"Cozy Palace"

'Cozy Palace'

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"Nowadays," she said, "it is almost a sin to stereotype and make judgments on people.
You can get tarred and feathered and given one of a hundred different labels if you say out loud what some people think is the wrong thing.

 Yet all them same people are sometimes the ones who talk bad about where I live.

Well I don't care what they say. I love where I live. This place is my cozy palace.

When I bake cookies in my little oven, they taste and smell just as good as the ones that fancy people make in their expensive kitchens. Maybe I don't have a granite countertop but I have prepared many meals on my plain laminate one that have nourished and given pleasure to me and the people I love. Heck, I could rip out my old countertop and put in a granite one anytime I want to but that's not going to change anything around here except to drain out my bank account for no good reason other than so I can say I got a granite countertop. No, thank you.

You know, this little place holds just as many memories as any other house anywhere on this planet, by God. This place knows our tears and every other high and low that's come our way. It's protected us from every storm that's passed through, too. And every year we set up the Christmas tree with our old ornaments and the twinkle lights right there in front of the windows so everyone can see.

Maybe it ain't much, but it's home.

Yes, it's home."

Old School Goodness

Yesterday afternoon I was on my way to the grocery store when I felt a little bit fuzzy-headed which often happens when I go outside into the bright sun.

Playing it safe, I decided to skip the store and go back home because no one wants to have a dizzy attack in the middle of a crowded grocery store causing all kinds of unwanted and embarrassing attention if, for example, you get so dizzy that you have to maybe sit down on the floor right there in front of the deli or seafood department.

Nowadays, with everyone being on drugs and because I religiously watch Live PD, I know if I get a dizzy attack in public that people will automatically think it's drug related and the police will be called and then next thing you know they'd be shoving Narcan up my nose all because I get dizzy from sunshine. I am fully aware that trying to tell authorities that I am not on drugs¹ but am instead dizzy from sunshine would further convince them that I actually was on drugs because how many people do you actually know get dizzy from sunshine?!

Playing out these kinds of scenarios in my head is actually why I just stay home a lot.  Thanks, anxiety.

Anyway, I turned off the main road into the neighborhood to go back home and that's when I saw the lemonade stand out of the corner of my eye and so I of course made a U-turn at the intersection just past it because no good and decent human being doesn't turn around and go back when you see a lemonade stand even if you're feeling a little bit dizzy-headed.

can you STAND the cuteness?!

I never have any real money on me much to JP's chagrin who is forever giving me cash "just in case" - I have such a good husband - but I did have a single dollar bill so I bought a small size and told them to keep the change.

Then I drove off feeling bad for only tipping them 300%.  Thanks, anxiety.

Where I live in New Castle County, Delaware, all you ever seem to hear about is terrible crime-y stuff.  Yet here was this Ode To Sweetness and Nostalgia and Fun right there almost in my backyard.
I wanted to stand out on the main road with a big sign directing traffic to this lemonade stand because you know what? We all need more lemonade stands in our lives.  We all need to turn our cars around and stop and get out and smile at and chat with adorable kids being innocent and catch the eye of their watchful mom (sitting out of the picture here but set up watching her babies from the driveway) giving her a "yay you!" look for letting her kids be kids.  That's good parenting, right there.

Actually, it's just a whole bunch of all kinds of good.

I'm going back over there today to see if they're hopefully set up again.

I'm prepared, I have cash.




¹¹(I hate any kind of drug, even the helpful kind. I even have to mull over taking a Tylenol for a good long while before I'll put one in my mouth.)

"Spirit."

"You’re forgetting one thing, you know, and that’s the spirit of the object, which, 

if you sit long enough, will finally creep in through the back door and grab you.” 

-A. Wyeth

Last Fall, I was lucky enough to spend an entire day wandering the grounds and inside the farmhouse at Kuerner Farm in Chadds Ford, PA. If you are a fan of Andrew Wyeth, you already know about Kuerner Farm. If you aren't familiar, Kuerner Farm is the backdrop of scores of Andrew Wyeth's works, spanning decades.

