"Law suits" and "ME time"

I think back to my grandparents - and great grandparents -with their swept front yards and porch swings shaded with sweet smelling jasmine. Truly - they were the first recyclers - using clothes until they were threadbare and then turning them into blankets then using them to clean with. They all had gardens and kept bees - "putting up" enough to have fresh fruits and veggies all winter long - back then organic was the only option! The "greatest generation" surly taught us "waste not, want not". Having lived through "the Great Depression" they spent every dime carefully - ensuring their families would always be fed, they could retire, and make sure their kids had a better life. These were the folks that gave their children much much more than they ever had. Family, community, church - these were priorities and everyone knew everyone's business. Their neighbors rallied round in times of celebration and sorrow. Maybe gossip was their TV - but they took care of their families - kids, parents and neighbors. It seems if that was the "greatest generation" - the baby boomers surely are the "worst". From the hard working, moral, savvy country that worked together rationing everything from food to Gas to win WWII to selfish, wasteful, "me" generations now. I am very scared that my kids won't even have an inkling of what America is - or why it was the greatest country in the world. I know there were problems then - racial and sexism... but somehow we've traded those problems for others. In our society of absolutes - zero tolerance - we've decided not to trust anyone's judgment because if they make a mistake - there is a lawyer to make them pay! We've decided we should sue over any possible slight and that our own "rights" are more important than those of our neighbors. Two young boys climbed an eight foot wall, tramped through a dense wooded area and spent 2 hours poking sticks through a crack in my sisters privacy fence - when one of the kids finally stuck his finger through and got bitten - my sister got sued. My parents taught me not to trespass - but also not to agitate strange dogs - if I got bit it was my fault. It seems the closer government gets to the people the worse it gets. A second grade girl was just EXPELLED from my school for bringing a tweety bird key chain to school - it seems chains are weapons. I'm not sure what the two paper clip like links would be used for - but there is a zero tolerance. A lesbian couple also enrolled their child at my church pre-school. We welcomed them with open arms - but they brought a letter from their lawyer the first day of school - informing the teachers that if "fathers" were mentioned or celebrated then they would sue. So much for teaching our children that they might be different from their peers - but different doesn't mean bad. Somewhere between Murphy Brown, Sex and the City, and Paris Hilton - "women's rights" have destroyed the respect that men used to treat women with and the respect women used to treat themselves with... Its fine to have a "healthy sex life"... but why are our daughters TRYING to have kids out of wedlock? Why are 12 year olds sending porn pics to their little boy friends? Has it ever been a challenge for a woman to find sex? Somehow Hollywood has taught women that they SHOULD act like men.. imitate the WORST flaw they have...MEN have to try to find sex - women can CHOOSE who they have sex with...oh my grandmother would roll in her grave. She taught me to "be a lady." Far from perfect or pious - I've made lots of mistakes. My husband and I have decided though that we are going to live a lot more like our grandparents - saving for our own retirement instead of expecting the government to fund us in our golden years. We're waiting to have kids until we can afford it - unlike octomom and others who see it as a paycheck or expect the community to support their greed. (We don't think it takes a village to raise our kids - we think it takes parents to raise kids.) We're planting our own gardens - both veggie and friends. I hope more of my generation can undo what the one before us has ruined about the USA. I hope that one day we'll be the "shining city on a hill" again. If not we'll be looking elsewhere to live - let everyone who thinks hard work, education, and intelligence are character flaws (I expect to see mobs with pitch forks and torches marching to Wall Street or to the houses of executives any day now) let these people who idolize laziness, apathy, and wasted time fund their brothers who think the "takers" are the people that are virtuous. Evidently the founders missed one of the "rights" - the "right" to your neighbor's hard earned money. A co-worker went to sign up for the mortgage rescue plan - the government worker told him that he wasn't eligible because he wasn't behind. Then she told him to go home - not pay his mortgage for three months and come back. Another one of my co-workers said if the other guy is getting help - he wants it too! Long gone - our grandparents help yourself, help your neighbor, hard work ethic - here come ENTITLEMENTS and LAW SUITS - you better get yours before the next guy gets his! All the while Congress is having "show Trials" looking for witches, communists, and steroids - voting themselves raises while they talk to the press about bonuses that "some people MAY not have earned" - railing against private jets while they take tax payer funded jets all over. The media is complicit in this - the people that broke watergate - the bedrock of democracy - now chooses to cover what it is told to - featuring Nobel Prize winners taking commercial jets!!! while not informing the public that a private jet took his luggage - and JUST HIS LUGGAGE. Our parents have bought into this feel good - government by sound bite - elect the person that would be the best President in a movie politics. Too lazy to learn about economics, character, or the constitution - these are the people who will lie to get out of jury duty - shirking their public responsibility just like they shirk their parenting responsibility so they can have more "me" time. Hopefully my generation will learn from our grandparents...seems like a lot of us are looking to them now to figure out how to get our country, families and communities back. They really were the Greatest Generation.

