I thought perhaps I should give you a tip for caregivers once a month. But then I did a Story Slam where I totally relived a humiliating experience. That seemed like so much more fun….for you!
Hope you enjoyed!
“You Just have to Laugh…………”
©2018 Cathy Sikorski
Well, here we are, the first week of January, where everything changes and becomes new. Where we get to be a whole new person, with a whole new life and whole new ideas about what the next 365 days will bring.
When I thought about that on the scale this morning ( I sure did ‘let it go’ the past two weeks!) I realized this January thing is the same damn thing, every damn year, for the past 300 years for me. And I’d take the wager that most of you feel the same.
So here’s my January suggestions:
Dance. I just read where one of my Facebook writer friends has to dance around like a washing machine when she takes her new meds because it will keep her from getting nauseous. Dancing will keep all of us from getting nauseous every time we read the news. So dance like a washing machine!None of this even remotely looks like resolutions or life-changing habits. But as I lather on lotion, dance like a washing machine, while being alone, searching for my hat to go buy a pop-up book and have coffee with some friends, I’ll tell you my list for 2018 already looks pretty darn fun………..that’s a revelation! Which is ever so much better than a resolution.
HAPPY JANUARY……….AND ALL OF 2018 TO COME!
“You Just have to Laugh………….”
©2018 Cathy Sikorski
In the spirit of the holidays, I wish to lend my two-cents to all the grand advice you’re getting:
Let go of the craziness….You can, you really can. Take a deep breath. Look around you. Have you done enough? Probably. Can you stop right now? Maybe. Can you be so close that you can declare: “FINIS!” Try, for your own sanity, for the safety of others, for the circle of hell you will leave behind, please try. Try and enjoy Christmas….Now.
Let go of the politics…Just for 2 days…Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Even if everyone in your family, your neighborhood, your church, your spirit circle, your yoga class and Jacob Marley have told you they are on your side…still….let it go. Let it be Christmas. Let it be the two days of wonder and magic and joy that every 5-year-old is feeling right now.
Let go of the scale. Two days isn’t going to make any difference. Two weeks might, but two days, not so much. You’ve been here a thousand times, haven’t you? Just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Just enjoy yourself like a regular human being, or maybe like a Labrador Retriever. You know, eat your dinner. Have a snack or two and let it go. And remember Labrador’s don’t have opposable thumbs so make someone else open the refrigerator.Just Let It Go…………and what the heck, Let it Snow!
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MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY WONDERFUL READERS! I love you all and wish you only the best Christmas ever and the happiest of holidays!
“You Just have to Laugh……….”
©2017 Cathy Sikorski
We’re all worried just like that 1966 movie “The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming….” but nothing strikes more fear in my loins than when my mother calls and says, “The Veterans are Coming, the Veterans are Coming!!!”
That means Mom has called the Veterans charity organization to come and pick up whatever unusable debris you have laying around. This helps the Veterans make money somehow and helps you the Helper-of-Veterans get rid of junk in your house. What could be a better win-win?
Mom has made this a regular affair. Her commitment to giving the Veterans a worthwhile stop at her house means she must have at least one good bag of stuff filled to the brim, preferably two or more.
The upside is my Mom is cleaning out her stuff at a pretty good clip. This is kind to her heirs. The bad news is she is running out of her committed crap that she’s readily willing to part with, and God forbid, the Veterans come and there are not enough trappings to take to far afield.
That’s when the call goes out to her daughters. “The Veterans are Coming, the Veterans are Coming!”
Sure, we could just say, “Naaa, I don’t have time to go through my possessions to fulfill your charitable needs.” But it’s a double-edged sword. We want to help the Veterans. Who doesn’t want to help the Veterans? That’s a shame we can’t live with. And, my mom knows every one of us has more garbage (pronounced gar-baaashe) than we care to admit.
I pledged my support this week and went through my own closet, my grown daughters’ closets, who don’t even live here anymore, and the laundry room, trying to fill a garbage bag to the brim, so I’d get that gold star from the Veterans, or at least from my mom. Kindergarten never ends.
In my last sweep before going out the door, I found a stack of hangers in the laundry room covered with a very dusty garbage bag. Something under there was ripe for the Veterans and whatever it was, it was going. I had a duty.
Tearing off the old bag, I found some of my mother-in-law’s clothes that we must’ve moved from her apartment to our house when she passed away almost four years ago. Oh crap……………..not the clothes, the tears. I just wasn’t prepared for that.
As I put them in the bag, I talked to Marie.
“It’s okay, Mom. It doesn’t mean we don’t think about you all the time. You are always a part of everything we do. We miss you and love you. But, Mom, you know my mom. And the Veterans are Coming! So I’m sure you want to do your part, too!”
Thanks, Veterans, and Moms for cleaning out my closets, but filling up my heart.
“You Just have to Laugh……..and sometimes a tear or two!”
©2017 Cathy Sikorski
It’s Thanksgiving week. Here is where we post the things we are thankful for. Just in that sentence, I’m thankful, that as an adult, I can end that sentence with a preposition and no one can stop me.
Like many, I have much to be thankful for, but let’s look at the really small things:
10. I’m thankful for my hand doctor who said keep typing, your arthritis won’t get worse or better from it. Thank you?
9. I’m thankful for my new Poise pads that move seemlessly with my body, even though my body seems to move more problematically every day.
8. I’m thankful for my cleaning lady. Pretty much says it all.
7. I’m thankful for Netflix, Amazon Prime and even Network TV. Stop judging.
6. I’m thankful for socks.
5. I’m thankful for Pumpkin Spice smells. I know it’s overdone, but I still love it, just maybe not in my socks.
4. I’m thankful for my bathroom scale. Okay, it’s a love-hate relationship but it keeps me honest, especially this time of year.
