Untitled.

 

I couldn’t think of an appropriate title for this post to relay all of my feelings, so I left it untitled.   You’ll see why later. 

For my birthday this year I asked if some of my Facebook friends could send me some birthday cards to commemorate turning 55.

My friends totally came through and I got the most amazing cards. I’m planning on making an album out of them.  Here are the latest cards I got from my friend Shari and from my Seester. 

How beautiful is this card from Shari!

It’s a pop up card and laser cut.  I love it. 

And this snoopy one from my Seester.  Love snoopy.  

I loved all of my birthday cards.  Each and every one.  

Here’s some of the others:

For some reason, my sister even got a birthday wish from Ed Sheeran!  I was so jealous! lol. 

But my very favorite card was from Joe.  He picked it out especially for me. He says it reminds him of the time we went to Sweetheart’s  night at Disneyland a couple of years ago for our anniversary. There was a photo op there from Tangled and we held lanterns above our heads while they took our photo. The photos turned out beautiful. I’ll see if I can find it.

Over all I had a wonderful birthday.   55 is going to be great.  

I was going to preface the rest of this post with “caution…..political post ahead”, but then I realized it isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human rights.  It’s about the right to live one’s life, without fear of dying in the street at the hands of our own government.  

Besides, I don’t need to caution anyone about anything. This is my space, and it you don’t like it, don’t read it. No one is forcing anyone to read this.  Scroll on by.   

In the last six months I have been completely staying away from the news. Like, totally ignoring it.  See something on Facebook or Instagram relating to politics?  Quickly scroll on by.   Political news on the radio or TV?  Turn it off immediately.  A sales establishment playing Fox News?  I leave.  I don’t frequent businesses that play that channel on their televisions.  I left the line at the store where I was checking out a couple of weeks ago because they had it on.  It’s a hard stop for me.  

I’ve been living in somewhat of a cocoon. Or bubble. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.  

Why do I do this?  Because it’s the only way I can stay sane and get out of bed in the morning.  The horrific things happening in our country, being led by a narcissistic repugnant thug impact me in ways I wish they didn’t.  

I become sad. I become angry. So angry. The anger consumes me so much that I don’t know what to do with it. 

So I’ve been staying away from it.  

But then yesterday, an innocent woman executed in broad daylight by someone employed by our own government. 

I didn’t mean to watch the video. I wasn’t going to, and suddenly there it was in my Instagram feed and I felt compelled to watch it.  

Once I saw it I couldn’t stop.  I’ve watched multiple videos of it, from multiple angles. 

That person was not trying to run over that agent.  She was trying to drive away from him, probably fearing for her life.  With good reason.  He shot her in the face as she was driving away.  The car wasn’t even facing him. 

It was murder.  That man murdered that woman, and it was caught on tape. 

And then to have people claim otherwise, in the face of such EVIDENCE to the contrary. 

Disgusting.  Revolting.  Sickening.  

If you feel that woman deserved to die, or feel like the killing is justified, remove me from your friend’s list.  

You have no redeeming qualities to me as a human and I don’t want you on my friends list.  If your views are that diametrically opposed to mine, I don’t know why we are friends anyway.  

This post is dedicated to 

Renee Nicole Good.  

Say her name. 

She did not deserve to die.  

I am so heartbroken.  And furious. 

And we all should be too. 

To those people who claim that the Ice “officer” was just doing his job, and that being murdered in cold blood, in broad daylight was the consequences of her actions, keep telling yourself whatever you need to in order to sleep at night.  

Also, you might want to turn off Faux News.  

Well that took a dark turn, but I have cried myself to sleep over the killing of this poor woman. Now doesn’t seem like the right time to be silent about such things. 

And so I won’t.   

This is 55.

 

Well, my 55th birthday is in two days.   

I mentioned in my last post that I am feeling a little ambivalent about it.  Not that I’m not happy to be having a birthday, I’m thrilled to be able to survive another year.  Not everyone gets to do that.  What I mean is that I don’t feel a certain way about it being kind of a “Milestone” birthday.   55.  It feels old to say it out loud, although I realize I am still young.  I have a lot of life ahead of me (God willing).  

Other milestone birthdays have affected me in different ways. My 40th was very hard.  We were in our 5th year of trying to start a family and I felt like a huge failure.  

My 50th I was so excited for.  I was going to have a big party with Lisa and family. I had it all planned out.  

But Covid had other plans, and I spent it with just me and Joe, again.  By the time Covid was over it seemed silly to have a big party.   

55 just feels “Meh”.  

As I look at the last year, I realized how strong I am in the face of health issues, injury, and disappointment.  

I don’t give myself enough credit for being resilient.  A lot of times I beat myself up for not being happy all the time, when I struggle with things. Anxiety and depression get the best of me sometimes and I don’t give myself enough grace around those things. I don’t beat myself over my kidney disease, so I don’t know why I do it over my metal health conditions.   

This year I hope to change the negative self talk.   I need to be kinder to myself.  

I hope to give myself grace when my brain chemicals are off and I’m doing the best I can.  To remember that I am more than my anxiety and that depression lies.  

Depression.  Lies.  

So much.   

I need to shift my focus into not believing the lies.  It’s hard.  

Overall though, I am looking forward to the next year of my life. 

I received a vision board kit for Christmas.  I’ve never done a vision board, but I’ve always been intrigued by them.  

