Friday's Advice For the Kids!

"You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going. "~ P.J. O'Rourke

"Your children will see what you're all about by what you live rather than what you say." ~ Wayne Dyer

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today."
~ Stacia Tauscher

I love my children! I love all children. I have decided that from now on every Friday I will share a few words of My infinite wisdom with the "children".

I should of course clarify the term "Children". Children shall be known from now on as any person who is younger than me! It includes my own children and step-children.. it includes Grandchildren .. it includes my daughters in law... it includes younger siblings.. it includes nieces and nephews and and their offspring. It includes all the children who lived in my home for even a short spell of Mothering from me... It includes all the friends ( and enemies) of my children who have visited in my home. It includes the girls who climbed in windows at my house.. and the boys who never made it that far.. I would dare to say that the term "children", as it relates to this blog, includes just about everyone.

Each Friday I will try to share at least five facts that all young people should know. If any of you out there have a question that you would like answered as part of Friday's wisdom for the children just send it right along to me. Now with out further fan fare I will move on to Friday's Five for the kids!

1:) Life is not Fair! It was never fair.. it wasn't fair for me and it won't be fair for you either.. stop sniveling about it and move on.... if you can think of a way to fix it you will become rich and a hero for all future generations.. I will expect my share of the riches... if you can't fix it the suck it up and stop whining! I hate whiners!

2:) Adults do have eyes in the back of our heads! They even have names. They are your neighbors.. they are our friends who just happened to see you going where we told you not to. They are strangers who saw you and told someone who told their cousin who eventually told my brother!Haven't you ever heard the saying "It takes a village to raise a child"? Well it takes a village to rat one out too.. we are adults.. we have learned to work together to make the lives of children miserable!

3:) Good does not ALWAYS triumph evil! Evil doesn't play by the rules. But if good hides behind a wall with a brick in her hand and throws it and breaks evils windshield.... then Good triumphs. ~ No wait!!!! That's not right! Ah shoot who am I kidding.. Good should win out but we all know that sometimes evil wins.. I'm sticking to the good old brick throwing myself.. I'm a real good shot with a red brick...

4:) It is more important to be beautiful on the inside! My Daddy used to say that Beauty was only skin deep but that ugly was to the bone! I am going to tell y'all that I have met some truly ugly people in my life time, but only a few. I have however known some who although they were attractive to look at I soon found them to be "ugly to the bone". But even less than beautiful people can brush their hair and put on clean clothes.. no need to appear uglier than you actually are. A toothbrush applied every day has been know to help those with ugly teeth too.. What I'm saying is that even though some of us will never win a beauty pageant... we can look our best with just a little effort.. so go brush your hair and your teeth and put on a clean shirt before you go to the Wal-mart! Stop by the library on your way back.. smart is very sexy!!!

5:) Play! Have fun when you can. Simple fun is best.. (unless of course you fixed the unfairness of life.. If you did that then I have some wonderful ideas for fun... I thought NOT!) Take walks in the woods. Stand in the edge on the ocean and try to out-run the incoming waves to a certain spot on the sand. ~ ( No one will bother you while doing this.. ignore the gathering crowd.. they too are having fun watching the crazy person who is racing waves!)~ go fishing with a child even the smallest minnow will appear to be a giant when seen through their eyes.
Buy a bag of marbles and try to teach yourself how to shoot them; it's a lost art and much harder than it looks! Buy a checkerboard and visit the nursing home.. someone there has a story to tell and no one to listen. They'll beat you at checkers but you will be wiser when you leave there.(remember smart is sexy!) Swing on a swing in the park. See how high you can go. (I wouldn't recommend the covered slide though.. the fire department has enough to do without coming to cut you out of the kiddy slide!) Hop, skip, play leap frog. Playing is good for you.. It's called exercise! You're going to need to know about that when you get old and fat!

I hope you enjoy this weeks Five for the Kids on Friday! Let me know what you think of the things I put on my blog. I do listen to what everyone says. Thanks for all of those who visit here and a special thanks to those of you who actually read the blog! Have a great Friday!
Patsy

National Recreation Month

"Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.” ~ Thomas Jefferson ~

"If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play at it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf." ~Bob Hope~


"The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation". ~Miguel de Cervantes ~



July is Know as National Recreation Month. The Dictionary says that recreation is the expenditure of time in a manner designed for therapeutic refreshment of one's body or mind. It goes on to add that while leisure is more likely a form of entertainment or rest, recreation is active for the participant but in a refreshing and diverting manner. Wow that could cover a lot of stuff. I mean I have been doing a whole lot of recreation without ever knowing it.



Cycling, Dancing, Eating and drinking, Partying, Hunting and fishing, All are listed as recreation. Hobbies, Computer games, Reading a book, Shopping, Kite flying, Listening to music, Sports and exercise also all have a place on the list. Travel and tourism, Martial arts, Yoga, Using the Internet, Visiting an amusement park, Singing, Video games, and Watching movies are all also known as recreations. I am guilty of quiet a few of them. I have a few Hobbies like crocheting doll clothes and knitting hats or dish rags.. Recreation!! I love to read and normally read at least one book a week. Recreation again! I sing in the shower so I'm killing two birds with one stone there.. recreation and just plain bathing. That's gotta be multi- Tasking; right? Man I am getting good! And to think that years ago when I was a party goer I was doing something considered good for you..(well yea I know better but I thought...) I guess the Internet and the video Games would be the two recreations I do the most of. And so from now on when someone says to me that I stay on-line too much I will just smile and say that recreation is good for you!



I would like to add some recreations from Our childhood to my list. Hill sliding on the railroad hills. That was refreshing to both the body and the mind. Especially if you didn't hit a tree. I still love it today even though I'm grown. And I haven't hit a tree in years and years. Tunnel digging was always fun too. We would dig out rooms under the ground and furnish them with block chairs and lots of food from Mama's pantry. The jello we ate from the box there was surely refreshing to our sweet tooth.