Andrew Wyeth is by far my most favorite artist. On that day, at that farm, I stood where he stood, walked where he walked, saw what he saw. There are some obvious reasons why I called this piece 'Spirit'.

I took this picture that day. It is the exact spot of Andrew Wyeth's piece called 'Groundhog Day' down to the exact wallpaper. 

I stood there for a long while on that day back in October, in front of that window, and I let all that spirit creep in through the back door of that farmhouse...and grab me.

New Art + Not Living In Tropical Climates

This is my latest artwork, called "Snowbird (In Reverse)".
A coupla things inspired it, the first being that it is 192°F outside and that kind of heat causes me an overabundance of distress so snow pictures calm me down as I hide from the sun and heat inside my wonderfully darkened, air-conditioned house.

The other thing that inspired this piece is that a friend of mine just moved to Florida yesterday...which got me thinking that, although I am happy for my friend whose longtime goal was to move to Florida, I am so thoroughly happy that I do not have to live in Florida.

When people move to Florida, a lot of people will say things like "you're so lucky" and "I'm so jealous".
I know that Florida is the end-all for a great many people.
I used to be one of them.  In fact, for a long time I was a snowbird (someone who winters in Florida) as my parents and I would pack up and head to Miami Beach every January.  I love(d) Miami Beach and when I was younger I was pretty convinced that I would one day have one of those things Florida people called con-do-mini-ums (they hadn't caught on in NJ back in the 70s) when I was old enough.

Then as I got older I realized a few things:

Summer Hell & A Big Life Transition

The past weekend was brutal.
It was consistently at least 172° for the past three days.
That might be a slight exaggeration - but I don't think I'm off by much.
When the weather is that hot there is nothing else to do but sit in the house doing a whole lot of nothing which is exactly what we did.
Well, we also watched the clock a lot - counting down the hours until the weather people said the heat would start to wane - so at least we did do something.
And I checked the air conditioners regularly to make sure they were running fine.




Because of my persnickety lungs, I can't go anywhere near outside when the humidity/dew point gets above a certain point so I hunker down in summertime the way other people do in wintertime.  I also have to take a ton of precautions in summer to protect my lungs so the entire season is mentally exhausting with the amount of hypervigilance I experience worrying about my health.
My neuroticism level - which is usually pretty high to begin with - goes off the charts in the swelter of summer. 

I will never understand the glorification of summer.  It's hot, sticky, and unhealthy.

Needless to say, I spend more time indoors in summertime than in any of the other three seasons.
It's like sometime around May I pull out the two or three outfits that I will wear all summer long which consists of articles of clothing that are at least two sizes too big for me.  As a rule, I cannot feel any kind of constraint or uncomfortability with clothing at any time but that is exponentially worse in summer.  I will melt down and have an actual fit just because my clothing is uncomfortable.


me in summer


Also, I have heavy, thick, very long hair so I also have to make sure that I have an ample amount of hair ties on hand since my hair will be in a high ponytail for the next several months. Heavy, thick hair is like having a wool blanket on top of your head at all times which is of course not fun in summer (but very handy in winter).
So in other words I spend the entire summer season looking homeless.

Then I wait.
And wait. And wait...and wait...and wait...and wait...and wait...
Just sitting around working from home day in and day out not going anywhere waiting for summer to finally be over.

Currently, fall is 61 days away and I am looking forward to getting back to my normal (stylish) self.

In other way more interesting news, after 8 years JP left his job at the dealership

Sharon's Big Police Chase Adventure

I lived in a really safe town for a really long time.
We had crime there, but it was the stolen bicycle kind of crime.
If you forgot to lock your door at night it was no big deal.

Then we moved away from there and every place I've lived since has been very crime-y.

I have not adapted well to this (<--- really big understatement). 

I also have PTSD so you can imagine that living around crime is not the best thing for my mental health.  Hypervigilance is a symptom of PTSD so I am always on guard to begin with; throw in living in a crime-y climate and I'm like this guy, pretty much 24/7:

Flag Day 2019

Bay Head, NJ

It's Okay To Not Forgive

It happened again this morning.

