As I had mentioned earlier, yesterday was the Lifelong Learning College’s Open House.  The benefit of attending this event  is to get the Fall Catalog before it is circulated with the Daily Sun on Monday, and also to get to meet many of the teachers and facilitators of the different classes offered.  You also are able to sign up for classes, which is really very important, as some classes fill up quickly.  I signed up yesterday for three, which I felt were going to fill up fast, and I have two more I will call in on Monday.   I know curiosity kills the cat…so I will tell you what I signed up for.  First, I found the art instructor I was looking for…Rebecca Schwartz, so I will be taking her watercolor class.  I’m excited about that as there are several people lately that have encouraged me to do watercolors, so I will give it a try.  I also love Dr. Ina Anderson’s classes, so checked her fall schedule and she is giving a course on Reincarnation and Karma.  Just speaking briefly with her, her enthusiasm for everything is still bubbling inside me.  I did tell her I am becoming more interested in Reincarnation as the closer I get to leaving here, I find it comforting  to know there is a possibility I may be coming back.  The third person I looked for, found and signed up with is Roger Kass.   Again, like Dr. Anderson, I will sign up for whatever Roger is facilitating, however unlike Dr. Anderson making me feel all bubble inside, I am rather intimidated, not by  Roger but by the subject of his course.      Having worked with Roger and his wife at Properties of The Villages,  I had opportunities to talk with them and always found my conversations with both of  them to be very insightful and above all, always very interesting.  I saw Roger was teaching  a class last semester and tried to sign up but it was already full, however attending the Open House  gave me the opportunity to sign up early.  The class is  ” Great Decisions 2012″  which  fosters group discussions  exploring different perspectives on current foreign policy topics.  The foreign policy topic is the intimidating part, as  I know very little about our  policies.  However,   I think we are faced more and more with global challenges that impact our own domestic challenges, and it is good to be part of discussions such as this.    Those that have critiqued Roger’s classes say… discussions are lively, friendly and informative, he makes you think and even sometimes changes  your mind, he is passionate about the subject and does an excellent job of stirring up discussion…   Stirred I am, and am looking forward to September.   The two classes I’m signing up for tomorrow are Cold Porcelain and Hemingway’s Women.   The cold porcelain is like working with clay but unlike clay it does not need to be fired and it air drys in 24 hours.  Years ago I did molding of  Baker’s clay, which did not have to be fired either.    My daughter-in-law  Michele recently sent me pictures of some of things I had made, reminding me of the fun I had doing  that.   I anticipate I will really enjoy working with the cold porcelain, just as I did the Baker’s clay.  Last but not least is Hemingway’s Women. I became interested in Hemingway recently when one of our  Book Club selections was The Paris Wife, which was about Hemingway’s first wife Hadley.  He went on to have several more wives, plus there were other woman who influenced him such as his strong Mother and Gertrude Stein.  That’s it, I’m  really looking forward to September.   I can’t even begin to tell you how much The Lifelong Learning College offers, however there is something for everyone, and   I know if you try it…you’ll like it.