I used a little of the kit materials that came with it,  but mostly printed my own things out, and of course integrated photos into it. It’s the scrapbooker in me.  

Soooo, here’s my vision board. I’m placing it in a spot on my bedroom wall where I see it every night when I go to bed.  

My number one goal on the board for this year  is to find a way to obtain a second car.  Joe and I have been sharing a car and it’s exhausting.  I’m an independent person and to have no control over how I get places is so hard for me.  I have to hitch a ride in the morning with my neighbor (thank goodness I am able to do this).  After work I have to stay an hour after I get off work (sometimes an hour and a half) waiting for Joe to pick me up.  That puts me at work for 10 hours or longer.  It’s not good for my mental health.  On Fridays I take the car and drop him off at work so I can have the car, but I have to get up at 4:30 am to do so, as he starts work at 6:00.  

Like I said, exhausting.  

So I’m putting prayers and intentions into the world that we are able to get another car, by our anniversary in mid February.  It might be a lofty goal, but that’s my goal.  

A trip to see my brother and dad in the springtime is in the works.  It’s been too long.  I have to budget and save my PTO in order to make that work.  

I’d also like to save a little money so we can take a vacation.  It’s been awhile since we had a real vacation.  I’d love to see more National Parks. We also wanted to do Disney again, maybe around the holidays.   

Maybe revisit our move, if that’s in the cards.  If not, that’s ok too.  For now we are happy where we are, even though we were looking forward to a change.  

Mostly though, I’m going to be working on self love, and gratitude and how I can help people in my community more.  

And making more connections, like I mentioned in my last post.  

Thanks to all of you for sticking around. For being my support system.  I’m not sure what I would do without my friends in the computer (and of course my family and in real life friends). 

I am lucky.  

Here’s to another trip around the sun. Here’s to 55.   🍾 🥂 

New Year

 Happy New Year!  

Joe and I actually made it to midnight last night. It was shocking, because we were both so tired and Joe had to get up at 5:00 this morning to go to work.  It got a little sketchy around 10:00 p.m., as we contemplated resting in bed  for “Just a little bit”. We rallied though, and made it to share a kiss on New Year’s Eve.  Our 37th New Year’s Eve together, as we met at a NYE party in 1988.  37 years just seems crazy.  It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s always worth it.  

2025 was mostly good, but had a bit of health issues and injury (As I close out this year STILL in a walking boot and having thrown my back out).  It also held some plot twists that left me sad and angry, not knowing the WHY. One day I’ll look back and see why things played out the way they did and discover I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this moment in time.  But for now I still feel the bitter disappointment.   It will get better with time.  Sorry to be so vague.  

I don’t really do big New Year’s resolutions.  Every time I do, I fail within the first three or four months.  

I do think about what I’d like the new year ahead to look like though, and small, attainable things I can do to help it play out that way. 

I haven’t chosen a word for the year in quite some time. This year I received a vision board kit for Christmas.  I’m excited to play around with it. Love the idea of putting my dreams/goals into a physical form that I can look at every day.  

So this year I’ve decided to choose a word to focus on. 

This year my chosen word is Connection.  

I have been feeling isolated socially in the last year or so. My neighbors don’t get together anymore. Most of them have unfriended me on Facebook. Told me it wasn’t personal. Um..ok, but it is. You live ten yards from where I live but won’t be my friend on Facebook. That’s personal to me.  I do realize it’s about my political views, but I won’t apologize for standing up for things that are right, and true and just.  (SOME neighbors still get together, but I’m not part of the cool kid’s group).  It is what it is.   Rant over.  

I don’t really have any close friends.  I live too far away (and in a 475 square foot home) to host gatherings like bunco or book clubs, but I yearn to be a part of things like that.  I was really hoping that us moving to a different city would help alleviate some of those things,  but since the move didn’t happen, I’m stuck here and feeling isolated. I would also love for Joe and me to meet some couples friends.  I feel like making new friends in your mid 50s is hard.  I’m longing for more human interaction this year. 

So this year, with the word connection in mind, I’d like to focus on these things:

Getting together with family more.  

Sending more snail mail and creating things for other people, just because.  

Reconnecting with old friends.  

Going out of my comfort zone to meet new friends. 

Join groups or clubs. 

Volunteer. This is something I always want to do but feel overwhelmed at where to start, and always fighting with the fact that I’m SO tired at the end of the day. 

Reach out to people more regularly. 

Be present when I am with people.  

Limit digital distractions. 

So those are some things I’d like to focus on this year. Pretty simple, attainable things, that I hope will bring me more connection in the upcoming year.  

I will add that I am going to try to journal and document more, as well as get more exercise and drink more water, but I’m going to ease into it over the next few months and not feel disappointed if I don’t start them right away.  

Monday is my 55th birthday. I feel ambivalent about my birthday this year.  I love birthdays.  I’m lucky to have them! Some birthdays have been joyous, some have sucked (Hello 50th COVID birthday), but I’m grateful for them all.  I guess this year would be considered some kind of “milestone” birthday, but I’m not feeling that this year. 

I truly do feel like I am blessed to just be able to make it another circle around the sun each year. 

Maybe I’ll have a post on that later. 

Maybe in 2026 I’ll start blogging again. (Don’t count on it though. lol). 

I hope everyone has a healthy, happy New Year.