember as a youngster I could run, jump, dance the night away. Now I get winded thinking about it. If I had known how I was going to feel as an aging adult, maybe I wouldn't have got on the four wheeler behind a drinking driver, or I certainly would have said something when asked to shovel heavy, wet, snow over eight foot snow banks a couple of years ago. Had I known then what it was going to do to my future comfort, or lack there of, I would have definitely refused to do it. The long and short of it, as I have already stated, is that we spend our youth doing what ever we want and we spend our middle age regretting the excesses that we did as youngsters and dreading what we are to look forward to as oldsters.The aches and pains only get worse as I get older, they never really go away, each twinge reminding me of a time that I was simply having too much fun, and not realizing the future price that I would have to pay, daily.
            Another sign that I am growing older would be the regrettable slowing down of my natural metabolism. No longer can I eat anything, and everything in my sight with no more consequence then walking through a field of flowers. I have always liked food, alot. I still try to eat as if I was cramming for finals in high school when I ate candy bars three or four times a day and downed them alongside cans of Pepsi with no consequences except my father's wallet was a bit thinner. My metabolism was high enough that after giving birth I was in my pre-pregnancy clothes a week later. That is not an exaggeration. Now, today, if I even think about chocolate I'll put on two or three new pounds. The extra weight has caused me to break the laws of gravity in places policemen can't . How my itty-bitty little legs are holding up my weight I will never know, but they do and it is intensely uncomfortable for them, and my feet. I am so uncomfortable that I have begun doing research on I word I heard once. Diet. Even the sound of the word reminds me of death. Die-t I am now wearing pants that the federal budget could fit into and I truely hope I can get through this holiday season without outgrowing everything. Again.
              There is something inheirantly wrong with the fact that we have all our health and vigor in our youth, when we are to numb to realize what a gift it is and that it should not be taken advantage of. Someone, who shall remain nameless, has a real mean streak for that one.  There are more examples that I am getting older that I could list, but these are the ones that I am most familiar with. I honestly regret some of those excesses that I was too numb to think about and now have no one but myself to blame for them. They are the ones that rear their awful rotten heads on a daily basis and force me to remember that life goes on and on and nothing in the world will make me one day younger. It is a good thing that at least my knowledge is increasing along with my aches and pains, and my waistline. Now at least I know when I look at something I can tell if it is going to be a bad idea or not, and with the wisdom of my increasing age I can look at something and realize that I really don't want to do that. Somehow that thought percolates into the part of my brain that handles my actions. Must be because I can't really remember what it was I wanted to do...

