Tag Archives: iowa

08.17.21
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Stop answering the same door

I don’t like where I live right now. For the most part I didn’t like where I lived before I moved here. There is an important unveiling happening in my soul as I put together this information this morning.

On a trip back to old home last week I was healed. There was comfort. I went to a concert in a beautiful outdoor setting beside a cornfield in Iowa. The venue is a local winery. The local cover band, Slipstream (that we have been following for many years) ALWAYS raises my spirits…with a mixture of their talent, the music they play and the energy they offer their audience to soak in. This time was especially perfect because I was surrounded by 3 of the 4 girlfriends who have been the love and emotional “tag team” in my life.

Returning to the place I now call home was kind of a downer…well, and a mild hangover from wine and pure joy. After a good night of sleep I woke this morning with a neon light flashing…ok…I get it….

It’s not the place I store my stuff, buy my groceries and pay my utility bills that is the real me. It is all in my heart where I feel my pain/dissatisfaction or love and joy…it’s the place in my soul where I release my expectations and irritations. It’s in me, it surrounds me, it is me just being. It’s not “adopting” the hatred, meanness and dysfunction. It’s recognizing what I don’t want to own and allow it to pass through…it’s all up to me to keep an open heart and release those fears and expectations of my personality which I have learned so well in 6 decades. I am here, I am free, I am.

Namaste

02.16.21
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Move to Missouri she said….

You know those moments when something someone has said to you in the past comes back….repeating like you are seated side by side, say, in a movie theater and she whispers…you guys should move down here we hardly ever get snow…..and honestly I have bragged to my northern friends that…oh ya, we are always 10 or more degrees warmer in the winter…you had a foot deep snow storm?…oh goodness, that’s usually what we get in a whole season….. it didn’t seem wrong…I gave 58 years to Iowa….it kind of seemed like it was ok…the way it’s okay to complain about the spouse but if anyone else does it….

Ok…so I am a little red faced and very apologetic about my bluster after this polar vortex experience these last two weeks. But, seriously, friends around the country are sharing pictures… it’s a nightmare….and now many states can’t keep the power on because ……. the elves went to sleep while feeding the wood burner? Trump, the pandemic and now the polar vortex. Ruler across the fingers apparently we need, yet, another start over lesson.

We left the snow blower in Iowa….so…When the doorbell camera caught an elf on my sidewalk with the leaf blower this morning, I felt a sense of pride that I married a genius! My very own Macgyver.

This too shall pass or so I keep repeating it! Stay warm and safe!

02.10.21
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OH YA…..WELL WATCH THIS

The title being in all caps is the reality of the disturbance in my head…I steal the term, disturbance, after hearing it used by a tv weather guy. Talking about the Canadian air mass sitting over the region for two weeks….”cold temperatures and smaller “disturbances” equals more chance for snow.

Seriously…disturbance? from the news media who normally has us hugging ourselves tightly while they scream shelter in place, lock your doors you are all going to die as our mental health experiences nervous breakdowns through the pandemic and the Trump administration.

It’s cold here. It’s Iowa Cold. Thankfully this morning when I got out of bed in my more than irritable mood, I realized I was feeling the same way I did for 55+ winters in Iowa. Mentally combining that with quarantining a year in the house….my CABIN FEVER is now in overdrive. There are seriously only a certain number of Words with Friends…actually strangers….games you can play in a day so I learned how to play backgammon. But it’s just not the same as what I had dreamed it would be…sitting in a pub in Grantchester playing the Vicar over a round of pints.

My Word for the year is “nurture”. Not feeling it today…Not a whole lot of positive going on right now….my benevolence has frozen over!

Someone make me laugh?!?!?

09.06.20
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Who are Donna and Jeff

Some things just make you go HMMM. I’ve been going thru totes of memories that we have moved from one house to another to another to another. The best part was reading through old letters from friends of 45+ years…laughing, shaking my head, and doing a lot of WHATS??? I read things that could easily have been someone else’s life because I had a lot of blanks in my memory. I took snapshots of some things and emailed to my loves who are still a part of my life….and….googled other people who are not in my life anymore and sent out some feelers because I want to know how they are and if they are happy and content. It’s been a great few days getting to know me again as a young woman!

But the one that really got me was finding a box of our wedding reception napkins. I decided to just take them upstairs and use them instead of storing them. I mean after 41 years, we haven’t needed them for anything else.

