Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?

Mostlymom, I worked for a big health organization and did forms for them using pagemaker. I loved it. Our dept would do the first 100 drafts, then send the final product to the publishing dept for polishing. We also did a bunch of in-house brochures.

Hi to all. We got back to San Antonio yesterday afternoon after an uneventful but LONG two day drive from St. Petersburg, FL. The first day we drove 700 miles in a little more than 10 hours and could barely drag ourselves to the motel room bed soon enough before falling asleep. We didn't go to a restaurant or even turn on the tv! I was hoping to stop a little sooner so Carol and I could have a little "meet up" in Madisonville, LA but my husband was determined to drive as long as possible on day one so we ended up a little bit further down the road in Hammond. LA. Yesterday morning we were out the door and on the road at 7:30 a.m. We had another 400 miles to go and it took forever to get across the rest of Louisiana. We were impatient to get home and out of the confines of Mike's truck. (Carol and I will save our meeting for the next trip.) We got home in 7 more hours. Boy those recliners felt good. The cats were glad to see us after 12 days. No dinner again. Just too tired to eat. These old bodies aren't meant for long days anymore. We took three shorter days to get to St. Petersburg earlier this month, including plenty of rest stops, lunch, and site seeing. That was fun and we weren't so tired when we got there. But Mike wanted to cut short our visit and high tail it home. I had planned to be there another three or four days, but once Mike makes up his mind, there's no point trying to talk him out of it.

We may go back in late fall. Sure do wish we could move there - especially since I still have my mothers house, but Mike is really tied to Texas. As long as he can ride his motorcycle in the Hill Country, we'll be here. After that I think he would be fine moving. My heart is in St. Petersburg. Being at the beach, floating around in the warm seafoam green water, brings back all the warm childhood and teenage memories. Coincidentally, although Mike is from So. Bend, Indiana, his family came to St. Petersburg every year on vacation. We laugh that we could have passed each other on the beach and met each other as children instead of a dozen years later in Atlanta, GA.

I'd better get reading. There's about six or seven pages of posts to catch up on.

Sandra, welcome home:

I can see where getting home was a bit on the rough side.  Reminds me of my DAD.  He seemed to be able to drive nearly non-stop.  Thank goodness, gas tanks do finally run out.  If my sister and I really hurried...we could get a much needed trip to the "ladies" before it was on the road again and don't even think of asking me to stop this car for aaaaaaaaanything, period.  My dad was an excellent driver.  He was very hard of hearing.....so constantly used the mirrors ( rear and side ) to do lots of checking.  He got us where we intended to go....always, but always in record time. 

I do hope you really had a great time. 

Glad you are back safe and sound -- if a mite tired with jet-lag.

Blessings,

Jackie

Cami, I hope you had a great b-day and visit with DD#1.

We drive 4.5 hours to see DS & family. DH makes our lunch to eat in the car. I keep thinking, perhaps...someday...we can eat in a restaurant on the way. At least he has to pee a lot, so we do get to get out of the car.

Sandra - glad to hear the first installment about your trip but sure sorry for the long drive.  Men!!!

Speaking of water heaters - I decided to tackle the garage & the attic today since I have Salvation Army scheduled for a PU tomorrow.  About 10am I went to wash my hands and NO water.  Seems the City shut us down for scheduled leak repair but they don't tell anyone.  I finally opened bottled water to get the worst of the dirt off because the water was off until 5pm.  A shower will be REALLY good tonight.

Can't remember who talked about closet cleaning on the previous page, but I'm really on a roll.  Last week I took a ton of boxes & bags to the battered women's shelter & the towels to the animal shelter.  Tomorrow  lamps, dishes, tools, old Scout uniforms, clothes, etc. will be picked up.  29 pair of socks gone for heaven's sake.  They seem to reproduce in the drawer like the coffee mugs do in the closed kitchen cupboards.  I've already got another batch working for the women's shelter.  Hard to throw away my best friend's address book but she died in 2005 so enough.  And a lot of my Mother's things are finally going.  She died in 2004.  And since I lost 60lbs with chemo & rads last year, many of my clothes are going too.

Rita, that's so exciting that you read some of my paperback romances!  Yes, I wrote the book you named.  It is set in Arkansas.  DH and I travelled to different locations during the years I was writing and we would research an area so I could use it as a setting.  My best-selling romance was Baby Trap set on Kauai in the Hawaiian islands.  I also set one book on Maui called Honeymoon for One.

