Dear Reader:

Yesterday my eyes wandered to the top of my desk top computer…wherein lies a wooden plaque with the saying:

“When is old enough to know better going to kick in?”

I smiled to myself and whispered…”Never!” If nothing else…I do know myself in this personal arena and ‘putting my foot in my mouth’  is a familiar past time occurrence. Then the idea hit! What if I called, texted, and emailed around to see what some of my friends would come up with to finish the statement….

Anne was the first to respond back and she had me laughing ..along with her neighbors Shirley and Al.  She wrote:

I’m old enough to know better than:

…to wear flip flops while riding a bicycle (still suffering after my recent “spill”)

…to only get one quote for work to be done (I have finally learned that it doesn’t cost $867 to have your gutters cleaned out; paid $150! Go me!)

…to speak too soon (as in, “Oh, I’d be happy to help with that…)

…to NOT wear snake boots while weeding the garden (Shirley Scully)

…to count those proverbial chickens before they hatch (i.e. spending the tax return money before it hits the bank account and then realizing the CPA’s fee is the exact amount of the refund)

…to cut through a red wire with a spade while planting a shrub and THEN continuing to pull out five more feet of said wire before realizing it might be a problem (Shirley’s husband Al is splicing the wires to their irrigation system as we speak…!)

***Can’t wait to read what others will admit to!!  Anne

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Libby texted next…and I told her that she and Anne had both experienced similar “accidents” based on age over childhood practice memories. Here is Libby!

“Boo…I’m old enough to know better than…to think I can still roller skate! At 68 I went to my grandson Trey’s birthday party held at a skating rink. (I always loved going to the Orangeburg Skating Rink as a little girl. Different moms would load up a group of us girls and take us there…we had so much fun! They would darken the place and light the big sparkle ball during the evening. I was in total bliss…those memories came rushing back …filled with music, friendship, and star light. So, of course I thought I could experience this again at 68…recreate the magic.)

I put my skates on with much excitement…and then proceeded to fall…landing on my wrist…I knew it was broken immediately. Betsy (Libby’s daughter) took me to the ER and I heard the words “Bad break”! It would be in a cast a l-o-n-g time. Trey, later, asked me “NaNa what were you thinking?” I replied, ” I was thinking I was going to have FUN!”  

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Honey came next….

“I’m old enough to know better”… than to put plants outside before Mother’s Day.

Old enough to know better than saying “I told you so.”

Old enough to know better than saving brown stamps!  🙂

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Brooke and I were talking on the phone yesterday morning and I mentioned the idea I had for the blog today. She said she immediately thought of her adult children when she thought about being old enough to know better and wanting to give her opinion to them more…I had to laugh…Brooke and I had done it again…just like when we were roomies at college…coming up with the same thought at the same time. So here we go….

We are old enough to know better than giving our opinion to adult children (who don’t ask for it) because it will come back to bite us ten-fold. (Instead we should keep our mouths shut and the welcome mat out!)

We are old enough to know better than to think adult children will welcome our opinions…quite honestly they didn’t like’em much as children either… if we are honest with ourselves…if we wipe the memory dust off our glazed eyes. (They were just stuck living at home with us then…no escape but to nod and promptly forget what we told them!)

We are old enough to know better than to think our tongue will grow back if we sever it in half rather than say what we want to say to an adult child. (However if we just bite down on our tongue without severing it in two parts…it will heal itself with time…moral of the lesson…bite your tongue as needed before giving an unwanted opinion to an adult child…just remember not to sever it completely!) 🙂

We are old enough to know (even more so or better now) that leaving a mother’s  guilt trip behind works so much better than saying something you regret for a long time…Instead a mother should say something “saccharine” sweet like…

” Always remember sweetheart…I didn’t give you the gift of life. Life gave me the gift of you.” (pretty good, huh?  🙂

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Jackson was tied up for a good part of the day yesterday but she came through like a champ…with her “I am old enough to know better” (because the rest of us remember her college memories exactly the way she tells it! 🙂

“I am old enough to know better” that a “pristine clean” home doesn’t matter any more.

When the Ya’s (Brooke, Libby, Becky) and I were suite mates our senior year at Erskine, there was only one person who ever cleaned up..that was me!

This urge to keep things clean, continued until 2015. In October of that year, I lost my home in a flood, and moved into an apartment. I realized that cleaning the bathroom and kitchen every day, was not what was important in life, living life was.

My mother used to tell me that you never saw an headstone that said, “She kept a clean house.” So I have ‘gone to the other side,’ as the Ya’s say. I enjoy friends, family life, and laughter! I now clean my bathroom once a week, with a smile on my face.” 🙂

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So until tomorrow….Come join us…”Fess it all up”…Think of your own personal example you can share with us….starting with:

“I am old enough to know better”...  We can all enjoy your tidbits of daily humor and wisdom blended together. A great gift to all of us  during this rather bewildering time.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Do you see what I see in the garden? Fifty shades of green…:)

When I talked with Honey she said the ‘stay at home’ policy had rev’d up her creative juices. Take the pottery vase below…it is called “Going with the Flow”….a bright outlook on how to best withstand the pandemic…and then have this adorable memento to remember this historical period when it is over.

Honey is also involved in another giving project called “Heart Art.” It is  a benevolent project created by the John C. Campbell Folk School calling on former participants and artists of all trades to contribute anything that has to do with the word heart. All proceeds will go to First Responders in Clay and Cherokee counties.

I definitely want a “Going with the Flow” memento vase…and if anyone else is interested…let me know and I will get information to you how to contact Honey!

Laugh…Desperate times call for desperate measures!