Who the hell are Donna and Jeff. Half the box. Question number 1. If Donna and I both had the same color combo in our weddings a week apart, I need to find her.

Did Donna find some of our napkins in her box of napkins?

Did Donna and Jeff make it 41 years.

I need to know!

Until next time….

04.24.20
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Would I be willing to sacrifice my hand?

We have been quite content following quarantine rules… content might not be the word I want to use…*exchange content with safe. As long as we are home or outside on the walking trail, I’ve felt safe and secure…it felt comfortable. No decisions had to be made while thriving in my bubble.

Now the Governor is opening up the state on May 4th. Mayors in several cities close to the KC Metro have given May 15th as opening day. People are still getting sick…yes…not as many perhaps…but I always find it incredible when someone rationalizes the low percentage of people that may die. I saw a Facebook post recently that asked “those” people who were comfortable with a small percentage of people dying to please write down the names of two people in their family they were willing to sacrifice in order to have the freedom to get back to what they believe normal is.

I came to the conclusion after overthinking Covid-19 that it really isn’t fear that is causing me to avoid crowds or avoid contact with other people when I have no idea who they have been in contact with. But I guess it must be a little bit of fear…I don’t want to get sick…whether its a bad head cold, influenza or Covid-19 virus. It’s kind of like deciding if I want to lose an eye, a hand or a foot. I don’t want to lose any of them.

So for now, I don’t plan on lifting my personal restriction on practicing social distancing…staying at home, washing my hands, coughing into my elbow and wearing a mask if I do venture out. It’s what I feel is right for me. I don’t begrudge the humans that want to start shopping and dining out, etc. I hope they stay healthy, I hope we can lift up this virus to a level that it will take care of itself, I hope for good medication or better yet a vaccine… but I am comfortable with my personal choice to stay home and stay healthy.

Namaste

10.30.18
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Halloweeeeen full disclosure

I used to pay these two off NOT to go trick or treating although NOT until the age that they knew what $10 would buy at Walmart…. Kind of a family dirty secret *OMG, seriously? Yes, seriously $10 bought more in the 80s and 90s than now.

Growing up in Iowa, we went door to door asking for candy on Beggers Night. Not actual Halloween. That’s just dumb, Iowa. It was not until we moved to Missouri that I found out that kids solicit candy and pulverize pumpkins in the middle of the street on the actual Halloween. Having a separate beggers night meant that parents really had no idea without asking by calling 911 or just somehow “hearing” what night kids trick or treat. And I wasn’t kidding…there are a lot of inconsiderate and quite frankly selfish people out there. 911 where is your emergency? Uh YA I got a question when is beggers night.

Sometime in the 60s….some of you will recognize yourselves…I learned at the baptist church where my parents did their Sunday drop off and pickup, that if you celebrated Halloween you were worshipping the devil…so somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I always thought I was doing something wrong dressing up and celebrating the devil. That and learning that all of my dead grandparents were up in heaven watching me and knew when I was doing something wrong. But that’s another blog topic.

I’ve never been to a costume party although I do know how to talk the talk about my excitement to do it. My old soul grandson is not big on knocking on strangers doors after dark and asking for candy…which is actually the logical way to look at it considering we scare the crap out of our kids with strangers danger and having manners by not trespassing.

Some of my friends love Halloween and everything about it. I have now officially come out with with truth and I am guessing this will have no effect on our relationship other than a possible side conversation *did you know Nina is a Halloween hater….no, me either!

So there you have it….nothing positive to say but thanks for going down that rabbit hole with me.

Until next time….

11.08.15
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Des Moines, Iowa

I am always proud when I hear good rankings of Des Moines in Forbes Magazine, Huffington Post and other news sources I read about through Twitter or on the best news source *rolling eyes… Facebook. I was born in Des Moines and made my home in Iowa’s Capitol city until I was 23 when I moved to my husbands home town 30 miles east on I80.

I am always irritated when I hear people talking about driving through Iowa being similar to driving through Kansas and Nebraska…nothing to look at…cornfield after cornfield….yes it is true…the corn state does produce a lot of corn in corn fields.  But, how could you possibly negatively compare the lush, green rolling hills of Iowa to the desolate brown, flat interstate highways of Nebraska, Kansas and for that matter eastern Colorado?

