Fleetingly Carol

When Old Man was Young Man and the kids were younger - when the world was new and all, dinners could sometimes be very, oh, what's the word? tense. Ours was a very nontraditional dinner-time. We ate with one another with no television running in the background for distraction. This, Dear Reader, is ancient history, not even cable or dish networks had been invented, much less the Internet, computers and cell phones. I don't know how families do it these days. Why, I was on that very popular social website (which I can't name because of the Terms of Service on Blogger, the hosting website for this blog. I am not allowed to say their name, or any product name, for that matter). Anyway, here I was reading all the posts by family and friends, when a new one from Son came through. It simply said, "Daughter, get downstairs, dinner is ready." Not 2 seconds later, Daughter posted, "But, Dad, I'm right in the middle of a school project." Her father's res

Do you realize, Dear Reader, that it has been a full year for my blog! I turned a year old Saturday, the first and didn't even realize it. If I had, I would have written something. My first blog from a year ago was very short, but so full of high hopes! This is all there was: This blog is for fleeting thoughts. Perhaps a better name is "Stream-of-Conscience Thoughts". Because that's what it is. Never a dull moment! At least, I hope not. Doesn't that just melt the socks off your nose? I began this blog for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to think funny thoughts. A lot of serious things were going on in my life - still are- and I felt like I needed comic relief. The second reason for this blog is that it is a tool with which I'm honing my writing skills. I have succeeded in the comic relief, but I'm not so sure about improving my writing skills. Time will tell. So, this blog started out being for just me. But, I have some regular readers now, mos

I better hurry up and get the second part of this story written. The second Belly Dancing class is the day after tomorrow. I know I'll have so much more to write about! And, I've been practicing the Hip Snap, the Figure Eight and the Snake Arms all week. At the first class last week, after the warm-up exercises, which included things like reaching for the sky and head wagging, I raised my hand to ask when our sitting break would be, but she didn't see me. She moved right on into the Hip Snap. The Hip Snap? This is the part that Old Man didn't want to see. This is also the part that I observed my first day of watching this class. Imagine 5 women standing side by side, each doing the following: In the proper posture, standing straight, feet below the hips, knees slightly bent, chest up, shoulders back, we were to push the right hip slightly to the right and flex the glute (that's a nice way of saying the butt muscles). Then push the left hip slightly to the left and

I have done it! On a whim, I joined a gym! I am so excited! The first day I was there, I was amazed by all the machinery. Exercising would be easy, considering the machines will do it for you. I flashed back to a commercial on television when I was a little girl, of a well-shaped young lady advertising a weight loss machine. She stood on what looked like a stationary walking machine, except that she was leaning backward into a sling thing that wrapped around her derriere and the sling vibrated back and forth. I suppose the idea was to shake the fat off. I wonder if many of those sold. But, I digress. I didn't see any of those machines in the gym, but there were lots of others, many of them with weights attached. I imagined that they would stretch me thin. The young lady who was showing me around got on each machine and demonstrated how they worked. I imagined completely wrong! These were machines of torture! I asked the young lady if there wasn't anything I could do to &#

It's two o'clock in the morning and Old Man is fussing at me for being up and on the computer. I'd like to know what he's doing up to be fussing. Shouldn't he be in bed? But, he just worries about me. He can't sleep if he thinks I'm having a bad night. So, right now, he's sitting across the room, fingers drumming the arm of the chair because he knows that helps me keep up with the time better. He's just sweet that way. So, I have to tell you just this one thing, dear Reader. I'm on a very famous and ubiquitous social network, along with Old Man, our children, their spouses and their children, my siblings, my aunts, uncles and cousins and everyone I've known since I was five years old. You know the one. Well, whenever one of my family posts a comment on their page, I receive a text message on my cell phone. My cell phone also doubles as my alarm clock, so it stays by my bedside at night. Two hours ago, a text came in when Dear Daughter pos

Natural, medium, neutral, brown In spite of brown ears and scalp, in spite of Old Man really wanting to mow the lawn in 100+ degree weather rather than help me color my hair, the color, as you can see turned out fairly well. Now, dear Reader, I know that's a blurry picture, but I just need you to get this color fixed in your head. It is, as it says on the box "natural, medium, neutral, brown". Honest. That was the name of the color on the box. And, that is the color you see on the left. Girlie-Girl Can you picture this on Girlie-girl? Yes, that was our surprise! Wherever you find me, you will find my sweet little puppy, Girlie-Girl. You've read about her right her on the Fleetingly Carol blog. She's my froo-froo dog that isn't really. It's a rule that froo-froo dogs must be under 10 pounds and Girlie-Girl weighs in at a hefty 10 1/2 pounds. I'll put her on a diet when she reaches 11 pounds, so her poor belly won't scrape the ground.   Girlie

Dear Reader, Who among you remembers "Only her hairdresser knows for sure"? If you do, raise your hand. Aha! You have just aged yourself! Well, dear Reader, that's perfectly alright, because I just admitted my age as well. When that commercial came out on television, our family had only 2 channels from which to choose. We children were our parents remote control. When Dad said, "Carol, turn the TV over," he did not mean to flip the television on its head. He meant to change the channel to the only other station we had. Well, enough about how old I am. I believe I've just established that I'm old enough to be going gray, but not old enough to look good at being gray, hence, 'only my hairdresser knows for sure'. I'm just a little gray around the temples.That's my story and I'm sticking to it. My hairdresser died with the dinosaurs and no one has seen my natural hair color since Women's Suffrage. In these tough economic times,