Turn around and she's two, turn around and she's 4.......

turn around she's a young girl, going out of the door.  click here  How fast the years go by!

Seems like when I think back over my life the highlights run together in a blur.  First I was the young girl running out the door with the love of my life and then I was running back through that same door  with 5 kids in tow because my life did not play out as I had envisioned it.

Then I was running out that same door with the new love of my life and heading West to Colorado.  The kids grew up and moved away, but life went on.  Now, as life slowly plays out before my eyes reality is a whole new concept.  When I was young, I grabbed life with both hands and hung on for dear life!  And what a ride it was!  At the age of 30 I had been through 3 husbands and was on my way to life in Colorado with husband number 3 who would also be number 4.  A 2 month stint with husband number 5 and on to number 6.  That was Kenny and when I said "till death do us part" I actually meant it.  We were married in 1983 after one year of living in sin.  He died in 2003.

I have lived here in this house alone since then.  I have male friends, but not any that I would have given up this life for.  My hospice work led me to one man who asked me to marry him because he had no one to leave his worldly goods.  We worked out an agreement whereby I inherited everything and dispersed it all to needy recipients.  That was kind of fun.  

There was one guy I hiked with so I would not have to go alone, but he was a bit of a jerk, so that never went any where.  I am honest and I expect honesty in return.  Compassionate to a fault.

I have been an activist.  I have been a pacifist.    I have helped people cross over in my work with Hospice in the Eleventh Hour program. I have fed the homeless.  I have rescued animals.  But the important part is I have been true to me.

I have loved and lost, but I have survived!  And I will go on surviving, because the German blood that runs through my veins dictates that I survive.  And the blood of my great grandmother makes me take care of people.

And my old mother goose lets me pet her sometimes!  Who can ask for anything more?

Today is the first day....

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.  And so it begins.  The Mother's Day High Tea is over and the Yappy Dog Run passed my driveway as I left for church yesterday.  The cups are wrapped and stored in the basement of the church.  This morning I will wrap the tea pots and put them away.  It was a very successful event and I look forward to next year.  The tea is the one time of the year that I get to see a lot of my friends.  This year I had 2 daughters, 2 son-in-laws, 2 granddaughters, 3 great grand sons, my niece Lisa Shea Porter with her husband and daughter and a partridge in a Pear Tree.  The kids got acquainted and a good time was had by all.  But now it is Monday and life moves forward.

When I think about this being the first day of the rest of my life, it seems a  little daunting, but I am pretty sure I can handle it.  All I can say is I had a bumper sticker once that summed it all up for me. It said "If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."  When I was a teenager, I knew I would not live to see 30.  When 30 rolled around and I had 5 kids I was pretty sure 40 was my limit.  40 came and I fell in love and decided I would probably live forever.  Now that I am beginning to fossilize,  I am wondering if age is not just a number?  I have lost a lot of friends and most of my close family.  I am sure there are no uncles or aunts left out there.  The most I could hope for would be a cousin, but I am thinking that is a futile thought.  I have lived in Colorado over half of my life and lost touch of what ever family I had back there.  Do not think I am complaining, because I am not.  I never kept track of them, and by the same token, they never kept track of me.  So there you go!

Now, to the rest of my life.  Many of my friends want to know what I am going to do.  So, let me just weigh out my options.  My 2400 square foot house on one acre of land is pretty much free and clear.  If I sell it, I have to move.  Now where would I move, you ask.  Since I have spent over half my life in Pueblo, Colorado, leaving does not make much sense.  Living in this big house all alone does not make sense either.  I have a cat and 8 geese.  The geese have never lived any where except here, so if I sold the house, the geese would have to stay with the property.  Icarus could move with me, but she has never been a litter box user, preferring rather to use the doggie door and go outside. If I moved into town she would no doubt be ran over the first time the door was opened.

Or, I could get a room mate.  Now, I am sorry, but I can not think of a single soul in my repertoire of friends that I would want to live with and share space with.  I do not want to live with a female who would hog the bathroom and leave things laying here and there.  She would no doubt want to be friends and share secrets, but I am not a secret sharing person.  I thought about maybe a little gay guy, but what if he wanted to throw a party?  I do not want parties and loud music.  I think I am best if I just live alone.  My ideal scenario is just to wake up dead some morning, or better yet, doze off while Jeopardy! is on and just not wake up.  That way, the mortician could just pick me up, the auction house could just sell all my treasures and then...….who knows.

I do not look on death as a bad thing.  Number one, it is inevitable and we are all going to do it sooner or later.  So, rest assured that when that day comes there is going to be one happy woman here!  Before you get excited thinking maybe I have a premonition, think again.  No visions.  No premonitions.  Just the ramblings of an old woman who has been there, done that, and moved on.

Have a good day and remember,

You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself! 

It is all becoming a blur to me!

