What Color Shall I Use?

I just bought a new coloring book! I'm 58 years old and saw this adult coloring book in my local supermarket.  And if you read adult coloring book as meaning a dirty coloring book, get your mind out of the gutter! This coloring book is for adults.  No ponies and puppies.  No clowns and balloons.  This coloring book is filled with what the publisher calls "happy designs".  It's kind of bohemian, hippie like, love, peace, flower power!  Me! I have heard that coloring can be a very calming activity.  And it is.

Think back to your days of coloring books! Don't you remember when you finally got good at it? When you didn't go outside the lines? I do.  It was a big deal.  And even crayons, though mostly we had a small pack of about six crayons, we learned to combine colors to make other colors and yes, there were times we got the huge box of crayons with what seemed like an endless amount of colors and crayons, with a crayon sharpener built right into the box.  That was my modern technology.  And paper dolls, they went from me needing my mom to cut them out for me, cause I would always mess them up, to punch out paper dolls, which if I did too fast, I messed up as well.  You end up learning more than just how to color well or punch out paper dolls, patience, being in the moment.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and pretty much anytime we went to a store and asked for a coloring book or a new set of paper dolls, we got a yes answer.  Today, I hear so many parents saying no when their children are crying because they want something in a store that caught their eye! Today a little thing a child sees will cost you over $20 and much more.  When I was growing up a coloring book cost ten cents, even five cents.  And paper dolls a bit more expensive but they were way cheaper than getting a new Barbie Doll.  I had one Barbie Doll.  I had 50 paper dolls at times.  And the paper dolls could be something from a movie, book or cartoon, the coloring books as well.  My coloring book cost me $6.00 and came with a set of 8 colored pencils.  Or go modern -- use your computer and download paper dolls to your printer, download uncolored pictures for your child to color.  Even take a picture of your child, change the format so that it is an uncolored picture and they could actually color a picture of their own face, their house, their dog or cat! As much as you will want to put those pictures on your fridge, your children will look back at those pictures as adults and remember Buddy, the silly puppy who always bit your shoelaces, Crystal, the kitten who curled up next to them when they were watching TV or just that silly face they made when they were coloring!

So yes I just bought a coloring book and it is very relaxing! It is something to do to take you away from where you are at the moment.  I actually want to lay on the floor with my legs dangling above my head, my tongue twisted out of my mouth to the side, and making that big decision, what colors shall I use! And yes sometimes I still make mistakes and color outside the lines! When I was a child I would rip those pages out of the book and start over.  Now I use the mistake to change my picture.  Coloring outside the lines is actually more fun!  Cause in life don't you want to be the one who colors outside the lines? I do!

A simple coloring book was something I would have for months, maybe got a new one, but kept the old one to go back to another day.  The Flintstones, Bugs Bunny and all the Looney Tunes characters, a step into a fantasy world that could last five minutes or an hour and though I didn't know it when i was six years old I was quiet and in a peaceful state of mind.  As an adult we look for so many things to give us quiet and peace of mind.  Yoga and exercise, crafts and hobbies, but how many of us have gone back to just coloring a page in a book.  I have no children, but many nieces and nephews, and the older ones I do remember being asked to sit and color with them.  I remember their sweet little faces looking at my picture and comparing.  I could have colored just like them and just scribbled like a three year old but I think just like my mom colored better than I did, it was something you wanted to learn how to do, were proud of when you mastered it, when your pictures finally came out as good as your mom's.  Today I ask my young nieces and nephews how to use my iPhone???? And I considered myself to have a great knowledge of computers.  Ten years ago yes I did.  Today, no.  In one day things change and I am lost -- Facebook or my email, my cell phone, my computer and the remote and cable TV.  Sometimes I ask how do I turn my TV on?!  They changed the format, it's been updated! Too fast.

