Mother of the Groom outfits and sailboats

Ben is getting married in August! He and his gal have been partners for a few years now; buying a house together and bringing a puppy into their little family in recent months. They are clearly nesting and with their age ripe for making babies, I am not surprised that they are planning a wedding. Actually, I am thrilled that they are planning a wedding. These two love to have fun and I love a good party and a good excuse to go to California!

I woke up with a headache at 3:30 am....Lou, my love, was awake too and rubbed my neck and my back to help my $15 migraine pill work. It took a while to kick in completely. Lou, mercifully had gone back to sleep in the meantime and I didn't wake even enough to know when he got out of bed and went to work. He is usually gone by 7:15 am. The phone rang waking me, it was Katie. She was surprised I was still asleep and offered to hang up and let me get my coffee before calling her back. Since it was almost 10 a.m. I wanted to just get up and make my coffee while I talked with her. It is always a nice way to get going in the morning; a chat with my NYC girl! We got to talking about "mother of the groom" dresses. Since she is the pro on weddings, being the NYC Wedding Photographer, she had some recent pictures to share of some nice mother of the bride/groom dresses. She scrolled through her collection of weddings while we talked and I became more conscious with my coffee. In just a few minutes I had a variety of classy dresses to consider. Cool, now I have some ideas!

Ben called the other night to go over the guest list for our side of the family. I suggested that he invite only those he considers friends and send wedding announcements to the remainder. When I got married to Lou 7 years ago some of the family felt obligated to RSVP attendance, but had no intention of attending...that is really, flippin' expensive, because you order a meal for them and it is a waste of money. Go figure!

So I go online yesterday, google women over 50 that sail and voila! A site pops up for this British gal who is single handed sailing as we speak...round the horn at that! I was totally taken in and intrigued and not jealous at all, really! I was in awe of this woman who at 67 years old would have the guts to do that. I started reading her recent blog posts and thought that if I want to do that alone or even with Lou I need to learn A LOT! I am totally in love with her boat too! She is doing this with sponsors for the Marie Curie Cancer Care in the UK.

What I thought is that I might get some sailing lessons to begin with and then just let the Universe take me from there. I know, I know that sounds weird, but I really have come to believe that what happens is what is supposed to happen. "The Universe is unfolding as it should." a quote from the Desiderata Poem that I have hanging on my wall. It is less frustrating for me to believe that because it takes the pressure from the "I should have" floggings that are so easy to inflict upon oneself.

There is a woman I had gone to high school with who had done a lot of sailing with her husband; not a complete circumnavigation, but close to it. I think I remember her telling me that they were gone for about 7 years! So cool. I emailed her to get a little information on their boat and if they had gone round The Horn (the southern tip of S. America). They had not. They started in San Diego area and then headed down the west coast of N. and S. America, over to the Marquesas, Australia, South Seas and then Indonesia, across the Atlantic and stopped on the East Coast of the U.S. They just got themselves a new Beneteau they keep in San Diego. They live in Tucson now.

Since this is our 40th anniversary year of graduating from High School Dorothy, my sailing friend, is going to try to get our other classmate Dee to host another St. Bernardine Class of 1971 reunion at her beach house on Balboa Island in California. We have done two other reunions there and it has been a lot of fun!

It is hard sometimes to believe all things work together for the good, but I have reached a point in my life where I can look back and see the puzzle pieces fitting together in ways that I could have never designed. I spent a lot of time fretting that they wouldn't fit, but I didn't actually make them fit together. There is something much larger than myself that makes that happen and I am relieved that I have come to understand that in a very immature sort of way. That immaturity can grow so I don't even put too much energy into worrying about it all. I have things that the Universe wants me to do. If I am jealous of someone it is because I am not doing what I should be doing. That is all. There isn't a product from jealousy, it is only a directional signal that points to the very thing that needs attending to. It is comforting to know that is what that feeling is, otherwise it is all consuming with confusion and anger; a result of immobilization from fear! I refuse to be a victim of that.