Just stepping outside to........ "MY SECRET GARDEN"....... can make you feel peaceful and quiet. I live in a condo, so don't have room for one of those big gardens with wandering paths, past ponds of gold fish, beautiful statues and beautiful exotic plants, trees and shrubs.....with little benches to rest on here and there......maybe in my next life. No, I have made my patio into my secret little garden. Bright furniture, with a carpet, pillows, many pots filled with flowering plants. Three tall shrubs that help to give me the privacy and enclosure from the outside world. In the corner is a water fountain.....every garden needs some water. A tall statue of a girl my sister gave me .....I call her my garden angle as my sister has since passed away. The aroma of the plants and spices there add their magic. Hanging in full view is a wind chime I brought back from the gardens in Canada and my humming bird feeder. Those little birds are so entertaining as they fight for their turn at the feeder. With a cold drink, a good book or my knitting I can open the door.....it happens to be a screen door..... into my own little world away from the TV news of all the sick things President Obama is piling on us, Ben Gazi, Syria, 'Obeymecare', taxes and on and on! I am not young or old.....but just me, when I am out there. Now I know to some this might not be considered a garden as we think of it, but every one can make their own little nook of escape to privacy. I have a beautiful Mexican fountain I brought back from Puerto Panasco, I put pretty pots of plants around it with little statues......and I have a small garden inside for winter days. I had a fun gold fish for many years that out grew several bowls......but "Arnold' died awhile back. Make your own special place......"Or grow where your planted"!
Watched Annie cheer at the Brighton foot ball game last night.....in a weird dust storm......really missed seeing Rich out on the football field. Karrie is a doll to put up with me and include me in many things the grandchildren are doing. Its just a nice Fall day of quiet, hanging out......two weeks from today Nicci gets married and I will be in Minneapolis to watch it. Should be interesting rubbing shoulders with my X and the K-MART lady?????
As I was growing up during WWII I just figured Kilroy was part of the war. "Kilroy was written on everything."....not only in the US, but around the world. He is so famous that he is engraved in the National War Memorial in Washington DC, in a small alcove. From the WWII generation he brings back many memories. Younger folks .....those born after 1950 may not remember.
I love it when you get up in the morning knowing today will be a good day........I just tell myself that every morning.......As you get older, you find out that true happiness is not in how much money you make or how many degrees you have. or how big your house is, or how fancy your car is. It's finding peace and joy and a calmness in your life that becomes the most important thing to you. Your family is what matters to you. Love is what matters to you, things that are quality not quantity.
Every morning you have to think ......now today will be better than yesterday.....even though yesterday was good. Yesterday was Labor Day and I went out to eat and to a movie with Karrie, Rich and Scott. Seems I wake up and it is either Monday or Friday, the in-between just seems to slide by with to-do lists. Now this morning my week starts out with Mail my first of the month bills, buy stamps. Go to the bank and then Smiths to pick up a prescription. Drop off my HOAC dues and leave Annette a note to have Jose look at my sprinklers. Go to Walmart for a list of things. Check on a new bank and call Nicole at Merrill Lynch. Now if I woke up rich.......I would have my secretary to do all this for me....BUT ......what would I do all day? No, I guess I don 't want to wake up rich and turn into a vegetable, it is good to stay busy and on a budget? 
If I gave my kids a test could they tell me what all these pictures from my past are? Maybe my kids could but I doubt the grandchildren could......Those who were born in the 50's--60's---70's and 80's are the last generation who played in the street! During our childhood we "walked" over a mile a day when we played "hide and seek"... outside at night with no worries or fear of anything bad happening to us. We loved the night games which also included " kick the can." We are the first generation who played video games and the last to record songs off the radio onto a cassette tape. We learned to program a VCR before anyone else, were the first to play from Atari to Nintendo. We were the generation of Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes and Captain Kangaroo....We traveled in cars without seat belts, or air bags, lived without cell phones and caller ID. Can you even imagine a household in the US today without a cell phone or two or three???? And how nice it was to talk to someone on the phone rather than getting a few words of text on a cell phone? We did not have fax machines, flat screens, surround sound, I pads, Facebook, Twitter, computers or Internet and through it all we had a really good time! Popping pop corn on the stove, piling records on the turn table and hanging clothes out on the line every week, especially when it was so cold they froze solid in minutes were part of my life. Yep, I guess I grew up in the dark ages and feel completely normal....I just don't want to ever forget how far I have come.