Effects of Life

               No one can say with any certainty what is going to happen in their future but never would I have dreamed that my thirteen year old stepson would molest my nine year old daughter. As devastating as that was for my family, the thought of sending my stepson back to a nightmare existence with his mother without trying to help him, warred with the thought of what he had done and might possibly do again to my daughter. Back and forth I went about this decision and with my now ex-husband refusing to make a decision between his two children, it left the decision of what to do completely up to me. After much thought, and many discussions with my pastor, and many counselors, and my family physician, I chose to try to help my stepson, After two years of family therapy I found out I had chosen wrongly. This event cracked my family apart at the seams destroying my family forever, or so I thought at the time. The guilt, anger, and self-loathing caused me to break my faith with my God,and my future is now radically different than it would have been had this event not happened.
            By the time that I realized helping my stepson was never going to happen, I was living in Cherrypoint, NC. I had him removed from the house and sent back to his mother and I did not care what was going to happen to him at that point. The kids and I closed ranks around each other. Although he was in the USN at the time, my ex husband volunteered for every temporary duty he could and conveniently was sent off to parts unknown. There were other issues, there always are, but the long and short of it was that we were done as a couple, a family, however you want to look at it, our future was gone. I had lost a boy that I thought of as my own, and my children had lost a brother. Because my husband and I soon split up, they also lost a father. The day I moved back home to Maine, my ex husband stopped being in their life. I realize now this was his choice, but for many years I thought it was my fault. However I wanted to look at it, my life as I had known it and thought it was going to be, was never going to be that way again. My family was in splinters around me and I knew that it was going to be a long time before there would be a return to peace or stability in my life.
             During all the drama that was going on initially we were in Florida and I had my pastor and my church family and my faith, my ex husband received orders to NC and the stage was then set for the final disintegration of my family. When my family finally did split in to pieces, I was very isolated and so angry.  I felt like everything was my fault and I could not handle the overwhelming sense of guilt, anger, and self-loathing. So I blamed God. It was very easy to talk myself into believing that every bad thing was God's fault because He had let this horrible thing happen to my daughter and by extension,to me. No more would I share my burdens with Him or ask for His wisdom and guidance, or have someone who knew how I felt without my having to tell Him. I now had to handle everything that came my way on my own with no one to talk it over with and I had to rely on my own judgement to get me through every situation. I hope that I never have to be that alone and lonely again. It made me realize just how inadequate we humans are to make decisions on our own. There was a rage in my heart that I could do nothing with. It led to behavior that I am not exactly proud of, to say the least, but I do not deny it if I am asked about it. I was not in a place that I could accept my own responsibility in the whole mess and I had to blame someone, so I blamed God. I decided that since God didn't protect my daughter, my family, or my future as I thought they  should be protected when I asked Him to, then I was not going to give Him what He asked of from me either. That left a huge, very deep, very dark void in my life which I tried to fill with all the wrong people, habits, and things. I ended up hurting no one but myself really.Maybe that is what I was trying to do, punish myself for make the wrong choices. I finally crawled out of my pit and returned to my faith but I will always remember that deep, dark place when I was so bitter and alone. I know that I will never make that mistake again because even though I am alone at this point in my life, I am not lonely. I have too many people who care about me and love me and I will always have my faith to turn to to see me through the rough spots that I know will come my way.
             Before this event in my life happened, I thought that marriage was forever. Whether or not my husband was good, bad, or indifferent, he was my Prince Charming and we were going to live together happily ever after. I was supposed to have an old farmhouse with a wraparound porch and an apple tree in the yard. My husband had a job in which he was going to retire soon, we were going to buy that house, the kids would move out in their turn, and I would go back to school full time. I would then get a really cool job. I was supposed to be an accountant, or secretary or even a missionary. My life was all set, my future was assured and I was going to have a fifty year wedding anniversary. Then this happened and all bets were off. I was now the object that I had always pitied, a single mother with no education, struggling to take care of her kids as best she could with all the state aid she could qualify for. It would be another two decades almost before the idea of school could even be contemplated. What I wanted to be then is not what I want now. I would never have dreamed that I would be the wife of a prisoner who is doing hard time. I never thought that I would be cleaning toilets for a living, and living in a forty year old trailer with issues.
              So here I am today and time heals all wounds as my mother kept trying to tell me through all this and I have to say the only thing that I am sure of in my life is that my mother is a very smart woman and I should have listened to her about many different things a long time ago. I eventually picked up the pieces of my life and put them back together albeit in a different order than they were to begin with. I found my faith again and feel blessed that my God is a forgiving one. I am not alone anymore and have found the kind of peace that I needed to make it through life on my own two feet, and I have a whole church family that are there for me and to help me stay on the right track. As for my future, although it is radically different then I thought it was going to be,I own my own home such that it is right on the river. I am in college and I am there on my terms not anyone else's. My children are grown and becoming responsible citizens whatever that really is, and my husband although a bad boy is one of the most honest people I have ever met with a bigger heart in him than almost anybody I have ever met. He can spot bullshit from across the room and instinctively knows more about parenting than I will ever read in all the how-,to books out there. He is the love of my life and beside him all others pale in comparison. This thing that happened to my family was an awful thing, more awful then anything I could ever have dreamed of, but I got through and I helped my daughter through it. She doesn't hate me for which I am thankful for. My husband is coming home soon enough and the future is starting to look pretty good again. I guess my mother was right after all and time does heal all wounds.