I believe I might have mentioned that I had taken a course on Numerology at the Lifelong Learning College. If I didn’t mention it,  I did take it.  Anyway, it was very, very interesting and not knowing anything about Numerology I was very surprised how much information about ones self can be told by ones’  numbers. I likened it to Astrology, which still has me wondering…how do the stars know that?  When my numbers were read, it was amazing how much they told about me. I was taking the class with a friend who when hearing the description, exclaimed to the class…that’s her, I couldn’t have described her better. When we were first figuring out our numbers, the teacher had mentioned in this particular exercise,  that normally you will come up with even numbers or odd numbers. I looked at my numbers and I had even and odd, just then she said, those of you who have even and odd numbers are a little more complicated…why did she have to say that?  My numbers read I am social but I also like to be alone, I analyze things, I can get very focused, all good right? Now here is the odd number, the complication…I am very restless, I have to keep moving, I jump from one thing to the next. How true: I want to work, no I don’t want to work, maybe I’ll go back to work, I think I’ll retire. (Secret, I think about work all the time.)   Unfortunately,  it’s true, and something that happened this past week just proves it. I was at lunch with some friends after our Book Club meeting and was talking to one of the women seated next to me. We were sharing art stories…I told her I had started doing oil painting, but had gone to another class where the instructor taught both oil and acrylic. She seemed to be doing more instruction with acrylics, so I thought I will try acrylics and went and purchased the paints, but never really got comfortable with them. The woman next to me said she had never painted before she came to The Villages and she took a Watercolor course, and loves them. She mentioned the classes she attended and told me the instructors name. Her enthusiasm got me thinking. Then last week-end while visiting my sister, she also paints with oil and pastels, she tells me she is painting with watercolors and loves it. She even let me use her watercolors and gave me some tips, and I really enjoyed it. I was feeling guilty that I was jumping from, oils to acrylics, and now watercolors, but then I remembered my Numerology class, and I felt much better, the numbers make me do it. You can bet when I go to the Lifelong Learning College’s open house tomorrow I will be looking for a particular instructor and signing up immediately. The Open House is Sat. April 28, 9am-1pm at the College wing of The Villages High School, across from Bonefish. There is a course for everyone…and for those with odd numbers…there are 100s.

Hopefully.  I just returned home after spending several days with my sister Julie and her husband Lee, at their home on Orchid Island, Florida. Sean enjoyed playing golf with Lee and raved about the course and its’ condition, as always.  Julie and I visited the Vero Beach Museum, where there were several really interesting exhibits, and then frequented several of the local shops, purchasing in the Cook Store and the Book Store. Hmm, that certainly conjures up a picture of perfect retirement. Whip something good up in the kitchen and then curl up with a good book.  In writing this I am also reminded that, while in the Book Store Julie picked up a retractable magnifying glass for reading the small magazine and newspaper print. Sean immediately became envious of the magnifying glass, so therefore I have that on my-to do list-today… stop at Barnes and Noble to pick one up. A new cooking utensil, a good book, a magnifying glass, and a great round of golf on a beautiful course…retirement…it doesn’t get any better than that.  Well actually it does, the cooking utensil is used for the scones Julie made, and we ate… scones with chocolate chips and cranberries.  To die for. Not really, at our age that is not a good phrase to use,  as  we all have too many more years of retirement to enjoy.

I think I have all the right credentials to write this as I was voted Nicest Smile when I graduated High School.  This was quite a surprise to me  as I thought very straight, perfect teeth would have to be a prerequisite to winning.  My front teeth were just like my Mother’s, which I liked, but they were a little bit crooked, not Nicest Smile material by any means.  When I analyze my victory,  two things come to mind.  First…in the 50’s we didn’t really know what we were suppose to look like…there were no perfect figures, perfect hair, skin or teeth, no super models to emmulate, therefore the smile was judged in a very different way than it would be today.     Secondly, my idol was Susan Cahill, and I wanted to be just like her.  When I think of it now,  I probably really liked her because she was friendly and talked to me, even though I was an underclassmen.  I wanted to be the Susan Cahill of my class and in order to do that I had to walk like her, talk like her and smile like her.  Susan won Nicest Smile the year before me.  I might add she also won Most Popular, Best Personality, Most Likely to Succeed and Nicest Smile.  Sadly I didn’t win the others, but Nicest Smile was just fine.  Actually there was a third reason.  My Grandmother taught me many lessons and one was respect for older people.  Charlotte, if you see an older person walking towards you,  always smile at them and say hello.  You may be the only one that recognized them that day, and if you stop and talk to them for a minute that is even better.  At the time she told me I thought she was talking about herself and telling me to smile at her and talk to her, which I did do, so she knew I was listening to her, and I wouldn’t get in trouble for bad manners.    I also extended her advice outside the house and started smiling and talking to older people.  The results were very rewarding as,  in most cases, you got very good feedback.  What got me thinking about smiling,  was the other day I passed a car driven by the best looking clown you would ever want to see.  He (or she) made me really smile.  I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but I have seen more and more clowns (real clowns) driving around lately.  I’m assuming this is happening as our population grows… more people more clowns.  It’s a wonderful thing though, as I don’t know who could be in the presence of a clown and not smile.  I continued my thinking along those lines, and we have so many reasons to smile in the Villages.   A sunny day, a good golf game, card game, tennis match, good friends, meeting new friends,  and I’m sure you can add more reasons of your own.  Because there are so many things to smile about in The Villages,  I do believe I no longer  have the Susan Cahill smile… I  now have The Village smile.

