Welcome to JOYFUL REFLECTIONS. Also welcome to MARCH!!!! My header picture this month is a photo I took of the pretty Crocus blooms in our yard... The Crocuses and Daffodils are the first signs of spring here in Tennessee. I am definitely ready for SPRING...

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Me at Age Sixteen!!!!


Okay---so I'm going back in years!!!!! This ole' Senior Citizen ---who will be 67 in August is reverting back to 1958. On August 5th of that year, I was celebrating my SIXTEENTH birthday... Oh how little I knew then about LIFE!!! Yet, I thought I was SO smart!!!! It was a Sweet Sixteen birthday (see picture above)--and I was enjoying life in all of the typical teenage ways possible.

Little did I know that I'd be going away to college in a couple of years--only to get married and have a baby BEFORE graduating from college. WELL---I can look back at my life and marvel at all of the joys (and sorrows) that have happened. My first marriage didn't work --but I have three wonderful sons that I adore from that 20 year marriage.

Between 1958 and now, I have lived the 'good life' as they say!!! I really don't have many regrets. BUT---I've lost loved ones (my Dad, my Mom and my brother Jimmy). There's only one more sibling left in my 'immediate' family, my older brother, Raymond. Ray (86) is in a skilled nursing facility in Jacksonville, FL and has not been in very good health lately. I got an email yesterday from my nephew who was visiting his Dad. Bob (nephew) said that his Dad was was sleeping alot during this visit. None of Ray's adult children (3 of them) live near him --and I know that he gets lonely. We try to visit a couple of times a year, and I cry every time I leave him.

My school teaching career and my long career in the ministry in the United Methodist Church was very rewarding---all through the years. But---the BEST times of my life are RIGHT NOW. Meeting and marrying George Adams has truly been a blessing to me in every respect. Little did I ever expect someone like George to meet and fall in love with ME!!!! Our love and life together is just tremendous--and we both feel truly blessed by God for what we have together.

Sixteen???? I'd never want to go back and do it all again!!!! Sixty-Six???? Well----after saying for years and years that I 'dreaded' becoming a Sr. Citizen, I certainly am not dreading being one NOW (despite the aches and pains). This is the BEST time of my life!!!

Hugs,