Division of a Paper

     As any student in any college knows, there are going to be times when they are going to have to write a paper and turn it in for some kind of grade. That paper is either going to make or break their course grade. A well written paper has to have three main parts. An intro, with which we "hook" the teacher, the content, which keeps the teacher interested in what we are writing, and an outro, which sums the paper up in a nice neat little package and ties up all the little loose ends. Unless the paper is about little loose ends and in that case they probably won't get all tied up, but left flapping in the proverbial breeze for a good teacher to see.
        The intro is that first sentence,or first paragraph, first chapter, first page, whatever it is to be called depending on the length of the paper. It is the thing that grabs the teacher and says "I know what might interest you," to him or her. It is what peaks the interest, like those warm wonderful aromas in the kitchen right before Thanksgiving.(Sigh) A good intro has three parts to it. A really good quote, question or a startling/descriptive statement. A statement that will grab the teacher by the throat and say,"READ ME", and then the rest of the paragraph says, "I HAVE KNOWLEDGE FOR YOU." The third part should lead the teacher by the hand right into the content of the paper.
        The content of the paper is the fleshing out of what was brought up in the intro. Ideally, there should be three parts to back up whatever the writer is trying to say. There can be more but there really needs to be at least three points. Three little bitty corroborating pieces of information is all it takes to back up what is trying to be drummed into the poor teacher's brain. More than that and the poor guy gets a headache form trying to read a gazillion papers with a gazillion points, less than that and he might still be...confused. Each point should have its own sentence, paragraph, section, chapter whatever the length of the paper is. For example, a book is nothing more than a really long paper. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end; it just has more chapters to back up the points.The points usually being; point one-boy meets girl, point two-boy loses girl, and point three-girl realizes she dodged a bullet and gets away laughing. This is where sequels come in, but that is a different point.When the third paragraph finally winds down, and the teacher realizes there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel, he should be led gently in to the outro.
         Finally, the last part of the assignment, is the summary or the outro. The outro is that part of the paper that sums everything, in the preceding parts up, in a nice neat little packge, if it can be done, making it easy for the teacher to remember what the paper was about. It recaps everything, ties up all those loose little ends laying around. The outro has to be there, due to the fact that the teacher, after having read so many papers and paragraphs, can't remember what he has just read when he gets down to the end of the piles of papers he has to read. This refreshes his memory just a bit. It is a way for the writer to leave her readers with whatever attitude that she wants. It is the last chapter in the book where the heroine is glad she got away, or got married, whichever and can even hint to the sequel if there is to be one.
         Any one of us can write any kind of paper. To put it together with some kind of cohesion, so that the end fits the beginning, and the middle, is what the teacher gets paid to drill into our little heads and what every student tries to do. As long as we have that basic formula down, we can do it in any order that we want to and we can still rest assured that we will at least pass the course. As long as we pass the work in to him at some point, for his reading pleasure, and a passing grade.

             

My Own Type of Research

     Research is one of my favorite things to do, as long as it is the, "hands on" type of research. I have always been a most curious creature. From the time I could stick my nose into something, that is exactly what I could be found to be doing. My favorite question growing up besides, "What is in the refrigerator?" was "Why?" At present I am trying to learn something about wine. I have started to read  books, pamphlets, and backs of wine labels, Mostly I am working my way down the wine shelves at the local grocery stores. Considering the fact that I drink about 4-5 bottles of wine a year, it is going to be awhile before I can safely assume that I know anything about wines at all. I began my research with red wines. I like beef and it bleeds red so I bought red wine to go with it. Apparently that logic worked because the back of the labels on the wine bottles agreed with me. Continuing on with that logic, chicken, fish, and pork were paired with white wines. That worked out pretty good as well. I originally started with the cheap end of the spectrum in wines thinking that one wine maker was just as good as another, however that thinking was a big mistake. I realized it the next morning when I felt absolutely awful. I also shied away from the boxed wines as they reminded me a lot of the Boonesfarm mistake and I did not want to go there again. Ever. Having a completely biased opinion of my home state, and believing that everything good comes from home I searched online for a number of wineries in the state and found a list of them. I then nagged my local grocer into ordering some of them, and although they cost a bit more than I really want to pay, there are some really good wines that are grown and marketed right here in Maine. I sample wines alphabetically by country according to whatever meat I am eating at the time and so far I am finding that most of the time as far as wines go, I am making good decisions about them. Enjoying how a good wine well chosen, compliments a dinner, I have begun experimenting with the dessert wines, and have become obsessed with finding the perfect wine to go with chocolate anything. It may take me awhile but I really liking doing the research. I also am starting to throw a little wine into my dinners as they are cooking, I find that works as long as I am not heavy handed with it. I look forward to doing actual field work this coming summer to increase the knowedge that am acquiring on a bottley basis.

Crocheting the Memories of My Life

 

     Learning how to crochet, for me, has been an ongoing experience since I was a little girl when I  learned the craft from my grandmother. Crocheting is a very old art form that has been handed down from mother to daughter for many generations. Sometimes skipping a generation or two but always making a raging come back. Beginning to learn any hobby requires a little thought on the part of the person learning the hobby. I remember first having to tell Grammy that I wanted to make a ribbon for my hair and it was from that first learning project that I learned a hobby that created some memories that were to last me a lifetime.

