Everyday woman

You never know what you can do until you do it. In my lifetime I have put in a new chandelier, a bathroom hand held shower and a new porch floor. I have assembled many pieces of furniture and various vacuums, grown several unusual plants, cooked some strange, but not always wonderful dishes and reprogrammed a couple of keys on my computer.

I once had a garden that caused many of my neighbors to stop and comment on how pretty it was and how glad they were that someone had finally done something beautiful with that side of the house. (I simply let the weeds grow and inserted tiny sprigs of small fake flowers judiciously among them!) Of course I also grew huge red cannas and had tons of blooming African violets, but I attribute that to the right kind of light.

I made a Santa suit, play clothes and sailor suits for Sound of Music and  a real boned tutu for our local theater. I painted sweatshirts with Winnie the Pooh characters for actors in another play. I was even in two plays, in very small parts.

I made Kleenex houses out of quilted material, Raggedy Anns and Andys that I sold, and matching outfits for my three children for many special occasions.

I wrote a book that I never tried to publish, but friends have read, published a few poems and once worked eighteen months with an editor at Highlights on a story they never published. I have edited books that were published and whose acknowledgment of me made me proud.

I dabble in several musical instruments and played my first flute recital at the age of 52.

I have driven all over the country from Yosemite in California to Virginia Beach in Virginia, flown from coast to coast and on to Hawaii, and gone whale watching in the San Juan Islands.

I was a foster parent and am the mother of three children, grandmother of eight children, and worked for a major insurance company and a private preschool. Now I volunteer in an elementary school library.

I have tried to be true to those things I believe in and change things I don't.

All of this makes me an everyday woman who, by the way, finds life to be generally very satisfying and even happy much of the time.