Patti Digh
Taking the time to connect to others by listening to their story would help us understand each other a lot more. Many of us started at the same place and perhaps took divergent paths. It is interesting to think if not for that one difference, we might have ended up at the same place.
We are back and Linda Hill gives us two words for SoCS this week – homophones if you will. There are even bonus points possible! Head over to Linda’s blog to get all the details on how to participate. Make sure to read some of the other blogger’s posts while you are there.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “board/bored.” Use one, or use them both for bonus points. Enjoy!
I am trying to remember when kids started saying “I’m bored” and could seemingly find nothing to do. I certainly never said it and I honestly do not remember my children saying it. I think maybe it is not that kids are bored, but perhaps more they are not challenged in the way previous generations were. We had the whole outside world at our disposal with very few restrictions. Maybe the world of a child has shrunken into a smaller box.
Even now I am seldom bored. I busy myself with something at all times – or at least I try to. One of my favorite pasttimes is research. Now, I am not a fan of being required to research something, but I love it when my own curiosity takes hold. I can spend endless hours searching for small morsels of information. I know that is part of the allure of genealogy for me.
When we were younger, my, parents bought a set of World Book encyclopedias. I loved those white covers that held what seemed to be all the information in the world. Our edition had pages of color illustrations. I remember in the C volume, there were several pages of costumes from historic eras throughout the world. I think those photos are what made me fall in love with Egyptian culture – I loved the clothing they wore! I loved learning about Flappers and their dresses with long strands of pearls and feather boas.
The difference in researching for pleasure, is the drive and desire to learn something. In business I often found it was hard to get people on board with the idea of researching. I will admit the material can be dry at times. Don’t get me wrong, I was an excellent researcher in business because solving a problem that required research was like finding the solution to a puzzle.
I love games on my iPad that require thinking – escape rooms are a perfect example. I remember years ago when The Scarlet Room came out. The graphics were wonderful for the time and the puzzles challenging. Years later my grandson and I would spend time solving those games together. We never got bored!
Right now I am researching mail order brides for a short story I am writing. It is so interesting. I know many of our blogging friends who are also published authors spend a great deal of time doing research. Readers will definitely tell you if your research was not thorough enough.
With so much information at our fingertips, how can anyone get bored?
Welcome back to Throwback Thursday. Head over to Lauren’s blog to see what she has in store for us.
This week’s prompt is: It’s a Formal Affair
In the country, there were not many occasions to dress formally. We all had “Sunday go-to-meetin clothes” which were the clothes we wore to church on Sundays. But when Easter rolled around, we all got fancy clothes. For girls, that usually meant spring colors, patent leather shoes, new white socks with lace around the top, and on the rare occasion, an Easter bonnet!
I will say that the high schools did have beauty pageants. Almost all the girls participated. It was a chance to get all gussied up and wear a formal gown, including elbow length white gloves. Both my sisters were in beauty pageants, but we moved before I was in high school. I cannot imagine myself participating.
I wrote a post about my first occasion to wear a formal gown. I went to a DeMolay dance with my boyfriend. It was a sweet memory to write about and I went into great detail about the dress I wore. If you are a sucker for a story about young love, you might enjoy reading it – just follow this link.
The second time I wore a formal gown was when I attended my senior prom. I have a photo somewhere, but it is hideous. I had a new boyfriend by this time. My girlfriend and I decided to go to a salon and have our hair done. Marilyn had short hair and she had it curled with daisies nestled into each curl. I had long, board-straight hair so there was no way it was going to hold curl. The top half of my hair was put up on my head, teased within an inch of its life. (Teasing hair is a process where you comb a portion of the hair into the scalp to build volume.) The back portion of my hair was curled in long ringlets. Half way through the night, it was all falling down.
My dress was a long pale green empire waist formal, with a sheer over dress. It was sleeveless but I wore elbow length white gloves. Our high school rented a local country club for the after party. We ended up leaving around 3:00 am and going to a local 24 hour donut shop.
My daughter has photos from my marriage to her father. I wore a long white dress (not a wedding gown) with a bolero jacket with feathers on the sleeves. It was quite feminine and quite beautiful.
When hubby and I got married, I wore a simple long gown – the color was called candlelight. It was actually a pattern dress which cost me next to nothing. I was quite pleased with the find.
We have had several occasions since our marriage to wear formal attire, but that ship has now sailed. You will most likely find me in something very comfortable these days.
Plato
Yesterday we spent the afternoon and early evening with family. We went to Clemson to see our Freshman granddaughter’s dorm room and our Junior grandson’s off-campus apartment.
Campus living is definitely for the young and fit. I am not sure how many sets of stairs we climbed to get to our granddaughter’s dorm room. I watched her run up and down the steps as I eased my recently recovered knee slowly up the steps. Whew! She is in the process of rushing for sororities (something I know nothing about).
Our grandson moved in just a week ago and the pipe in the apartment above him burst while no one was home. Luckily for him (not so much for one of his roommates) the leak was on the side opposite his bedroom and living room so the couch we gave him and his computer and bed was not damaged.
We all went to an early dinner together. We had a lot of time to visit and catch up as the service was painfully slow. It was late when we got back home and I was tired and ready for bed.
I spent the morning upgrading the operating system on both my iPad and my iPhone to circumvent the latest security vulnerability. I am always careful to make sure I have a good and valid backup before I do any updates. I have been burned before by updates that do not work well. There is no way to back out Apple IOS updates other than to restore from a backup. Lesson learned.
Needless to say I did not make it to the gym yesterday, but I will go work out today. I am surprised how much I look forward to that hour – especially now that I dug out my old iPod Nano and can listen to music while I workout.
We had a thunderstorm overnight and an inch of rain. I see more and more signs that summer is starting to wane. I don’t think I have ever looked more forward to autumn than I have this year. It seems like summer has been either hot and rainy or hot and humid. I am anxious to plant my cold weather garden.
How has summer been for you? Are you ready for a break from the heat?
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