I really love going home to Des Moines after living in the hustle and bustle of the Kansas City area.  I get a warm, nostalgic feeling when I hit the down town area when traveling thru on I235.  My daughter and her husband live in a loft downtown Des Moines and when I visit, I always think…I could live this life….  The downtown area is alive, revitalized, friendly, safe and with a mixture of old architecture and new construction.  Other than the occasional over the top frigid winters and occasional over the top winter snowfall, I could be very happy in Des Moines again.  I snapped a few pics while on my estrogen tour of Des Moines…they aren’t the best pictures but they are mine.  I wanted to get them in my blog (diary) to remind me of the peace of my former home.

I like to think the blue on the building on the right was to celebrate the Kansas City Royals….and maybe it was…the colors change depending on the holiday.


 

View from the top of the Butler Mansion

And most importantly….Tasty Taco

Until next time…..

02.01.15
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Snow or no snow…keep the pictures coming

We were supposed to be in Des Moines this weekend…had a motel room rented through Monday night…when I talked to Katy on Friday, I said..ya..we are coming…don’t mind the snow – probably the only good snow we will see this winter.  WTH…did that really come out of my mouth.  Woke up Saturday morning and saw the Storm warning and the possibility of 10 inches and we agonized…so we opted to stay home and forfeit the money on the Orbitz reserved room!?!

This morning, it looks like we probably made the right decision…after being an Iowan for 57 years, I know what a winter storm is like and after 30 years working 911, I know what a nightmare a winter storm is.  I’ve been enjoying everyone’s Facebook pictures from Iowa this morning.  It is truly beautiful.  I ALMOST regret not being there but I think we made the right decision for safety and it is not like we would have wanted to sit in the motel room and awe about how beautiful the motel parking lot is…and we will be watching the Super Bowl game today which I understand may not be a choice for satellite TV folks.

Here’s the view from our kitchen today

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What a difference being 4 hours away makes.

It kills me to say this too.  Go Seahawks!  Believe me…it is more a cheer against the Patriots!

Until next time….

12.30.13
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Everything back to normal

This morning  I hung up the shift bidding sheet for 2014…my name isn’t on it…no regrets!

Other than an extra mortgage and utilities for two houses, it has been nice to be able to slowly make upgrades on the Missouri house and slowly move things from one place to the other.  What isn’t wonderful is the double life we are leading.  At first it was very refreshing to have our own house down there when we visited the kids.  Each wonderful long weekend was followed by a 4 hour trip back to Iowa – home to the critters and Dish TV.  It was around Thanksgiving that I started having a major aversion to the return trip.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, my dreams are even different between the two houses/cities/states.  This week, after 9 days, it was especially hard to leave my Missouri life…we drove separately and met up in Bethany for lunch at McDonalds (my first fish sandwich for awhile) (need to hit McDonalds more often)…We talked about what kind of relief we would feel once our life is no longer disjointed….AND the kitties won’t have to be alone for weeks at a time 😦  Thank you Carmen Keith for checking on them!!!! It takes a village.

Two hours into my Monday shift, I’ve been yelled at because someone’s car has been repo’d and it is almost paid off (almost being the operative word), I’ve had two people call because uh ya, I got a question, 2 cellphone heros/tattlers on the interstate and two 911 calls that were actual emergencies.  Those were the highlights…I’ve actually talked to several people who didn’t want to have to bother us and had actual non-self made issues but they are the minority.  I’ve already made it back to exactly the same place I was before I went on vacation.

Happy Birthday Nancy, Deaton, Lennie Rae and Bengi!

Until next time.

12.18.13
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Since my last post about dreaming…I’ve been on a journey.  Seems Newton dreams and Pleasant Hill dreams are different from each other.  The morning waking up from the dream about a former fake friend and her betrayal and hatefulness kind of set the tone for the day.  Apparently I still have some anger to deal with.  I tried the route of block, ignore and move on but she is still in there somewhere dispersing ugliness.

It’s very hard to leave my grandbaby, the home and the weather to come back to Iowa.  Kind of in a funk about the job.  Not sure where I belong anymore.  I want to hand off the baton to the next supervisor so he can hit the ground running and while I’m ready to give it all up, I’m troubled with doing the job for 30 years – the massive amounts of technical information I’ve taken in the last 3 years and then what.  I just stop thinking about it?  It’s called retirement…no one really helps you prepare for it anymore than the lack of preparation when you become an empty nester.  I guess it’s one of those things you figure out as you go.  Just like everything else in life.

Not sure what I’m supposed to do today.  I’m not short on things I need to start or finish.  Just a little melancholy with a huge helping of lack of ambition.

Until next time….