My new coloring book is modern, but coloring in a coloring book is something from my yesteryear.  I wonder how many kids today think of coloring in a coloring book as their yesteryear.  I see one year old babies knowing how to hold a cell phone up to their ear! They push buttons and pictures appear on the screen.  What is going on in a ten year old's mind as their old toys or hobbies? Not coloring books, but the old model cell phone they had to use cause the new update was too expensive and they had to wait for a special occasion.  But maybe with these new "adult" coloring books, and children seeing their parents sit for an hour and color a picture will make them want to do so too!  Bring them out of the moment, out of the most updated modern electronic of today.  We've had snowstorms, hurricanes and summer heat related blackouts.  In my day we colored.  Today? No coloring books.

My coloring book has grounded me since I bought it!  I find myself lost in a quiet peaceful picture, the biggest decision in my mind, what color shall I use?

The Girl on the Right

My cousin Anthony sent me this picture. He said when he saw it he thought of me! I was so happy that is who I reminded him of.

I so want to always be the girl on the right!!

Every girl/woman should be the girl on the right! I think the easiest times for girls and women to be the girl on the right is before their teens and after their 50s. Those years in between most of us tend to follow all the mindsets of our peers, our family, children, work friends. I think by the time a lot of women get past their 40s they begin to decide that, hey time is going by too fast, I'm not playing this game anymore, I just want to be me!

I don't get reality TV and the obsession with it. Do people really believe that what is shown on TV is these people's reality?
Come on! 🙄

I took a really great acting class so many years ago. I forget the name of the class but we had to perform in front of the class actions we did in own own realities. Things we do alone and are always at our most natural self. I chose once to polish my fingernails. I couldn't use real nail polish. I used an imaginary brush and bottle and tried to just be me. Very difficult in front of an audience. The class was teaching us that if I played say Cleapatra in a movie or play, that part of Cleapatra would be the real me, making my Cleapatra different from the late great Elizabeth Taylor. It was a wonderful class and also a life lesson. Be the girl on the right! When I polish my nails I mess it up, curse out loud, continue talking to myself. Spill polish, mess up a nail and try to fix it and then mess it up again. And as much as I tried to be alone in my bedroom doing my nails in front of an audience, the real me was very difficult to just be. That is something the truly great actors and actresses can do. Every movie, play or TV show you see them in, you are thinking like wow I can't believe this is Meryl Streep or James Stuart and more of the late greats and today's greats.

In this picture I am literally (as in the picture above) and physically, the girl on the right.

If you know me, you have picked me out right away. I am on the bottom row second girl on the right. The first girl on the right is my dear beautiful cousin Sandra. I love the way she is looking at me. She thinks I'm funny, silly, the girl on the right. She is a woman on the right today. Awesome. Notice also how everyone is dressed in summer wear. Not me. I have a very vague memory of arguing with my mom that day because I insisted on wearing that dress! The dress was not a summer dress!! It has a mock turtleneck and is actually a jumper. A white dress underneath and the flowered part a sleeveless jumper that went over the white dress and had buttons on the back. I just loved to wear dresses and pretty shoes! Now I want to wear jeans and pretty comfortable sneakers!

I love seeing young girls and boys on the right during my everyday chores or visits to the mall or supermarket. The other day I saw a little boy, about five I'd say. He was in his own world, dancing and singing at the top of his lungs the Oompa Loompa song from the movie Willie Wonker and the Chocolate Factory. I saw another little girl, she was maybe ten. She could see her reflection in the store window and just started dancing like she was all alone and watching her reflection. She didn't even think anyone was looking at her. And if she did, it didn't matter. She was being the girl on the right.

I would say that most of the female friends in my life are the girl on the right. It's funny when I first met them I had no idea they were the girl on the right, or today the woman on the right. I have been naturally drawn to the girl/woman on the right my entire life. Because then I am comfortable still being the girl on the right!!!

I believe all my nieces are the girls/women on the right. My nephews too, the boys on the right. Unique individuals who all acted like no one noticed what they were doing, whatever came into their minds and imagination, when they were two, three, four, ten and eleven. Most of them are teenagers now or in their 20s and 30s. My youngest niece just turned 12.

