June 21, 2022

Trying To Keep Up!

For a few reasons, I’m updating my little blog. I doubt anyone but me really read it! And, of course, that doesn’t really matter does it? I write it for various reasons but today I’m writing by special urging and what I dreaded at first seems like a wonderful idea now…just don’t know if I have anything profound to say.

It seems that I have several June, XXXX dates in my series of posts here so apparently June is a time that I check-in with me and memories and think about change, etc. Of course there are designated holidays to do that, but I guess I’ve always beat my own drum and time things “on my own”.

Today is the first day of Summer, 2022. WOW. How on earth is it 2022 already?! I’m 63 years old (soon to be 64 on August 22nd) and it just amazes me.

I’m anticipating, hoping, praying, etc. that I get final word that my Comprehensive Exam went well and, if it did, then I will officially be a College Graduate, with both my Bachelors and Masters in Religious Studies (with a concentration in Women and Gender Studies). It took me 2-4 years LONGER than I anticipated when I matriculated as a fully-accepted student and not just an employee taking a class or two here at CWRU. But I hadn’t fully anticipated that I would go through an unpleasant divorce, open heart surgery, a global pandemic, a broken wrist, etc. So, all in all, going to school in your mid 50’s and getting two degrees 10-12 years later while working full-time, selling your house, moving to another count, etc. isn’t too bad going! And the best part of being this non-traditional student is I got to study what I WANTED to study and enjoyed studying without worry that it would “hamper my career” by not producing enough income. Actually this degree, at least considered by me, was PART of my income in the form of a wonderful benefit.

But what will you DO with your degree? Frame it! And know that if I die in the near future, I alone accomplished something I always thought I would do some 40 years ago! I could have (maybe even should have) given up, but something inside of me would not allow it. And I’m hopeful that I’ll finish this summer semester and get to pay the outrageous prices to frame the darned Diplomas (and I’m sure I’ll gripe about the cost plenty) and just LOOK at them.

I’ll know by July 8th if I am going to graduate or not. I’m a nervous wreck, just like everyone else who does this and sort of “waits” to hear that it’s all going to be fine!

Next on the list is Kenny and Emily’s WEDDING. They are such a wonderful pair of humans and I enjoy them tremendously. They are having THEIR wedding, paying for it entirely themselves and I look forward to them having the day of their dreams. My sisters Linda and Nina took me to David’s Bridal to gown shop; something I’m known to dread! The claustrophobia of the dressing rooms, dissatisfaction on how things usually look on me, etc. has created in me a big load of dread when it comes to that sort of shopping. You would not believe the money I’ve wasted buying stuff online and never returning or using it because it looked horrendous on me!

And readying for my annual work trip, which, due to the pandemic, did NOT take place for 2 years in a row! This year it is in Seattle and a week beforehand my sister Nina and her loving husband Ed are going on an Alaskan cruise and I will join them! I went on an Alaskan cruise when this annual trip was held in Vancouver, in July/August of 2015. I was only a few months post open-heart-surgery, went on Holland America (so I was one of the “younger” passengers!) and it was a very wonderful trip. I never thought I’d see Alaska again so this is really exciting.

And, I’m now living in my home in Elyria, Ohio for 4 years now. Sort of reliving the whole “selling, packing up, buying and moving” of the May/June, 2018 time-frame and well suffice it to say, revisiting some of my old posts are bitter and sweet! And this one is no different! I did a lot to fix that house up to sell, and thankfully the return was that I was able to move here. I lost my beloved Sonny not too long after moving in here. He did settle in here. But he missed his sister Pebbles who passed shortly before I moved here. I thought, as we often do after we lose a beloved pet, that I WAS DONE and was not going to have another dog. But my house lost its “hominess” and so I went to Dassin Farms with the intent of “adopting” an “old mama” dog that was done with her award-winning showing career as well as her award-winning breeding career. But instead I fell in love with Davida, a black Standard Poodle, who flirted with me from the moment he met me. And now I stay in HIS home! He definitely owns me, my heart, the neighborhood and neighbors. He has been such a wonder-dog!

I’ll sign off for today; was excited to write a bit here…and will do some more soon. Thank you for reading this if you made it to here! OX OX ~Lila