      To begin to learn my new hobby, I first had to talk to my grandmother and find out what would be best to start with.  In my case, I wanted to learn how to make ribbons for my hair. Grammy had showed me how to make them every morning, laughing when for some reason my eyes couldn’t keep up with her flashing crochet hook. Crocheting has one needle verses knitting, which has two. The hook in crocheting is identical to that of the one in  lace-making except in lace-making, or tatting as it is also known, you need the Hubble telescope to see the end of the needle and the threads. In crochet the needle is at at least 7 or 8 inches or so depending on the maker and can go to a foot or more. It has a small hook on at least one of the ends to catch the yarn and pull it through the loops held on the shank of the needle.

     Now that I had decided to learn to make ribbons, I then needed to know what else I would need to make them. The crochet hook is the first thing that came to my mind that I needed. It could be made of any materials from plastic to aluminum or anything else in between, and ranged in sizes from A to Z  with the standard size being G or H. For my purposes, a hook size G, made of aluminum,( which is my preference for crocheting simply because it slides through the yarn most easily), is the only equipment that I needed. As far as materials go, I would need a ball of yarn.  Yarn can come in as many colors as are in the rainbow, it really depended on what color my outfit was. My standard outfit was jeans and a tee shirt/sweatshirt.  So, for a color, I  chose a medium blue. Yarns also comes in many weights which is how one tells which one to use for what, the lighter weights are for decorations, children’s and baby clothes. The medium weights are for adult clothes, Afghans and crafts, and the bulky weights are for sweaters, shawls, and rugs. This is a very general guideline and can be subject to the whims of the pattern creator.

     Patterns, in crocheting, are the same as in sewing or anything else really. They are a way for the crocheter to know how to create the item desired. They number in the gazillions and can be as old as the paper they are written on or the thought in your mind. There are only a handful of stitches in crochet but it is the difference in how they are put together that give us the differences in the patterns. For the making of my hair ribbon I only needed two stitches; the single stitch(SC), and the double stitch(DC). I first started by knotting the yarn onto the crochet hook. By looping the yarn over the hook and drawing it through the knotted loop I have started my basic stitch. I continued drawing the yarn over the hook and pulling it through the loop on the hook.  I made this row of single chains about 30 stitches long. This was  called my beginning row or the starting row. When I have about thirty stitches in the chain, I crochet three more single chains and then poke the head of the hook through the middle of the third chain from the shank of the needle. I pull my yarn over the hook twice and draw each loop through the loop on my hook separately. I pull the yarn over the hook again and draw the yarn through all the loops on my hook. That is my very first double chain and I do one more double chain in the same chain stitch as the first DC. I continue putting two DCs in each SC for the next ten stitches. The pattern changes and I only do one stitch in each of the single stitches. Then it tells me to do that for ten stitches. The pattern changes back and I do ten more of the double stitches in each single stitch. Next I do one more row like the second row and I am done. There are loops and curls that have formed on the ends of the ribbons almost as if by magic. I tie the ribbon on my ponytail. My hair was then tied back with a uniquely-mine little hair bauble that I had made myself. This was the very basic pattern that I began learning to crochet on. As my head grew I had to add stitches to the pattern.

     As stated earlier, by varying the number of times you pull the yarn over the hook or the number of times you pull the yarn through the loops, you can vary the stitches. As I practiced and learned more variations of the stitches I have created heirloom quality Afghans for kids, toys for them to play with, accessories for my daughter’s outfits, and decorations for the holidays, all for the cost of a skein of yarn or two and some hours of my time. I now am at the point that my own granddaughter is asking me how to make the ribbons for her hair and I look forward to handing down to her the art form that I learned from my grandmother and seeing all the ways she can create the memories in her life.

The Two Karate Kids

     The difference in the remake of movies is an obvious thing. You can see the difference in the actors, the writing and especially the special effects. They quite often are so different that it is not necessary to remark how different they are. Take fir instance The Karate Kid, in its day it was a really good movie and the remake today is a most enjoyable movie experience. What is not the same however are the moviegoers themselves. Those old enough to remember the first movie were not the same people when the remake hit the theaters this past year; age, experience and physical locations all changed for most people in the twenty six years between the two movies and me especially.  

