jo burgess hannon

fit for today, fit for life

Mood rings, corn dogs & plans for 2017

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When I see New Year’s resolutions, goals for 2017 and other posts about the months ahead, they mostly make me smile.  I love seeing a work in progress, progressing. One made me pause.  I think my old mood ring would have turned a little blue reading it: “be my best self in front of my daughter.”

I grew up on the outskirts of Seattle. We were about a 20-minute drive on I-5 to the downtown Sears.  My mom would call in a catalog order from the Big Book. I almost always went with her to pick up the packages. Sometimes there would be a promise of a hand battered corn dog from one of the store’s upper floors. Side note: probably good that I don’t have a deep fryer because I still love ’em. On one trip, I can remember my mom being rude to a clerk at Will Call because our order wasn’t ready as promised. Probably that wasn’t her best self. Because it’s 2017 I should probably insert the smirking smiley face emoji here…and hashtag #reallife

Mammas, it’s ok to let your kids see you BE YOU: not perfect, maybe a little sad, maybe hot mad, maybe overjoyed or overcome with emotion. Yes, your family needs you to be the rock on solid foundation.  Yes, your people need to be able to depend on you being steady. Emotional stability can bring a lot of comfort to a home: people like knowing what to expect when they come through your door.

I get this mamma’s ambition. Still today, I want to be a positive role model in my adult daughter’s life. Fact: I am not always. However, wouldn’t it serve her better if I worked to be my best self in front of everyone?

Wouldn’t it serve her better if I worked to be my best self, for myself?

And back to Sears: next to the corn dog stand was a big glass vending machine with a claw that let you grab a plastic bubble holding a prize.  I think it cost a quarter, which was a lot when I was 5. (Yikes, that would have been 1968.) I wanted the one with the mood ring in it, really bad.

Making a list and checking it twice

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This time of year we can get caught up in shopping, wrapping, baking and cooking.  As I spoke to a close friend on the phone, I glanced at my list on the counter and realized that it did not really matter.  She wasn’t distraught over a president-elect, nor distraught over whether or not she finished her treat platters. Her only concern, days before Christmas, was for a family member who had checked into the hospital.

My heart aches for her, for her family.  The outlook is good, yet I can only imagine how their world has been rocked; how this season, life is going to look different from years past.

Being present over presents, that is the gift I am going to try and give to the people in my life. And I might just throw my list away  in a drawer and check it twice after the weekend is over.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Dreaming of a white Christmas

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I want to say I am a little distraught.  And then, no, just no.  I AM DISTRAUGHT.  I am distraught after a public election, where everyone with a vote hopefully voted, there is SO MUCH DISCOURSE.  Still. So much discourse.  Yes, I have an opinion.  Yes, I want to shout from the roof top my opinion.  With Christmas Eve approaching, this seems appropriate given I used to wait to hear the sleigh bells and hoof clops on my childhood house and dream of Santa coming down the chimney.

Yet, I put my blog on hold these last few weeks as I struggle:  to be myself, to have respect for differing opinions, to silence my voice as I yearn to climb the ladder to the top and share with my world.  I hesitate to be part of the loud noise of someone upset, happy or otherwise over the national election of Donald Trump.  For many reasons I hesitate.

Mostly I want people to like me.  I did not realize how strong this want was until a few years back.  I am so not a people pleaser. I am often the outspoken one in the group. I readily give my opinion.  Yet, I spend many nights with little sleep replaying over and over again an interaction, checking myself.  Was I fair, did I listen, did I do it ‘right’ or do I need to somehow clean it up?

Maybe it was more than a few years ago, when I got wired head to toe at a sleep clinic, that I figured out why I wasn’t sleeping.  Getting to sleep? No problem.  Waking up in the middle of the night and falling back to sleep, big problem.  Still is.  I am grateful for my Kindle that is backlit so I can read to quiet my brain. So is Honey, who used to be woken up by my bedside lamp. Anyway, my brain spins me wide awake as I replay a scene over and over.

And that brings me back to our 2017 President Elect.  Donald Trump is our United States President Elect. I am distraught that so Americans  are name calling and labeling those that do not think like them.

So at the risk of being unliked, unfriended or blocked, I’ll let someone else share a few paraphrased thoughts that I took from a Facebook post:

‘Good God people, some of you act as if the world has come to an end. Really? The forefathers are smiling down on us as the political system has done what it was INTENDED to do; let the people speak. It has let one vote rise above another, in a civilized way, without a revolution, a hostile take-over, or an exiled regime with new puppeteer leaders appointed by a foreign country. And, despite the media trying to create a doomsday effect, it is apparent America has chosen a new color to adorn the country. Everyone woke up today, put their boots on, walked out the door, and went about their day to better their community, their family, their life!
By the way; there were no riots or revolutions….and the stock market did not crash.
God Bless America!’

And those childhood Christmas memories?  Many winter days my dad would build a fire in the fireplace. I would be distraught on Christmas Eve, thinking Santa might bypass our house only to  wake up to an empty stocking.

Oh, the good ‘ol days when I used to sleep all night and instead of world peace I was just looking for some snow.

Taking Inventory

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Have you ever been down that rabbit hole where one task leads to another and then another and you’ve forgotten what you were there for in the first place?

I found myself this week up in our garage attic, going though a box of pictures and letters I had saved when cleaning out my mom’s things. It wasn’t intentional. I was simply taking something to long-term storage. Before I could put the item on the shelf I had to move a few boxes around. That’s when I found the old tax boxes that said, “destroy in 2016”, “destroy in 2015”, “destroy in 2014”. So I pulled those off the shelf. Then there was this open box with old-fashioned photos in cardboard sleeves from the 40’s and 50’s and file folders labeled in my mom’s handwriting with her tax files. She had saved the instruction booklets for each year, too. Remember those?

 

taxboxes
I wonder if the 2007 box is still in the attic.

 

I hit the pause button and started reading a letter from a brother my mom had saved and now I was saving. That’s kind of a weird thought; because I am SURE my daughter would have no use for this envelope if she were cleaning out my things. At the bottom of the paper, below his signature, was a note that said, “The gum is for Jo Ann.” Ah, sweet. But time for only a bit of sentiment as it was crossed out with a big scribble. What, did he chew it himself?

 

timsletter

Anyway, having had 5 memorial services in as many months  is maybe what led me back to those boxes from Mom. She has been gone for 3 years. When she died suddenly and we were cleaning out her home I was the one that ended up with the photos, letters and cards she had saved. Initially, I culled through piles on my dining room table, mailing some back to family members. Some went into the recycle. Some I just couldn’t, just couldn’t make a decision on. And I put it all away, up high in the garage where I didn’t have look at it, much.

I made decisions on a few more items this week, pushing the rest back on shelf.

In the midst of a lot of grief and national turmoil over the election of a new president, what I know for sure is that today is important. People are important. I need to love them fiercely while I can.

Oh, and dear brother, a box is coming your way.