Bucket List

A bucket list is a list of all the things you want to do before you die (kick the bucket). When I was in my late twenties, I made a list of 101 things I wanted to do before I died (I had to cheat a little bit and include things I had already done because I couldn't come up with 101). Now that I'm in my sixties, I've already done almost everything I had on my bucket list - and some things I crossed out because I don't want to do them anymore (like be on TV, be in a movie, and live in the White House - who was I kidding?). About the only thing left is travel, and if I don't hurry up, I won't want to do that anymore either. I guess I'm going to have to come up with a new list. Any suggestions?

New Year's Resolutions

Silly me, it's almost the end of January and I haven't talked about New Year's resolutions.

I always used to make the same New Year’s resolution: Lose Weight! The diet would last about one week – which was about as long as any other resolution I might have made. I finally quit making resolutions because I never followed through on them. What I came to realize is that you can’t make resolutions once a year. That kind of resolution is doomed. Resolutions need to be something you continually resolve to do. Like anything else that is worth doing you have to start TODAY not tomorrow. Anything worth doing can’t be put off until tomorrow.

I like President Gordon B. Hinckley’s resolution: “Each of us can do a little better than we have been doing. We can be a little more kind. We can be a little more merciful. We can be a little more forgiving. We can put behind us our weaknesses of the past and go forth with new energy and increased resolution to improve the world about us, in our homes, in our places of employment, in our social activities.”

Simon Cowell Quote:

"You know what's amazing about this country is that you are genuinely happy when someone you know does well....I just couldn't be like that."

I'm speechless.

Does This Outfit Make me Look Fat?

I used to think this question was a joke. It’s not funny anymore. I ask it every time I get dressed to go out. Worse, if the answer is, “yes,” the outfit goes in the donate to charity bag. I pay more attention to compliments. Whenever I get one, I make a mental note and hang that outfit in a special section of my closet for keepers (so when I want to look especially good, I can grab one of those outfits).

I’ve developed some rules of thumb to keep in mind when I shop:
1. Don’t trust the department store mirrors! I swear to you they have installed skinny mirrors. I know this because when I try on outfits at the store, they look great on me so I buy them. But when I get home, I look like the fat lady in the circus.
2. Go for dark, columns of color (black, navy, dark brown, burgundy, forest green, or charcoal). If I want to add color, I’ll add a long scarf that ties and drapes down the front. (No big flower print or big plaids…and no horizontal stripes)
3. I have a round face - so, no round necklines. V-necks and scoop necklines elongate the neck. (That includes necklaces. They have to be 18” or longer).
4. I’m short-waisted so, if I wear a belt it has to be the same color as what I’m wearing and it has to be big enough to hang like a hip hugger. I almost never tuck in a blouse. If I do, I wear a belt that matches the top, not the skirt (because if it matches the skirt, it shortens your neck to waist area even more. By having the belt the same color as the top, you give the illusion of a longer torso.)
5. No gathered or pleated skirts or pants (they just add more bulk to your middle).
6. Wear fitted jackets, not the boxy ones.
7. Wear a feminine pointy-toe shoe with at least a 1" heel (to lengthen your legs).

What amazes me is that in this day and age, when everybody knows that over 60% of women are overweight, why aren’t there designers who design for us? I have to shop in the plus-size department and all the clothes look like they were designed by Omar the tent maker. My daughters were always complaining about the clothes I bought so I took them with me. After spending about three minutes in that department, they looked at each other, then me, and said, “Oh. I see what you mean. Sorry mom.” They got it.

When I was younger and thinner, shopping was a no brainer, and fun. Now it is a science, and a chore…and usually not worth the effort. Even when following all the rules, you’re only going to look ten pounds thinner, at best. So, as long as you are more than 20 lbs. overweight, the answer to the question is always going to be, “yes!” So lose weight, or get over it.

(Just look at the difference just changing your top and shoes can make.)

P.S. This is what my husband had to say about it: "It's not the outfit that makes you look fat, it's the FAT that makes you look fat." (Where's a baseball bat when you need one? I think I need to do a blog about what NOT to say to women. )

I Dare You...

No, I DOUBLE dare you to ask for this blush at the make up counter.

A few months ago I had a large basket of groceries so I thumbed through a magazine while I was waiting to be checked out. I ran across an article about the year's best make up products. I gasped when I read their pick for the best blush. The name of it made me blush. I thought, "How could they get away with that?" (the name of the blush was "Orgasm" by NARS).