It seems it was only yesterday that I was poking in the soil to see signs of life in Mother Earth.  The next day we were in the middle of a stretch of 100 degree days.  This morning I am wondering if I should have unhooked the hoses last night so they would not freeze.  Oh, and some where during the intervening days I recall mowing and cutting weeds and cleaning the goose house and planting seeds and wondering where they went after they came up because the garden was shoulder high in weeds last time I looked.  Spring and Summer are a complete blur. 
I meant to take a vacation and go back to Kansas, but I must have forgotten, because it did not happen.  I meant to go on several hikes, like the Manitou Incline and up Tower Trail in Beulah to get seeds from the Sage plant, but I think it is too cold up there now.  I know it is pretty chilly when I go out in the mornings and I have that dew on my car windows.  Leaves are starting to fall in the yard and spiders are making their way in through the cracks.  Where did the summer go? 
I recall one of those pattern books with the  cute little sayings that can be embroidered in cross stitch.  I actually made several of them and God only knows where they went. I could use them now.  The first one was "When you are over the hill, you pick up speed."  That is the truth if I ever told it.  Seems like some where in the far recesses of my mind I was a kid and the days crept by as slow as molasses on a cold day.  I do not recall summer or winter affecting me as far as the creature comforts of warm and cold.  I do recall walking home from school behind my older brother and sister who broke a trail through the snow.  And I recall sleeping on the floor at school because we could not get through the snow.  It must have been very cold.  I remember those damned itchy wool blankets we slept under.  I recall jumping in the creek or horse tank or a mud puddle when it was summer, so I must have been hot. 
I remember the hayloft and how hot it was up there in the summer.  Sometimes if the hay was just a little damp the pile would start smoldering and the hay would have to be pitched out on the ground to save the barn.  I also remember how warm it was in the winter.  Course I also remember the mice and the cat. There was invariably a litter of kittens which would grow up to eat the baby mice.  Also spiders.  Damned spiders were every where.  Black Widows were the scariest.  We learned early to recognize the web of the Black Widow.  It was shiny and if I touched it with a stick it would crackle.  Sent chills through my bones.  And I could always see the Widow somewhere with her round marble body, shiny black.  Sometimes I could see her dead husband trapped in her web.  She killed him after they bred and that is why she was called a black widow.  There was one that lived behind the door into the chicken house.  Very scary.
(Why does everything always revert back to Nickerson, Kansas and my childhood?)
The other thing I cross stitched was one that said "Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."  That was my mantra for many years until I decided that I had not really lost my mind, just sometimes I let it go on vacation without me!  I have been told that I should write my life story and I gave that a lot of thought, but that will not happen and here is why...
When I set down to start to write my mind wanders off.  I started to write about how fall is in the air and I had beautiful pictures in my mind, but then I started thinking about how the city fathers have now decided to remove those stupid bike lanes down on Fifth Street.  This started me thinking of how I learned to ride a bike in Nickerson, Kansas and that made me remember school there in the big two story brick building. 
I usually call this "digressing", but I guess if the truth be known, it is just the old adage "All roads lead home."  And I take great comfort in that.

Once upon a time....

 Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman, who married a very handsome man.  They planned on living happily ever after.  The beautiful woman had already been married once and brought a daughter to the union.  Her name was Josephine Ann Walden.

                                             

After a time they had a son.  That would be Delbert Leroy (Jake ) Bartholomew.  Jake would grow up to be my best friend.

In 1941 a beautiful daughter was born.  Her name was Louella Beth Bartholomew.  She was named after the mother of the handsome man and the sister in law of the beautiful woman.  She would grow up to be ME!!!

Years would pass and more children were born, all girls.  The man died.  The son died.  And this is who was left.

Top row from left.  Louella, Mother Christine, Josephine

Bottom row: Mary, Donna, Dorothy.

And since this picture was taken, Mother (Christine Josephine Haas) has passed.  Also Josephine Ann Flora, and Mary Belle Shea.  Dorothy Mae Anderson, is transitioning as I write.  That will just leave Donna Faye Bartholomew , and me Louella Beth Mercer.  And that is why I am putting my thoughts together today. 

To anyone I wronged, I apologize.  To the people I never got around to helping, I am sorry;  for those that I did help, pay it forward.

I want to tell all my friends that I love them, in case I do not remember to say it next time. To those who loved me and forgot to tell me or meant to come for a visit, but didn't get around to it, I realize life got in the way as it did from my side of town. 

I want to tell my family, that while I may be far away, you are never far from my mind and I love you all from the bosom of my mother to the three times removed nieces and cousins. 

I am sorry I never knew my fathers family. 

As for my immortal soul, I am good to go and rather looking forward to the trip!  This world was not  my home, I was only passing through, to coin an old country western hymn.  I hope you are all better for having known me, and I know I learned from you.  I am pretty sure God is going to let me peek in on you from time to time and I hope you are as happy about this as I will be.  And when your time comes I will meet you at the gate and show you around!  Until then.......

Once upon a time there was a little girl.