Acting My Age

I realized today at Home Depot, that I need to start looking at women who are my age for fashion tips. There aren't any ads that put 60 year old women in clothes that aren't the same ones that 30 year olds wear. I guess that is what I liked about Christopher and Banks. They have clothes for the older woman, but I don't think as old as me. My body has become a big round rock. It's hard to dress that up to look good. Old, fat and short. How do you fix that with clothes only?

Gift of Gab

When I was little, they said I was blessed with the gift of gab. I was also called "gas bags" by the nuns at Cathedral School. (But they loved it in me.) I can remember being told, write it down. I still have a few stories I wrote when I was in elementary school on Peggy's typewriter. (Boy were they embarrassing to the family.)
I just finished reading Rob Bell's book Love Wins and I believe he must be right about the love God has for us. And I remember never being able to feel it because I had to be so good to get it. But Bell says that God is like our Father and he will always love us. Take us back.
That led me to consider how I could make myself more loveable for God and I thought about my terrible mouth. I might have been given the gift of gab by God but I was also given an ability to use those words to cut, to wound, to hurt the ones I love.
That is what I am going to work on improving. I have to learn to stop and not say what I could say, what I've thought up to say just because I could think it up. I'm going to start to be kind. I already did that today and it felt just great. I'm not proud of myself, but I do feel different now that I know what I can and should do.
Help me remember.
After all, maybe it isn't the gabbing, but the meanness that I need to change.

Luckiest kids in town

Where there any other lucky kids who were able to spend 3 to 4 weeks at a cottage at the beach in New Jersey in the 50's and 60's? Sure, we didn't have hot water (we boiled it in large pans to do the dishes) and we didn't have an inside shower (but we loved the shared cold water shower we had to stand on line to use) and we used to see silverfish sometimes in the bed when we knelt to say our prayers (but we were so tired we didn't care) and of course by the end of the month we were light on food (but eating wasn't very important.)
But we got to go swimming each day, all day. And we got to play without adult supervision. And we were beautiful and our parents were beautiful and everyone was beautiful and in love. And the ocean was the most beautiful of all and the best of all. And ours for 4 weeks.
We were luckiest of all.