A few weeks later I was at the mall and I stopped to check out blushes because the one I'd been using had been discontinued [That could be a whole blog - but I'll shorten it for you: When I was a teenager, my favorite lip and nail color was Mocha Polka. I was heartsick when it was discontinued so I wrote to the manufacturer and they wrote back saying, in effect, "We only discontinue colors that nobody likes so if you didn't have such bad taste in colors, we wouldn't discontinue them." (Well, they said it in a kinder, gentler way - but that's what they meant.)] So, back to the blush. I remembered that NARS had the best blushes so I went to the counter and tried out various colors until I found the one I liked. The color names weren't displayed so I had no idea what the name of it was and I didn't have my reading glasses with me so I couldn't have read it anyway. When I got home, I liked the color so much I decided I wanted to buy some more (just in case it gets discontinued) and when I got my magnifying glass out, I discovered it was "orgasm!" Which told me two things. They were right about the color being good on everyone; and that apparently my taste in colors has improved over the years.

There was no way I was going to go back and ask for it. So I went online to order it. I still couldn't believe that they named a product that name and thought maybe it was some kind of mistake. But when I saw that they sold a gift set containing the blush and a lipstick to match and they called it "Multiple Orgasm," I knew it was no mistake. That says a lot about our society. How sad is that?

P.S. I didn't buy the extra blush. That was my way of protesting - as if they'd ever know - or care.

November, 2008 - I guess my boycott didn't work. Another brand (Rock & Republic) has jumped on the bandwagon with three new blushes: Kinky, Immoral, and X-Rated.

What I Know for Sure

Since it is Sunday, I wanted to leave you with some serious thoughts. Oprah has often talked about what she knows for sure. Here is was I know for sure:

You have to take God out of the "sky" and put him in your heart.

To whom much is given - much will be expected.

You have to listen to that still small voice within you.

You can't just tell people you love them. You have to SHOW them.

You become what you spend your time with. (side note: when my daughter read this, her comment was, "Mom, if you become what you spend your time with, you'd turn into a computer!")

Everything happens for a reason.

Sometimes good can come from bad things. That doesn't mean you can't be angry or sad. You just have to get through it.

We were born to create and live a joyful life. Our job and our challenge is to figure out how.

It is our indifference that allows evil to exist.

I am stronger than my fear.

I'm going to be all right - no matter what happens.

I am loved and I have loved well.

Everything will be all right in the end - and if things are not right, then it's not the end.

And, last but not least, the one thing I know for sure is that I will die! However, I'm not dead now, so I owe it to myself and others to live - with joy and with honor.

Label Whores

(Paris Hilton at Bondi Beach in Louis Vuitton bikini)

The first time I heard that expression I was shocked. It has such a nasty ring to it. But the person who used it was referring to Paris Hilton and how she only wore designer dresses, shoes, bags, & jewelry. Label whores want everyone to know they are wearing designer labels, so they seek out things with the designer's name all over it (Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc.)

I never wore designer clothes because I was never willing to pay the high prices. But the older I get, the heavier I get, and it is so depressing shopping for clothes, that I've started "fat-girl" shopping - which means I shop for shoes, handbags and jewelry. When I turned 60 I bought my first designer handbag. Now I have my eye on a pair of designer shoes. Oh oh. I'm getting dangerously close to being called a nasty name.

Big Words

I mentioned in my previous blog that I consider myself pretty good with words. However, it annoys me when people around me get all pedantic and try to impress me with how smart they are. I like to shut them up by saying, " When promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities, and amicable, philosophical, or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversations and communications possess clarified conciseness. In other words, don't use big words!" (This brilliant comeback has been attributed to Mark Twain and Grenville Kleiser - I don't know for sure who actually came up with it, but there are several more sentences if you want to look it up. I don't go any further because then I'd be the obnoxious one. (My husband says, "Too late. That whole diatribe is pedantic and obnoxious and you become the buffoon to shut up.")

It's kind of like reciting the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Old English. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Reciting a few lines is one thing, but if you go any further - instead of impressing people, you will become the object of their pity.

I still recommend memorizing things like this anyway. When someone starts rattling on, you can pick up where they leave off for a line or two more just to smack them down. However, if you do decide to use this or anything like unto it, don't let anyone hear you do it more than once. Once is funny. More than once is pathetic.