Tree climbing and tree house building were always great fun too. We had lots of those. We had lots of woods for our recreation time. I guess you could say that we, as kids, had lots of recreation time. Daddy swore Hoeing the garden was fun and it was refreshing to finish.. I'm even going to stretch way, way out there and say that the times Jim looked at Me or Reuben and said "RUN" he was just helping us have some recreation. In Fact it was recreation for all of us as he tried his best to get the lasso around our necks and we tried our very best for him not to. Man all those years I thought he wanted to choke us and come to find out it was something else all together.. Recreation!!! I wonder if he knew that? I bet he will say he did! I guess we owe Jim a thanks!

In recent years, more 'exciting' forms of recreation have received more attention in the public eye, such as: skiing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, sky diving, hang gliding, paintball, rock climbing, backpacking, canyoning, caving, base jumping, and motor sport. These would be called extreme sports. Or if I was naming them I would say extremely foolish sports. But then again they are Recreation! The only one of these I can claim would be the rock climbing and that was only to climb up the side of a water fall in New Mexico. It would hardly classify as rock climbing but to me and Mason it was scary. My sons snow-board. My oldest son's family all snow-board. I have a board here in my house.. I don't like the way it looks. I'd much rather come down the mountain on a cardboard box.. Flat on my butt.. Most of the others I would be petrified to even try. But I guess that the best part about recreation is that we all get to choose to do what we like.. what we enjoy.


Recreation- any activity that diverts, amuses or stimulates. That definition leaves room for a lot of things doesn't it. Now that I think of it I may tear that definition out of my dictionary.. Otherwise, all the things my kids got in trouble for will now be known as recreation. Choose your recreation wisely. But do choose to do something fun every day. All work and no play really does make a dull life. Try to have fun a little bit every day. Laugh as much as you can and if you are ever in my neck of the woods I'll take you rail road hill sliding. My all time favorite recreation! Have a great day!
Patsy

Under the Quilt

Love if you have it you don't need anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter what else you have. ~ J.M. Barrie~

While we may be of different faiths, we have a strong sense of faith, family, community. We hold the values of freedom and human rights very high and I think that those are all a part of a very strong quilt that binds us together. ~Robert Menendez~


My first memory of My Grandma is of her legs and feet. We would go to her big old house every Saturday night just before it got dark outside.Daddy and the Uncles would be outside doing things around the place. I was never quiet clear on the mysteries of what they did. I know they had pigeons out there because we could see them fly sometimes. I also know they had hunting dogs in big pens. Us kids weren't allowed to befriend the hunting dogs. Uncle Neal said it would mess them up. My Mom and Grandma and the aunts would gather around in the hot, wood heated, Kitchen and soon they would lower the frames from the ceiling and they would quilt. They Made a few quilts every year each of them sewing dainty little stitches as they sat and talked. No one in Our Family would be cold.

Us little kids would all be sent to play on the floor beneath the quilt where they could know where we were. There was no room for us to play anywhere else. Sometimes My cousins would be there and we might play Barbies or sometimes Go fish cards. Sheron even had a checker board and some drink bottle caps that we could play with when she was there. The Older children always gathered on the back porch. There were cousins of all ages too But you had to be what was considered a big kid to get out from under the watchful eyes of the women. By the time I was a big kid the gatherings had stopped but I'll always remember those wonderful days. The days when I was sent to play under the quilt!

I loved my cousins a lot. Sheron was my favorite. She still is in a lot of ways. She is just a tiny bit older than me. Not quiet a year But she was a lot of fun. I loved Playing under the quilt with Sheron. But Most of all I loved it when the cousins didn't come.

When The cousins didn't come I would lay quietly under the quilt tent by myself and listen to the grown ups talk. I couldn't see their mouths but I could see their feet. My Grandma would pat her foot up and down as she told some tidbit of rumor to my Mom. Sometimes if she was trying to make a strong argument for something she would even stomp her foot up and down. My Mom didn't move her feet too much. She mostly kept her feet crossed and still. But Every once in a while she would uncross her feet and slide them back and forth over the hardwood floors or raise and wiggle her toes. Aunt Rose had pink painted toe nails. Aunt Lucy always wore white socks. Aunt Frankie didn't quilt. She wore loafers and stood propped by the counter sometimes. But most of the time she would go outside with Her husband Emmett. Or on the porch and look at a magazine.


Grandma always wore the same thing on her feet. Plain brown slip-on shoes, over stockings that came just above her knee. She wore plain brown garters around those to hold them in the exact spot that she wanted them. I would watch her feet and listen to her tell the most wonderful stories. Sometimes I would imagine her feet dancing or running although I never saw her do either. She loved to walk and I walked with her many times. I would have liked to see her run though.

I learned so many things laying under the quilt surrounded by feet. I learned that the preachers widow was courting the school teacher when I was too little to care about courting. I learned that Babies take forty full moons to come long before I knew what a full moon was or where babies were coming from. I learned that homing pigeons could be trained to bring and carry important messages or secrets. And that wearing red to a wedding or a funeral meant bad luck to the wearer. I learned recipes for foods that I have never cooked and I learned that Women who love each other share a special bond. A bond that brings them to share their thoughts and opinions with each other without fear of shame or censure. Their words to each other have a flow that becomes over time almost poetic. And that their feet often keep time to the music that only their hearts can hear! Let your heart music Move your feet. If you have family or friends in your life share with them in a relaxed place. Be open with them. If you have children, let them learn form seeing you interact with your family and friends. Let them learn about what moves your feet and your heart.
Love Many! Trust a few! Harm None!
Have a great Day!
Patsy