Sally asked how I started writing.  As you know, I was a reader and majored in English.  When I was teaching in high school in the late 70's, my girl students were reading Harlequin romances.  I borrowed one and read it and thought I could write similar stories.  So I began writing a romance set in Louisiana.  It was published and that began my writing career.  I retired from teaching and began writing fulltime.  The title of that story is Stand-In Bride.

I learned that writing is work.  My talent was small but I made the most of it.  Many of the writers who started out the same time I did, like Nora Roberts, were much more talented and more ambitious and hard-working.  They went on to write "bigger" books.  By the year 2000 I was tired of deadlines and editors and re-writes and all the hours spent in my office.  So I retired! 

My favorite fiction to read is mystery.  If I were to go back to writing, I would like to write mystery novels. 

Cami, glad you had a fun birthday celebration. 

Off to the Y with dh this morning.  It will be good for me.  It will be good for me.  It will be good for me.  LOL!

That’s what we’re here for:  to
make the world new.  We know what to
do:  seek justice, love mercy, walk
humbly, treat every person as if he or she were yourself.  These are not complicated instructions.  It’s much harder to decipher the instructions
for putting together a tricycle than it is to understand these.

Nancy Mairs

Okay, so now I remember you canNOT start posting, then look up the spelling of a name, and expect to come back to your post!  I was SAYing Carole, I have read a lot of books by Danielle Steel....  Also a few by Jackie Collins, but her books are a little OUT there!  I just read one by Niccole Ritchie!  I thought SHE wrote a book?  But I finished it, and was quite impressed! 

I've also liked books about Colorado History, like Baby Doe Tabor.......   The story of her, and her life, guarding the "Matchless Mine!"  The Smaldones, by Dick Kreck,  and one of my favorites was Memoirs of a Geisha..... also A Woman of Substance!     My first book was one given to me by DD#!....  The Kiss, by Danielle Steel..... and I was hooked. 

Lately, I crochet, while the TV is on...  but have to get back to reading.... 

Someone asked how I got started from getting married, to working at Coors....  Not at all interesting like Carole's, but after we got married, I had my first little girl...  one year later!  My life was like a Fairy Tale.... so happy, and I LOVED playing house!    I grew a garden in back of our little "converted garage"....  And I learned why Chickens don't hatch eggs, with every one they lay....Ha!   

I was just baffled, about why old Estelle and Bea kept snatching the eggs from their chickens, and I said.... "but if you just leave them there, they will hatch!"  But old Estelle said, No.... we don't have a Rooster!.... And I said.... Okay, yes, but you have the EGGS!  So just let them hatch!  He said ...."Go talk to Bea about it!"....  He was "chicken".. Hah!  So SHE told me how Roosters have to fertilize the darned things!  I just never dreamed that CHICKENS did it!   So therefore, since there were no Roosters around, no baby chicks....  I was just 21 by this time.... How was I supposed to know? 

And 2 1/2 years later, along came little baby #2...  Our life was so perfect!  No money, but we made it work.... I made the girls baby clothes...  and blankets.  My Folks had moved to Oakland, but my Grandma lived close, so I would pile my 2 babies in that huge Baby Buggy, and walk to her house... Summer and Winter!  

We only had one car...  paid $55 a month rent....  And then when the girls were about 8 months, and the oldest one 3, we moved into a "house!"  Still no money, but we felt so fortunate!  I still had that old wringer washer.... but at least it was a washer! 

Couldn't afford a phone...  I did not want to work, because I was a "Mother"....  !

Finally, we moved to THIS house in 1964....  Still no money, but couldn't be happier...  I would take the girls for walks, if only to get a Chocolate Coke, and some Peanut Butter Cheese Crackers, and then walk back home! 

I looked for Part Time work....  Pepsi had gals work week-ends as Demo's.... handing out soda, and trying to sell huge displays!  Now THAT was fun, and the girls were both in school, and could fend for themselves when they came home, that one afternoon a week. 

I didn't want to work full-time, because I thought "things" would "change".... and I wanted to hold on to our "closeness."   Then 10 years later, I went to work for Coors.... Still part time....  and I loved it.... for 18 1/2 years.  