My Favorite Books

I don't read because of any deep passion for reading. I read because I think in order to be well educated, one must read. I read a minimum of four books a year, but rarely more than ten. Since I don't read a lot, I'm very picky about what I read. I don't want to waste my time. I read book reviews and ask my friends what their favorite books are.

Many books have inspired me in unusual ways. For instance, when I was reading The Copper Beach, the town was so well described I decided to see if I could make a map of the town. I did and had fun doing it. (I left a copy of my map in the book so whoever picks it up will have a nice surprise). A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer peaked my curiosity about the group of artists with whom she associated. I looked them up on the internet to see what their paintings looked like. A Woman of Substance had such an incredible vocabulary and used words that I'd never heard of before (and I pride myself on my knowledge of words) so I circled all the unfamiliar words and looked them up. Mother of Pearl had so many similes, I underlined them all (at least one on every page). I loved all the recipes in Under the Tuscan Sun. I added them to my own recipe book.

Reading gives you an opportunity to live more than one life. You get to be in someone else's head and experience a whole new way of living and thinking. You experience different cultures (Shogun and Memoirs of a Geisha) and periods of history (Pillars of the Earth, and the two historical novels about the mughal empire of India in the 16th-17th century which introduce the reader to the two women who inspired the building of the Taj Mahal: The Twentieth Wife and The Feast of Roses). You get to know historical people on a personal level as if you were a visitor in their home, or lived next door and were privy to all their secrets (biographies of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, etc.)

I LOVED A Treasury of Royal Scandals by Michael Farquhar. I looked up all the royals (and their paramours) on the internet to see what they looked like, then cut and pasted them into my own personal reference book.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life changed the way I organized my personal journal. Instead of putting an entry in every day, I made an alphabetical listing of topics (kind of like "blogs"). I think that will be much more interesting for my posterity to read.

I especially liked reading The Woman He Loved (about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor) because that is the time period in which my grandmother came to America from Hungary and I'm sure that whole affair is what people were talking about at the time.

To round out my favorites: Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, Tuesdays with Morrie, and The Diary of Bridget Jones (I know, what's this doing here - hey, I loved Bridget. What can I say?)

We only have one life to live, but when we read, we have more. And, it makes the life we do have richer and fuller.

Anti-Aging skin products

This must be a billion dollar industry because every skin care manufacturer has an anti-aging line. Not just a product, a whole series of products. Each one targets a specific problem you weren't even aware you had until they pointed it out. Age spots (I thought they were freckles), cellulite (I hadn't really spent any time checking out my backside in the mirror), wrinkles (if you need a magnifying mirror to see them, you don't need the product), dull skin, etc. I didn't know I needed a serum to make my eyelashes grow longer and thicker - I thought that was what mascara was for. There is a cell renewal emulsion that speeds up cell turnover, prevents wrinkles, and keeps you from getting age spots. Who knew? I also need an intense hydrating cream - one for my face, and another for my body (and it should have copper in it. Don't know why), and a firming cream (gotta have that). Almost every product has sunscreen so by the time you put on the actual liquid, cream or powder to "even out your complexion and add that rosy glow" you've layered an spf 15 over a 10 over a 20. But that doesn't give you an spf of 45. Your spf protection is only the highest you applied. In this case 20. And if none of those products had a UV protection, you're still going to get burned and wrinkled.

There is a special product just for those fine lines and wrinkles cropping up around your lips. Don't forget the eye cream. You can't just use face cream. Eye cream is specially formulated for the tender skin around your eyes.

Of course, before you apply all of the above, you need to start out with a squeeky clean face. So you need a gentle scrub to exfoliate, and a toner to close the pores afterward. A pore minimizing cream or lotion is also a good thing, right?

Apparently if I had been using Vitamin K, I wouldn't have any spider veins. The sun and tanning booths are no no's so you need a self-tanner to hide the little buggers (again, one for the body and one for the face).

All these products have been "clinically proven" to work. So they must work, right?

Now that I've added all these products to my beauty routine, I need an extra suitcase when I travel. However, on my last trip, the airline lost one of my bags, you guessed it - the "make up bag." I haven't bothered to replace anything and you know what? I haven't aged a day. I'm doing just fine without it/them.

Have any of you found any products that actually do what they say they'll do? I'd really like to know.

Am I Hot?

Well, here's one giant leap from the last post.  On the one hand, I talk about being more virtuous - and now I 'm asking if I'm "hot?" ( Call me crazy, but that just goes to show you that you'll never know what my next blog will be about - so keep coming back to see what's next.)