      The first glaring difference to me with these movies is the fact that a few months before the first movie I was pregnant with my first son. I have to say that pregnancy agreed with me totally and carried through the first few months after having my oldest son. My skin was clear, my hair was shiny, and I “glowed”. I really did. I had many compliments to that effect. I walked around feeling spiritually at one with the world around me, The Great Earth Mother.  With the remake of The Karate Kid, I am going through menopause and it does not agree with me at all. The son that I gave birth to, is now a grown man, married and in the service himself. The hot flashes are making me miserable; the night sweats are intolerable, leading to exhaustion and irritability. Instead of being told how wonderful I look, positively glowing blah, blah, blah, people are asking me if I just got over the flu and do I need to go home and lie down.  My children now actually ask me how I am feeling before the y talk to me. If I don’t answer them they leave… quickly.  Instead of The Great Earth Mother, I am now known as Grandma St. Helen, (watch out for those eruptions).

     The first movie actually was released the day before I married my first husband, the father by blood of my three children. I remember how excited I was to be starting my life as a new bride. I dreamed of happily ever after and that love could conquer all. I was naïve enough to think that marriage was forever and nothing bad was ever really going to happen to me. My husband was going to take care of me and I did not need to worry about taking care of myself ever again. As I watched the remake of the Karate Kid I thought how far I had come in learning to take care of myself. I can drive an eighteen wheeler if I have to, it took me three tries but I have my class “A” license. I can fix a stopped up sink, a screen door and bleed my own furnace, change a tire, and I actually understand what a mechanic is talking about when he is trying to tell me what is wrong with my car. I know how to get something out of a drain, a nose, and a kid who suddenly has amnesia. I have survived homelessness, divorce and the life of a wife with a husband in prison.  

     The final difference in the two movies for me is that when the first movie came out I was living there in Southern California where the movie was made. Southern California was nice and I think there were a few of those beaches in that movie that I actually sun burnt myself on. In the movie you can’t see how very dry the air is, or how the dust coats everything outside and that you can’t touch anything without getting it on yourself. The flowers are bright and colorful and in the morning there is a heavy tropical scent wherever a handful of them grew. I never knew what they all were but boy did they smell nice. In the remake of the movie I was not in Beijing but I was here in Maine in the fall. I will take fall in Maine any day over any day in sunny southern California. California never changes, always dry greens and dusty browns with various colored tropical flowers. But in Maine on any given fall day you have the vivid hues of red, orange and yellow set against a backdrop of the deep greens of the Maine forests and the startling blue of her skies. There is no scenery on the beaches that can compare with a cloudless autumn day in Maine.  At the top of every large hill in Maine you can see what the colors on God’s palette truly are.

     There are differences in the two movies; the actors, the writing, the budget, and like the two movies you can see the differences in their fans. We are all older and wiser and in different places than we all thought we would be, but just like in these movies we all had to face our bullies and come out stronger for having stood our ground and fought the battle no matter what.  

     

Easy Meals for a Busy Life

 For the millions of people headed back to school this year, one thing is going to be on their minds at the end of their busy days and that thing is going to be,” what to do for dinner”. From the harried mother to the new college student to the new couple down the street, everyone has one thing on their mind come 6:00 PM. And that would be,” I am starving, what is for dinner”?  Years gone by Mom would have a hot meal ready and waiting about the time your brain received the signals from your stomach that it was time to it. Nowadays with everyone’s busy lifestyles, more and more people just do not have the time for the kind of work required for that kind of meal. That leaves everyone with basically three tried and true methods of slapping a meal into themselves and/or their families. If they have a really good job they can eat at a sit down restaurant, if they are really stressed for time they can hit their local fast food store, or if they are feeling the need to get de-stressed then they can order something for takeout/ delivery and relax in the comfort of their own home or the home next door whatever is on their agenda.   

      For the ultimate eating experience, a sit down dinner at the hometown favorite restaurant is the way to go. You know the one, it is right there on the corner of Main Street. It has been there since God was a baby and the cook could have been God’s auntie. He liked her so well that he gifted her with the knowledge of how to cook a homestyle meal, make it look and smell like heaven, and be able to do it in under ten minutes for a better than reasonable price. The restaurant doesn’t look like much but it is where all the locals go when the tourists are in town. The coffee is always fresh and hot and the desserts are what you take to your mother-in-law’s house if she lives in another state (she will never know unless your husband has a death wish).