Come in many sizes and shapes. Over the course of our lifetime we accumulate an assorted collection of experiences…some very good, some not so good, some you want to completely forget and others that are very useful and come in very handy. Experience is a great teacher, but passes out tough love when we don’t learn from our experience. Have you ever noticed that some people have many more experiences than others, and have you wondered if it is better to have more or less. I’d like to think that many of my experiences give me appreciation for the life I now live, and the family I have. Dipping back in my memory bank, I pulled up an experience that came in very handy last Saturday, and that was my summer job working on an Avon Products production line in Suffern New York. Avon hired college students to work in their offices doing filing and typing. I was not in college, but working to save money and hoping to go. I was hired as a file clerk, but after a week I found out that instead of making $36.00 a week, if I worked on the production line I could make $56.00. When I inquired, they tried very hard to discourage me. They said the work was very hard. I can do it. They didn’t think my 98 lb. weight could lift the heavy cartons, I can lift the cartons. I continued to insist, especially after I figured out how much the $20 a week raise meant over a 10 week period. I finally got my wish and the mandatory green dress smock with a yellow collar.  I was shown where to punch my time card, and which door to enter in, and advised to bring my lunch. I was saving every penny, so did not buy a lunch pail, but used paper bags. My first day was a total shock. College hazing could not hold a candle to how I was treated…hey kid, you lost? this isn’t college. you came in the wrong door…what you didn’t have money for the cafeteria, you had to come down here and eat with us. Luckily floor supervisors would appear and they would all be quiet. I kept thinking of that $20 and no amount of teasing was going to take that from me. It was comforting to find out  it was a right of passage for any new worker, and I eventually settled into my new found job. It was never easy, and I still respect how very very hard they worked, but it was all worth it when I got my weekly pay envelope with $20 extra dollars in it.  Many of you are probably wondering how I  used this experience.  It came in handy last Saturday on a production line in Oxford, Florida.   Several weeks ago members of the Amazing Grace Lutheran Church were looking for volunteers to help with a charitable program they were sponsoring, which was to supply 20,000 lunches to Hungry Children.  Some of the lunches were to go locally in Wildwood, the Orlando area and also to  impoverished countries such as Honduras.  They would need 100 people to assemble the 20,000 lunches, and they said it would take about 2 1/2 hours.  When we arrived at the gymnasium where this was happening, my experience brought back memories…. there were the production lines. There were approximately 10 work areas that required 5 people each. Each had a job, 1. bag under the funnel, 2. vitamin pack in funnel, 3. cup of soy flour 4. spoonful of dried vegetables 5. cup of rice…next, we’d fill our container and call Runner, they’d take it and it would go to a group that were weighing, a group that was  sealing and a group packing the cartons. In less than 2 1/2 hours,  20,000 lunches were assembled packed in cartons and ready to go.  I really think the Avon Floor Supervisors would have been very impressed with this production line…and my experience taught me  to keep swaying side to side if standing for any length of  time. I no longer weigh 98 lbs., can not lift cartons and did not make an extra $20, but these  rewards were greater, knowing that  some little tummy will be full.     