Once upon a time there was a movie called "10." It got every woman in America rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being a dog and 10 being "hot"). Not too long ago there was a ridiculous TV show called "Are You Hot?" It got me thinking...was I ever "hot?"

When I was younger, I wouldn't have given myself a particularly high score because I didn't think my face or my body was a "10" - ever. But now, looking back, I'd say, "Hey, I wasn't that bad." I had a great face and a great (not perfect, but great) body. I'd give myself a 9.2 for my face and body and an 8.5 on my overall sex appeal. That was "then."

I'm 62 years old now and, you know what? I think this old face is fabulous (considering my age). I give myself a 9.2 for my face. My body on the otherhand, well - I'm 40 lbs. heavier than I should be, but I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in. People wouldn't describe me as "fat" (my friends aren't that cruel). Considering my age, I'd give this old bod a 5. No, wait. I can't compare myself to the women I know who are my age. They are all exceptional women who are far above the national average for their age. If I compare myself to all the women in America - except Bo Derek -my age, I'd be an 8 for sure.)

Bo Derek at 50 - still a ten

For overall sex appeal I'd have to give myself a big ha ha ha. I can't imagine anyone thinking I'm "sexy" - even for my age. But then, "sexy" has never been my goal. I've always gone for "classy." On the classy scale, I give myself a 9.5 - then, and now.

Bottom line: Am I Hot? Ho ho ho NO. But do I care? Not at all.

So, how about you, are YOU hot? (Caution: Don't include the likes of Heidi Klum in your calculations. Models and movie stars are off the chart - they are 11's & 12's. Go to the the airport, the mall, the grocery store -- how do you compare in the real world?)

As for me and my friends....

New Year's Resolution:

I always used to make the same New Year’s resolution: Lose Weight! The diet would last about one week – which was about as long as any other resolution I might have made. I finally quit making resolutions because I never followed through on them. What I came to realize is that you can’t make resolutions once a year. That kind of resolution is doomed. Resolutions need to be something you continually resolve to do. Like anything else that is worth doing you have to start TODAY not tomorrow. Anything worth doing can’t be put off until tomorrow.

I like President Gordon B. Hinckley’s resolution: “Each of us can do a little better than we have been doing. We can be a little more kind. We can be a little more merciful. We can be a little more forgiving. We can put behind us our weaknesses of the past and go forth with new energy and increased resolution to improve the world about us, in our homes, in our places of employment, in our social activities.”

So I decided to work on being a more "Virtuous" woman.
When most people talk about a "virtuous" woman, they are referring to the fact that she doesn't "sleep around."  I'm not talking about that kind of virtue.  I'm talking about character.


The word virtue is defined as “Moral excellence. Conformity of one’s life and conduct to moral and ethical principles.”

The Greek philosophers determined that there were four “cardinal” (primary) virtues that if a man possessed, he would be in good standing with the Gods. These were: Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, and Prudence.

Benjamin Franklin had his own list of virtues that he felt were desirable and that he ardently sought to acquire. He worked on just a few at a time and actually made charts to keep track of his progress. These were:

Temperance ("Eat not to dullness, Drink not to elevation")

Silence ("Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation")

Order ("Let all your things have their places…")

Resolution ("Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve")

Frugality ("Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e., waste nothing")

Industry ("Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.")

Sincerity ("Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly.")

Justice ("Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.")

Moderation ("Avoid extremes. Forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.")

Cleanliness ("Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.")

Tranquility ("Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.")

Chastity ("Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; never to dullness, weakness or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation")

Humility ("Imitate Jesus and Socrates.")

These are excellent “social” virtues. But the way I look at it, the most important virtues aren’t on either of these lists. If you want to talk about “Godly” virtues, the ones that one needs to acquire to be worthy of Heaven and to be in God’s presence, theologians add: Faith, Hope and Charity . But I say there are more. I would add:

Honesty

Sacrifice

Compassion

Service

Gratitude

Patience

Love


Now we’re talkin’. Looks like I’ve got a lot of work to do. Should keep me busy all year. How about you?

(Maybe we should all make a list of the virtues we’d like to work on this year)

Nobody Cares What This Old Geezer Thinks

Or do they? Just because I'm over 60 years old doesn't mean I have nothing to say worth listening to. I've just completed an autobiography for my posterity and it was over 500 pages - so, apparently, I have LOTS to say. The question is, does anybody care? We'll see.