      A less satisfying alternative is the fast food restaurant. They all have a generic menu; something that started out life breathing, has been turned into paste of some sort, and has the flavor fried out of it. Although not as good as a restaurant it is convenient if you are busy and you only have to throw the trash away to clean up after yourself. It is great if you have a bunch of screaming kids as some of the restaurants have a playland to let them loose in so you can finish a thought while you eat. However you only have to read the magazines at the checkout stand or listen to the news to find out exactly how unhealthy this type of food is, so you really don’t want to indulge in this type of food on any kind of regular basis. 

      A third and final option to getting a dinner without the bother of cooking it yourself is to have your food delivered from the various assorted restaurants that will deliver in your area or order something to take home yourself. Chinese food and pizza are two of the first options that come to mind although larger cities will have other options as well. This method is great if you have guests coming over and no time to cook or you feel like eating your dinner in your pajamas in front of the TV. Order a pizza or a Pu Pu Platter and you are all set. A major drawback is that quite often the food comes to you less than hot and sometimes missing items. It never fails that pizza delivery will be missing the soda that was supposed to come with it and by the time you get your soda the pizza is cold.

      Whatever method gets chosen is largely going to depend on time money and convenience, what your mood is, who you have to feed, and how far you want to go to get fed. If you get desperate enough and all else fails there is only one thing left that you can do to get a hot meal for a reasonable price. Just don’t forget to thank your Mom; she worked hard getting that meal together.   

meta-graf on cause and effect essay

     I chose as my decision to go back to school for the cause and effect essay because it was the first thing that came to my mind that really had three separate and distinct areas that led to that decision. I did not have to work for the decision because it and the reasons were right there. I was lucky in that regard. The subject itself was and still is something that excites me.  I am good and sick of my hand to mouth existence, so therefore I am very passionate about changing it. I find that a lot of my assignments I can correlate to that decision and to the fact of what I want to become. Maybe it is because I am the type of person who lives in the now, with her eye on the future. Crying over spilled milk has never had an appeal for me, so therefore I do not cry and whine that I did not go to school when I was younger , I only choose to try and get through it now and in the process use what little spare energy I have to excel in who I am

Decisions of My Life

    
       I have made my decision, it is back to school for me. I am tired of my minimum wage-lucky-to-get-a-raise jobs. I have had a series of them in the past thirteen years. None of them ever could or will amount to much. At present I am a janitress, have been for going on three years this past summer. Last Christmas I watched with envy as everyone at work took turns going off on paid vacations all seeming to forget that I would not get one. Nor will I ever. I really was happy for them but I wanted to go too. At about the same time one of my coworkers said something offhand that really struck a nerve in me and started the old thinker to thinking. I realized that no one was ever going to think of me on their level because I was not as educated as they were. The last straw was the fact that even my own family not only thought nothing of the fact that I had not gone to college, but they were planning on following in my footsteps!
     A janitor's job is the care and maintenance of the BUILDING that they are hired to take care of. I was working last winter as a janitor, filling in for my boss who was away on vacation and although I do not remember the beginning of the conversation, one of my coworkers, who has a habit of not throwing away her drinking cups or soda cans with the assumption that I must throw them away for her, made a comment that really irked me. Not so much that it was hateful, far from it. It was a comment made in that offhand manner that implied that she really did believe what she said. She made the comment, "That I had to throw away her bottles, cans, and empty drinking cups because she did not have time to walk in the next room and empty them out to throw them away herself." That statement, once I stopped seeing red things everywhere, made me realize that she thought of herself on a different level than I. Her time is important and apparently mine isn't. She does important work while I only do manual labor. I am in a lower class than she is apparently.
     My boss, bless his little heart, had spoiled her to the point that she thought that I was there as a servant, to be commanded at her whim and pleasure, then he took off on a paid vacation. That is what made me realize that I wanted my own paid vacation. If I stay here in this job I will never, ever get one. Listening to everyone as they came back from one only made it that much worse for me; it started me thinking about what it would take for me to get one. Option A was to have everyone at work chip in twenty bucks and then take a few days off, although I have had to take charity in the past, I do not like it. That plan was out. That left plan B, which was to get a better job. To get a better job, that would take at least a little education. If I was going to do that I decided I had better hurry up since I am already almost fifty I do not have all the time in the world left to complete my education, find a job, then work for at least two years to earn one.
     The final straw that broke the camel's back and got me into the financial aid person to see if this could even be done, was another comment my daughter made, "That if I could bring up three kids with a high school diploma, she could too." Boy didn't that spin my head around! Did she not see the struggle I'd had to endure for the last 15 years? I could finally see the example that I set by going back to school could and would be very far reaching indeed, affecting not only myself but my daughter, my sons, and even my grandchildren.
    I have always believed that when a decision is right for you then everything in your life comes together to help it along. This held true for my decision to go back to school. Within a week I had picked out my career, which was a lot easier for me now than it was in high school. I had filed for and received my funding. Work, well, they gave me their complete support. I have tutors, research assistants and professionals of all sorts that I can ask for help. They even donated a used but working computer to my dream. I have to pay for the internet, of course. When life hands you that many blessings for something then you can rest assured that it is something that you are supposed to be doing. It is a little weird though to have my sons laughingly ask me if I have my homework done and then tell me, "You can't go to Bingo until it is done Mom".