3. I’m thankful for coffee. I’ve cut back but my friend advised me yesterday that it’s the one thing that has all upside and no downside. I shall now return to my devotion to cafe au lait.
2. I’m thankful for just being where I am. It’s pretty great here.
1. I’m most thankful for you, my readers, who so kindly stop in on occasion to share a minute together. If you are or ever have been a caregiver, a special thanks to you for your love and sacrifice to your loved one. If you ever just did one kind thing in your life…and I know you have, each and every one of you….thanks for that, you may never know how you changed someone’s day or life.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!
©2017 Cathy Sikorski
I would so love to see or ‘see’ you at the National Caregiving Conference on November 10 and 11. I will be the Keynote Speaker on Saturday morning, November 10th. I am so excited about this opportunity. But, more importantly, if you’re a caregiver, know one or have been one, this is a great opportunity for you to connect with great information, great speakers and great people. And it can be done at the touch of a button!
Go to www. caregiving .com and sign up for the virtual stream. It’s less than $25 for one day!! Pass this on to all those caregivers you love and maybe offer to give them a break so they can stream for a bit…..who wouldn’t love to stream for a bit?!?
Hope we can share this great moment!
This is how you know if perhaps you should come……………………..
My husband said this WAS bold….because of the ‘after gym’ glow. I think he meant, don’t quit your day makeup.
I’m at a girls’ week where the average age is 67.8, okay, a mature women’s week. We are on a beach watching young families, teens and just a sprinkling of our demographic. We are the ones who are talking about these things….. You’ve heard that we can’t hear. You’ve seen where we are squinting at everything. You’ve watched as we fall down, misplace our glasses on our own heads, and look for the mayonnaise, the iPad, and the super-secret book with all our passwords while each one was right in front of us every time.
But I decided we need a twist on aging.
Did you know we have secret skills?
1. We are fluent in a rare foreign language. E-Way an-cay eak-spay ig-pay atin-Lay!
2. We can sing old commercials that were full-length songs:
Does your shoe have a boy inside?
What a funny place for a boy to hide?
Does your shoe have a dog there, too?
A boy and a dog and a foot in a shoe!
Well, the boy is Buster Brown
And the dog is Tige is his friend.
They’re really just a picture
But it’s fun to play pretend!
So…look, look, look
In your telephone book for the store that sells the shoe
With the picture of the boy and the dog inside
That you can put your foot into!
Woof Woof
Buster Brown Shoes!
(I did not look that up…and yes, I can sing it.)
3. We have colorful histories about World War II, Korea, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, hippies, The Democratic National Convention…in 1968, life before computers, color TV, telephone lines, ‘party lines’, that you shared with your neighbors (or listened to with your best hold-your-breath-eavesdropping.)
4. Modern kids did not start the drug culture…just sayin’.
5. Today, on National Coffee Day, we too celebrate the joys of coffee that we drank at home for much cheaper.
6. Our music was considered revolutionary, rebellious and obscene….too.
7. We loved long hair on boys, although we, too seem to have forgotten that…… as we used to use Jesus as our answer to all those ‘squares’ who didn’t think long hair was cool.
So ask a person who you think is old this question:
“Can you tell me something cool about when you were young?”
The answer may intrigue and surprise you.
Woof Woof!
You Just have to Laugh….
©2017 Cathy Sikorski
Today you get to see one of my mistakes……..I made a video for the National Caregiving Conference, but as I’ve done since first grade in St. Aloysious Catholic School, I did not follow directions. So, I’m making another one………..but for a screw-up, it’s not bad. And the #NCC17 #NationalCaregivingConference said, “Hey, ……share it, anyway!” So, I am…because if there’s anything I do too much, it’s share!
P.S. I also think they said under their breath, “next time, read the directions.” But Sister Marie Genevieve said that a billion times and it never worked.
“You Just have to Laugh……” ©2017 Cathy Sikorski
My mom has become obsessed with creating photo albums for her six children from the hundreds of photos in her treasure chest. She must make 6 copies of almost every photo, or at least as the photos progress and a child is added to the history books. I have no idea why this project might be frustrating for her 88-year-old self, do you? Duh, comes to mind.
Every once in awhile, when I’m in the mood for a little frustration myself, I stop over to my mom’s house to call the VA, or fix her iPad, or fight with Verizon. Invariably, we start to look at the pictures together.
Yesterday, she showed me this photo.
My Nana is the one circled in yellow. She is about 35 years old in this picture. Her name wasn’t even Nana yet, as my mom is the cutest little 8-year-old circled in pink. I made my mom go find a photo of herself at around the age of 35.
Then I came home and looked for one of me around the same age.
I would like to posit the following: Rather than continuing to punish women for adopting a youth culture look, perhaps we are actually just trying to enjoy life, look like we are having fun, and present a ‘picture’ to the world of what we actually look like, at the age we are at. Perhaps over the last 50 years, we started rebelling against being portrayed as “Nana” before we were even done having children. Perhaps, just because we have children doesn’t mean we have to wear orthopedic shoes, bras with no support, dresses made from tablecloths, or a hairstyle that would confuse us with Grandma Moses.
Perhaps my mother’s generation actually clandestinely started a revolution where women got to enjoy their youth, even if they had 6 youths of their own running around. Maybe that’s what began way back in the ’50’s and ‘ 60’s when no one was paying attention to the everyday housewife. And maybe that’s what’s still happening today to women in their ’50’s and ’60’s when no one is still paying attention.
Just sayin………
My Nana apparently didn’t change her look for 60 years. My mom, on the other hand, created generations of hot tomatoes! Yay, Mary Ann!
“You Just have to Laugh…………..”
©2017 Cathy Sikorski