After we both retired, we are together 24/7!  Now THAT is a feat all it's own!  It takes a LOT of adjustment, and nerves of steel, and  we are just lucky, that we have never had any more money problems, but it's because we never spent what we didn't have.    Man, I remember not having hardly any groceries in the house....  and every dime went for food!    We had to budget a pay-check for 2 weeks...!   But we made it! 

So I feel so fortunate to have what we do, and to still have each other....    And I thank God for this...... 

Oh Cami ... thanks for sharing your journey to Coors.  The chicken story was wonderful.  The rooster in a one rooster henhouse must be really busy!

Hi Sandra!  Mine is July 31st.... The year was 1900 or somewhere around there.... ha!  Sandra, she didn't post it, but someone else told me about it!   So that's why we had to bombard her with birthday wishes! 

Sally little honey, it was me that worked for Coors!  Cammi was probably off somewhere doing her whatever it was she did!   I think she's still doing it....

Mine was 1937....  I'll just BET I am the oldest one on this thread...Ha!  Ducky is older, but not by much.... She is on other threads... 

I was born in 1945 ---  just a little bit after the war ended.  We were poor but never really knew it.  Dirt roads all over town....good for walking barefoot.  3 room school-house, with the big room ( I don't think it was the biggest, but it had an office in back of it ) for 7 and 8th. graders.  We were always thrilled when we finally made it to the Big Room. 

Graduated high school 1963.  9th. out of a class of 34.  Had I taken books home on a regular basis I'd have likely done a lot better.  I found school somewhat boring but I really don't know why. 

After graduation....hmmm, only enough money for one of us ( I had a sister who graduated with me though she was 15 months older -- she had to do first grade over ) to go to trade school or college.  My sis, never, ever liking me, ever.....grabbed that prize.  I should have said I didn't want any part of it.....then it would not have been nearly as attractive to her.  In any case, I enlisted.  Only way I thought to continue some sort of training or schooling. 

Was in the Women's Army Corp.  Promoted to Specialist 4th. class quite quickly.  Loved what I did which was work in the OB-GYN clinic on post.  I wanted to work where I thought it would be happy......and felt like OB would be it. 

Met my first husband who was in the Air Force and was a weather technician.  He was on loan to our army post.  Well, I was madly in love of course.  Ex was a genius.....I learned why it is a hazard to marry one though.  He had such trouble living in the mundane world.  He didn't handle it well.  If I ask him to hang a picture, he usually ended up soundly clubbing g one of his fingers with the hammer.  Also the picture wasn't anywhere near where I told him to put it.  Would drop something, bend over to pick it up and step on his hand.  The world just was very ill-fitting for him.......his solution so he wouldn't notice the bad fit so much.  Drink --- lots and lots. 

Tried to keep it together but several yrs. later --- 7 to be exact, 3 months after our daughter was born, I realized that I could not raise two children with a man who often disappeared for a few days whether we had groceries or not. 

I took two babies and 4 suitcases and moved to southern California from very cold Michigan.  Stayed for 25 yrs. and raised my kids there.  Ex followed me.  He was used to be held up by me and didn't know what else to do.  Of course, in time he got an apt. etc. 

We stayed friends --- so much so that he introduced me to my Dh now who I have been with for 40 yrs. and married to for 39 yrs.  We think it is going to last. 

EX is on wife #5.  The alcoholism tends to be very hard on marriages. Somehow ( likely due to the kids ) we always stayed on good terms.  In fact, my former father-in-law stood up for me in my marriage to Dh while my former sister-in-law held the rings.

We were married same day my ex married his second wife.  Dh and I in the morning at a minister's house.  Rev. Gresham was Johnny Cash's best friend.   Ex was married early evening that day. 

I have worked most of my married life --- save for a few yrs. taking care of my kids. 

As I look back.....I would change very little.  Not because it was all good.  Because the things that did happen helped me grow and defined so much of what I became. 

So there you have it........From birth to 68.  I did leave out a little bit though. 

Blessings

Jackie

Guess I forgot to add....my birthday is on Sept. 13th.  You might know....I was born on a Friday.  Well, my Mom and I laughed for years as to just who was having bad luck.....since neither of us ever really looked at life that way.  I just had fun with it....and I'm not and never have been superstitious.  Adore black cats and never mind walking under ladders...never, but never throw salt over my left shoulder...or the right one for that matter. 

Jackie

Sorry Chevy ... senior moment ... I knew it was you but typed Cami.