Reactions of an Isearch

   I have read several examples of this thing called an Isearch paper that I must do and I am really impressed. The writers obviously did quite a lot of work and put together some interesting and informative papers. I could see on a couple of them how they went back to the drawing board and reworked their papers. At first they were disorganized and then when we saw the later version it had been worked to show definitive direction. I felt like I was watching a kid grow up. I saw the excitement that one person had for the paper he was writing and the complete puzzlement and self-doubt of a mother as to why her little girl didn't want to potty train. They all let their passion and their interest in the topic they were writing shine through.  As for reading the picky stuff, I gleaned from it an order for my own paper that I have to write and a few questions for the professor of the pen himself about the order and the technical words at the end. But other than that I can only hope that with time work and effort I could create a paper just as good. Although honestly I like doing grafs and prompts better, not because they are shorter but because I can wrap it all up in a nice neat little package and if I have done my job there will be a bow on it. The Isearches look so large that, quite frankly, I am going to need a whole lot more ribbon.

My Best Friend

    

  My best friend in the entire world has always been a wonderful friend to have around. The whole time I am with her we laugh, mostly. It seems like I have known her forever as I can't really think of a time when I didn't know her. When we were small we had our disagreements I am sure, although I don't really remember them now, somehow we must have worked through them, and as we grew up we developed different interests and lifestyles, which took us in different directions, down different paths in our lives to experience different things. We have grown incredibly much in our time apart and although I look forward to knowing my friend again, now that we have reconnected, I still see my childhood friend peeking out at me through the eyes of her older self, laughing.

My Family Scrapbooks

     Scrapbooks are the history of a family. There is laughter, sometimes tears, and quite often a quiet yearning for the lost innocence of our youth or even your parents' youth if you feel yours is not that interesting. Through the years I had amassed a veritable maelstorm of pictures. They were everywhere in my house. They were in drawers, boxes, letters, some were being used as bookmarks. They were behind my bed, under my couch, in the cupboards, and a few were even in the glove box of my car. I had pictures laying around everywhere but in my purse to show people when I talked about my family. I decided one quiet, rainy weekend, to gather them all together and organize them somehow. There were pictures of me and my brother, my father and mother, pictures of my greatgrandparents, my grandparents, pictures of my children's father and his mother when he was young. There were pictures of my children, my stepchildren, and a very few of my husband's mother and father. All told there were five generations between three families. It took almost that whole weekend to find, gather, sort, and then, very painstakingly go through them one by one and put them in chronological order. It took two large scrapbooks to store them all but I finally did it. The end result was quite the family history. I am so proud that I took the time and did this, not only is my house cleaner but when my grandchildren come over one of their favorite books to look at is The Parents Books. Why did you have the fish Nanna? Where was this?  How old was you here?  The questions go and on all afternoon if I am lucky. Because of those books I have a little piece of my families' (all of them) history, right there, for all my world to see, learn, and remember.