Time takes on a life of its’ own in The Villages.   I think we all, at one time or another, thought that when we retired we would never have to watch the clock again.  Surprise, we still do, however some things have changed.  We no longer need an alarm clock to wake us up.  We just wake up on our own… usually very early.  If you are out and about in the morning, you will see  a beehive of activity;  people walking, jogging, roller blading, bicycling.   Lights are needed on golf carts, not for the evening, but for the morning. Two things happened recently that made me realize time is different now.  I called for an appointment  to have my car serviced, and I asked for a morning appointment.  They said how about 7:00am?  It had me wondering, if  7:00 am is a morning appointment, what is an early morning appointment?  As I jotted down the appointment I had gotten, I wrote 9:30 A.M..  Did I really have to write A.M.?  Doesn’t everyone know that 9:00 P.M. is midnight in The Villages?  It is.  Even with both town squares jumping with music and lively dancers every evening, at 9:00 P.M. the music stops and within minutes everyone is gone.   Recently Sean’s sons and a friend were here for a visit and they could not get over how everyone disappeared after 9:00 P.M.  One time I stayed out until 11:00 P.M. playing cards and I drove from Liberty Park to Rio Ponderosa and never saw one car.  It is about a 15 minute ride.  It is hard to imagine that you could drive anywhere for 15 minutes and not see a car.  A couple of years ago my sons were visiting and they were staying at The Waterfront Inn.  After enjoying themselves all day they headed back to the Inn.  My younger son Pete, invites his brother to come into his room for awhile.  Joe declined the invitation saying he was tired and wanted to go to bed.   Joe, it is only 8:30 PM!  See it really is true, even for the young and old, 9:00 P.M. is really Midnight in The Villages.  

 When I drove back from New Jersey  last week,  I could not get over the amount of Moving Vans heading south. I’ve driven this route many times and never have I been so aware of so many vans.  Could there really be that many people heading south to put down roots?  I think so.  I also think that many of the snow birds are not returning home with the Robins, they are staying until May or June, which is the step prior to deciding to sell the northern home and calling themselves Floridians. When I was in New Jersey I visited friends at one of the Real Estate offices I was associated with and one of the Agents was sporting a beautiful tan.  I remarked how good he looked and where did he get that tan?  He said Florida and went on to say how much he loved Florida.    He said I just don’t know why people call Florida the Elephant Burial Ground.  Oh no, do they really say that?  It struck me funny until I really thought about it, then I was offended.  When I returned home and read the paper and saw all the activities…I couldn’t help but think, I’d like to see those making elephant remarks, keep up with the elephants in The Villages.   I’d like to see them join a Dragon Boat team, or play Golf, Tennis, Pickleball, go to lively discussions..book clubs, poetry workshops, civil discourse, how about those that bicycle hundreds of miles a week, and those that dance in the two Squares each night, or attend the many shows offered at one of The Villages’ centers, or be an attendee or participant in the many Art Shows, or Photography Shows…I could go on and on.  I couldn’t help but think of the elephants when I rode alongside the moving vans.  Lots of elephants’ possessions moving south.   I’ve thought about that remark quite a bit, but instead of being offended by it, I  have decided I rather like it.  Aren’t elephants known for their superior intelligence?  If so, those making remarks have it all wrong, if we are being compared to elephants then we must also possess their intelligence.   We didn’t come here to die, instead we came here to live.  And boy are we living.

The robins have arrived in New Jersey, along with tulips, daffodils and forsythia.  I haven’t experienced Spring in the North in several years, so it brought back many memories.  I remember when my sons were young, another sure sign of spring was the mud they tracked in on their shoes.  I think the winters were more predictable years ago, and the ground would be pretty much frozen all winter,  producing mud as it thawed.   Spring,  robins and mud were synonymous.  I had a great trip back home, (I think home will always be where you grew up, even though my real home is now here in The Villages), I got to spend time with family and friends, and to catch up on growth spurts and hair lengths of  my grandsons.   All grew taller, some hair grew longer, some hair cut shorter, but all good.  Mike, my youngest grandson, has a special hamburger recipe that he wanted to treat me to, so  he made dinner one evening.   I  thoroughly enjoyed his recipe, as did everyone else.  I was a little disappointed my son Joe was not back from Ghana, so did not get to see him, but business is business, and he will be arriving home to his family tomorrow.  My sister Jane from California also visited, and we had a real working vacation together, which will be another blog.  As much  fun as  vacations and visits are,  it feels good to get back to my familiar routine.   It did take me awhile to pick up on my blog, but have gotten into water aerobics right away, went to a poetry workshop given by Betty Eich, which was fabulous as Betty always makes it,  and also got in a movie…Titanic in 3D.  I now have started writing again, so I’m back and want to wish everyone a Happy Spring and today a Happy Easter.