Closing the Generation Gap

I am going to be part of the problem.

Actually - let me backup. I have two degrees. I have always been a hard worker - always a good student. I, like many other Americans, didn't get what I expected when I grew up. I thought I'd grow up, go to college, get a job get married have kids (not necessarily in that order). I guess thats what I did - with the exception of the kids. However I also got sick as I finished my second degree. Fortunately I'm not terminally ill - unfortunately I am drain the bank account, can't hold a job ill. Then the recession hit. Fortunately it has not hit my family severely yet - but the yet is a BIG PART of that. My husband is in construction and though his company is solid now - we can only hope that holds for the future. Of course I don't want to get into our 401K's.

Hope - that is a funny word. We use it all the time - for big things and tiny things. I hope I find true love. I hope I have kids. I hope there isn't traffic this morning. I hope these pants still fit. A lot of people have been throwing hope around lately - they've been throwing "change" around too!

Since the recession hit my family, in the form of my illness, a little earlier than it hit the rest of the country - I've had a little longer to process it. I think its a blessing in disguise.

Three years ago my husband and I had great jobs, a beautiful wedding, dream honeymoon, house in a trendy neighborhood, flashy cars. We were starting on the American Dream, right? I think the American Dream has changed so much in the last 100 years that our grandparents wouldn't recognize it anymore. I think their American Dream was to be Happy - raise their families with love and morals - and make sure that the people they loved never "wanted" for anything. I think that last part has been so distorted by my parents generation that my generation has no idea what it is anymore. I think my grandparents and great-grandparents did NOT mean that they wanted their kids to have everything with no worries. I do NOT think my grandparents meant they wanted their loved ones to have ANYTHING they WANTED.

I am going to be part of the problem. The government, news, media and everyone is saying that we need to get the American Public spending again. I am going to make it my purpose NOT to spend anymore - or anymore than I have to - but my definition of "have to" has changed.

As I have been contemplating my husband's birthday gift - I reflect on recent gifts. Exotic vacations, expensive meals, expensive stuff. I also reflect on the best gift I've ever gotten. My husband gave me a scrapbook that HE made when he proposed. It has tickets, pictures, scraps our entire relationship - from the first blind date forward. Like I said - my husband is in construction - not the emotional or crafty type. Part of what made this gift so special is the work that he secretly did - colleting and crafting - the main part is the glimpse into his heart that I so rarely get. I am tempted to find "a deal" on another exoctic vacation - but I'm now more inclined to find something insanely fun that costs nothing. I watched "Wife Swap" tonight and one mother had the other family have a food fight. It strikes me so often when I watch this show how much stuff families have and how little fun they have. I know that isn't a new idea - lots of people have been ranting on that theme - work/life balance and such - since the 90's. Its funny that it seemed to be a new idea.

My mom laughs when people act like recycling is a new idea. She says my grandparents - and their parents - were masters at recycling. I get so angry at my mom when she sends me old warped tupperware, chipped dishes, dish rags, junk. Tonight - I have a different perspective - I look at the recycling bin full of WATER bottles. I think about what simple lives my grandparents and great-grandparents lived and how they would LAUGH at us buying water twice - once from the city and once from the company that bottles the city water. Neither of my grandfathers finished high school - I don't think my grandmothers did either. I've had more math and econ classes than they had classes and I probably wasted more money in my 20's than they did in 20 years.

Both of my parents grew up in rural Georgia -and neither "wanted" for anything but never had everything. All of my grandparents and thier parents and so on had gardens - kept bees - and never wasted a cent. They all died with tons of money in the bank - enough to educate their kids and grandkids - enough to take care of themselves during their retirement. My only living grandfather is still paying for his own care at a retirement home.

My Dad started a family garden this last year - and I can not BELIEVE the amount of food we threw away. It probably would have cost us less to buy the organic produce. My grandparents though - canned and "put up" every green bean - then ate every one.

So - weclome to my blog. Welcome to my effort to recapture the American Dream - to close the GENERATION GAP. Not the dream of consumption - of convection ovens, professional stoves, granite counter tops - but the dream of Happiness - of Financial SECURITY - of simple lives full of fun and love. I can't imagine the work/life balance we'll have with no debt and still not "wanting" for anything! I don't think we need "change" - I think we need less change and more hope. I think this recession is a blessing. You always hear tell of people who lived through the Great Depression, like my grandparents, and how it affected the rest of their lives. My grandparents ALWAYS had a pantry/freezer FULL of food and never wasted any of it. How great - what a blessing - if my generation and the generations to come can learn what our grandparents learned in the Depression - without going through another depression. While Obama is imitating FDR creating New Deals our grandkids will have to pay for - I'm going back to the ambitions of my grandparents.

I guess my first quest is to find a great birthday present for my husband that he will love AND that we won't regret in years to come. I am going to find a birthday present that is going to be part of the PROBLEM!