Uniquely Me

     I am an almost fiftyish woman with all the dents, dings, and scars of a woman who has lived and loved and is still wondering where her niche in life is. Kind of. I am basically healthy, almost happy, and mostly sane in an insane time of human history, I know that I am going to witness changes that my grandparents are glad to be missing. I reeeaaally like food. I like the outdoors and have a passion for all things natural. I have a deep faith in my God, my country and my family and in that order. I have a sense of humor as big as my behind, although not as dented, most of the time. I am kind to strangers and as honest as any normal human being can be. I work hard, like to play harder and love completely. I love a good book, a good movie, or a good puzzle of any variety. I love to learn and wish that I could remember a fraction of what teachers have tried to teach me over the course of my lifetime. I have done a fair amount of traveling, and hope to do more. I am pretty comfortable with who I am, enough so that I do not have a problem fitting in where ever I go. I love to dance. I want to learn how to play the piano, ride a train, and sail on a yacht for a month or so, in the Carribbean. I have to have my towels folded a certain way or it irritates me. I am determined to do well in school this time around because I want my PAID freaking VACATION, someday. I am so laid back that half the time I am prone. I like taking pictures and have a couple of ones that I really like and will someday frame.I have a deep respect for my elders, and hope to be one someday. I love crabby old cats, warm fuzzy puppies, and  most other furred animals. I have made a lot of mistakes and been very lucky at times and thank the guardian angel that comes around occasionally to check on me, that none of my mistakes cost me more than I was able to pay. I like my spelling to be correct as I do remember one teacher telling me that misspelled words were a sign of being uneducated. My children call me a walking dictionary. My son actually called from half a world away once to ask me how to spell "truely". I told him, "How should I know"?I have a passion for yard saling, Bingo, and walking along the coast to see what treasures the ocean threw up on the shores just for me because I am so special. I hate hot weather, and think that becoming a snow bird is about the best idea in the world, and I am trying to make that happen so give me my A and watch me go! My grammer stinks so I will take a B and waddle off into the sunrise as I like those better than sunsets. They are both beautiful but the sunrise has an air of mystery, a promise of adventures to come, while a sunset has an air of finality to it, you have done everything you can do and can do no more. This is the beginning of me but this alone I think is enough to make me quite unique.

Inventory & Inventory

The Inventory of My Square-Shaped Coffee Table

• Oval shaped green luncheon plate with the of a tomatoey sauce and a tarnished silver fork on it
• Green xbox hand control device, unplugged
• 5 inch piece of silver wire
• folded up note writtten to my son at his school
• 8"x6" black photo album with letter "C" on the front cover, containing 180 ofr so family photos all slots filled
• In the center of the table is a painted terracotta flowerpot with a candle in it smells like apples, it has been lit at least once
• 2"x3" old gold picture frame with a picture of my husband and I getting married it is frayed and worn and no longer stands on its own
• folded receipt from the grocery store
• light blue spiral notebook with a butterfly on the front cover
• well worn science fiction paperback book titled, "The Ghatti's Tale " It is the first in a series
• folded piece of paper revealed to be a form had to have me sign which he was supposed to take back to school and apparently didn't
• TV remote
• a few crumbs of something white (toast perhaps)

I assume that these things all speak of a very busy person who has at least one son that doesn't pick up after himself a whole lot. This person likes to read and watches tv while they eat. They do like their home to look nice and smell nice but have too much going on to oversee every little thing. Here they eat when they can and clean up when there is time, but mostly things slide around between done and undone

The Worst Teacher

     The worst teacher I ever had was not necessarily a bad teacher, it is just that she also taught my mother and my aunts. It never failed that at some point during the day, I would hear how cute my mother was or what I stinker my auntie was. Having just moved to Maine from Connecticut, and being new to the third grade, the end result was that I was not as cute as my mother and I was as much a stinker as my Auntie, whom I had never met. I finally did meet her many years later and I didn't think that she smelled all that bad, a little like moth balls and lavender. Looking back, I have come to realize that the woman was just trying to put me at ease with the other kids. All she really ended up doing was making me the center of attention, which every new student knows is not a good thing to be when your the new girl in town. I survived it though and now as I look back from another point of view I realize that I have something not many people get to have, which is a little piece of my mother's history as part of my own and I am grateful.
     

Hands...

    As I write my assignment for class, my hand dancing across the pages of my notebook,  I am distracted by the sight of the pen in my fingers, pirouetting across my notebook, forming the letters which make up the words that trickle from my mind. The fingers of my hand as they clasp the pen, and direct it in its unknown ballet, show the age that is beginning to be noticeable to the eyes that view them. With all of their wrinkles on the backs and the calluses on the palms, they speak of a life that has been full of hard work and little time for the niceties like moisturizers or creams that would keep them, for a few more years anyway, smooth and soft. The nails, which are clean and kept short, are ridged curving under for some unknown reason, preventing them from being grown out long. They dance and they dance, my fingers do moving with grace and style, here a dip, there a pirouette and very soon an essay written by my fingers with their wrinkles and their calluses, assisting in the birthing of something that is me.