I was on Facebook, scrolling as I drank my first cup of coffee.  One of the pages I follow posted some platitudinal rubbish about for every person you forgive, you heal a wound of your own.

Platitudes are high up on the list of things that are the bane of my existence.
By definition, they are dull and insipid; a banal, trite, or stale remark.  You know, the kind of thing that inspires eye rolls.  The kind of thing that is a blanket statement that is supposed to apply to every single person, no matter the/their circumstance, as if the entire population of the entire world should all be doing the exact same thing all the time without exception and then we will achieve some kind of Stepford Wife-ish nirvana.

Then later, adding insult to injury and also on Facebook, I saw a post that said:

Road To Nowhere

Sitting Still On A Friday

More evidence that sometimes something good comes from something bad:

Last week Sherilyn was not feeling well with a pretty good cough and general malaise and so I got to work making a vat of chicken soup for her.  This is what I do whenever any one of us is sick as a pot of my very garlicky chicken soup has been known to cure most ills.
Then I got the idea to mix up a batch of fresh juice for her and us, too.  The more vitamins, the better, right?  But I didn't want to drag out the juicer because cleaning that thing after usage is a nightmare, so I decided to use the Ninja thing with the big attachment.

This is really boring so far but here comes the good part.

Reverse/Summer Seasonal Affective Disorder - What It Is and Isn't

I have mentioned before but in case you're new here, I am one of the 1-6% of the population who has Summer - or Reverse - Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Yes, it's a real thing and I want to tell you about what it is and, more importantly, what it is not.

When you think of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), you probably picture someone slinking into depression when the cold winter comes along and the clocks get set back, enveloping them in darkness before dinnertime.  The lack of sunlight and the cold temperatures sends them spiraling into despair, counting the days until the clocks are set back giving them more time for their idol, the sun, to shine down upon them again until late in the warm summer evenings.

Bossy BS

So this gem popped up yesterday - International Women's Day - on some government site I follow:

Stuff like this gets up under my skin like nobody's business.

Bossy is not good.
Bossy has never been good.
People don't like bossy people.
Not caring if people don't like you as long as you get to continue being bossy is a really weird outlook.  What's the payoff?

From the time you are little you would recoil whenever anyone tried to boss you around.
You stopped being friends with people because they were too bossy.

I know the bossy thing was a thing awhile back.  It was cool to be bossy; somehow even "empowering".

Beyoncé wanted/wants you to be bossy.
And you know you're supposed to do whatever it is that celebrities tell you to do. ::massive eyeroll::

I used to be a boss. In fact, I was a boss of a lot of people when I ran the freelance and editorial departments of two major publishing firms*. But I was not a bossy boss.  Instead, I was a leader boss.

I was a leader of my people!

A bossy boss is a jerk that no one likes or respects or is loyal to.

A leader boss is well-liked because they lead by example and respect the people who work for them. In turn, leader bosses have a happy, loyal team.

Being a good, non-bossy boss is not hard.  Like all good things, being a good boss is rather simple: you start with a foundation of treating people just the way you would want to be treated, aka the Golden Rule.  See?  Not hard at all, people (I'm looking at you, bad bossy bosses)!

I have had bossy bosses, both female and male. You know what they got from me and the other people who worked for them?  A whole lot of not much, that's what!  When I used to interview people for jobs one thing I always told them was that they would not last long working for me if they were just warm bodies.  A warm body is someone who shows up to work and does the bare minimum so that they can just collect a paycheck.  Warm bodies are the kind of employees that bossy bosses have. I have been a warm body so I know.

Well, that doesn't sound right, does it.  

I have been a warm body for bossy bosses.

Nope, still doesn't sound right.  Forget it, you know what I mean.

Anyway, I really think that quote above by Miss Sheryl Sandberg needs a little makeover.

How about:

I want every little girl to be told she has leadership skills and that one day she can be the boss but she doesn't have to be bossy 

to be effective.
-Sharon O'Brien Huey, COO at Huey Enterprises

Much better.

Take that, Beyoncé!






*Easily verifiable; contact me for list of publications in which my name appears in masthead.