Too soon, she will be a teenager. I hope she keeps her girl on the right attitude. Bella is really the girl on the right! Bella makes everyone laugh! She's crazy. In a great way. The girl on the right. In this picture she had shared with schoolmates saying she was dressing up as one of her teachers. Oh what we see with our childhood eyes!!! I suspect that this teacher either wears too much makeup, is still seeking the fountain of youth or maybe she was a girl on the right and is now a woman on the right? Being who she is.

I want to live to a ripe old age, wrinkles and all. Just as long as I haven't lost more marbles than I already have and can still do things for myself. Each line on my face I will think of as a laugh line, a lost love line, a life lesson line, another day in the sunshine line. Even the lost loved one line is good because it means I loved and was loved back.

My life is far from perfect but one thing I have always had was the acceptance of how old I am!!! I never wanted to be 16 when I was 13. 13 was great. So was 16 and 21, 30, 40, 50 and 58! Good and bad times in all my years but I just want more years!!! Of course we all say if I could be 20 again and know what I know now! Just as much a fantasy as the fountain of youth! Accept who you are, how old you are, as well as accepting the obstacles you have had in life. Somehow we learn from obstacles and heartaches. We learn to appreciate little things that we took for granted for so many years. I myself am a very slow learner! But right now I have today and I'm sure I will learn one little thing today. Appreciate one simple sight that I didn't yesterday!

Be the girl/woman/boy/man on the right!!!

March to the beat of your own drummer!!!

Accept.

OH MR GRANT!

Rest in Peace Mary Tyler Moore aka Mary Richards. You were an inspiration to me growing up as you were to so many women of my era. The first single happy woman on TV! Not an old maid! Just simply a happy woman who wasn't married.

I never wanted to get married. It was never my dream. The whole big beautiful dress and walking down the aisle with my dad! No. My dreams were of being an actress. I dreamed of being on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or what I would say and who I would thank while accepting my Academy Award!!!!

My mom on the other hand, being from a totally different generation, wanted nothing more for me to do than to find a husband! She meant well. She wanted someone to take care of me and love me like my father loved her. She used to give me sports lines say to guys I dated. She thought that would help me nab my man! I hated sports. Still do pretty much but I would ask her then what do I say Mom? I have no idea what I'm talking about! And my taste in men!!!! I've dated some really great guys but fell in love with the bad ones! Maybe it was a subconscious decision? I don't know. But like Mary Richards I am pretty much a happy single woman. Though over the years when running into an old friend, the first question I would be asked was 'are you married?' As if that defined me??? I used to feel bad. Thought something was wrong with me!!! As I got older I found that so many of those people that asked me that question were divorced!!! I would never ask an old friend, so are you divorced. That would not define them either!!

I am very happy to say that I know many couples who have been married 1, 5, 10, 25, 30, 50 years and couldn't be happier. Does that define them individually? I don't think so. I think, just my opinion, that the reason these couples have happy marriages is because they are happy individuals.

Do I have children? No. I have never given birth. But I have been a big sister and aunt to so many children. I have been babysitting since I was 8 years old! I don't do it anymore. God bless you mommys and daddys.  Hardest job in the world but I will say I can see for so many parents that their children and grandchildren are their happiest rewards.

My life is not perfect. Lots of times it's not easy but would having a husband change any of those hurdles in my life? Having friends and family and friends who are family help me through my darkest times. Had I married the men I fell in love with, I would be so unhappy! Of that I'm sure! And why are single men called bachelors and single woman called old maids?! I am not an old maid! I am 58 years old and have had many much younger men ask me out. I don't mind a little younger but 20 years? No, we have little in common and as good as Demi Moore had it for years with Ashton Kusher, he ended up leaving her for a younger woman.

And who knows what tomorrow will bring. I may up marrying a man 20 years younger than me!!! Never say never!

But again thank you Mary Tyler Moore for making us all laugh and making single women a good position!!! And all the work you did for diabetes. We cannot forget that. It's strange that we live in a world where only the famous can do so much for some of the problems and sickness in the world!!! What does that thought say about this single woman?!