Lately I have been procrastinating over my house. I WANT to do what I need to do to fix the things that are falling apart, but it seems so overwhelming that I find it difficult to get started. At my age, even though I take pride in being a home improvement woman, it’s getting harder and harder to do things myself. I need to find and hire people instead. Ugh. I hate that. It’s the same feeling I have about dealing with car salesmen.
I’ve been procrastinating about writing too. It’s been harder to write as often as I should in order to keep my blog updated. I like to write. It makes me feel good and it brings out my more whimsical side. It helps me work out what’s going on in my head. These are all good things, but lately, just like taking on home improvement projects, I have had a hard time getting started. I’d rather spend mindless hours watching mysteries on TV or staring at Facebook and ancestry.com on my ipad, than checking out flooring contractors or writing about looking for flooring contractors for my blog. Clearly this is tied to addictive behavior. I would rather feel good in the moment than do something that feels vaguely unpleasant, whether or not it really is unpleasant. So I stopped procrastinating about writing. In an exercise in irony, I WROTE about what was hanging over me and making me procrastinate about WRITING. It’s not the kind of thing I want to share on my blog, but basically it wasn’t about home improvement projects or writing my blog at all. It was about feeling sad, missing my sister, some insecurities and self-flagellation over how I look at myself - the usual psychological suspects. I looked online for suggestions on how to get out of that do-nothing state when my feelings drive me to escape into mindless activities. I found the following helpful hints:
I don’t have an unlimited amount of time on this planet. I don’t want to waste that time procrastinating.
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Sometimes it makes me feel a little sad that I did not have my own kids or grandkids. The closest I have come is being an aunt to my sister’s kids, but they live far away and I don’t get a chance to see them very often. I do have fond memories of playing with my oldest niece and her Strawberry Shortcake dolls, showing my middle niece the ocean and tide pools when she visited as a little girl, and chasing my nephew (who was about 2 at the time) around my house while he explored the toilet and dumped a bowl of cat crunchers on his head. They are all married with their own families now. It has given me a lot of pleasure watching them grow up, even though it has been from a distance.
I do feel lucky that I have a second “family” of friends who are close physically and in other ways too. I am blessed to have many different people who bring joy into my life, including my “almost granddaughter.” Today I have an opportunity to practice one of my most valuable rights as a citizen of the United States of America. My parents were my role models in this area. They always voted. I remember just a few weeks before he died, my Dad was doing his homework on an upcoming election, studying the voter materials so that he could make an intelligent and informed decision. I consider it an honor to follow in his footsteps. Like my Dad, I study up on the propositions before I make my trek to the place I have been assigned to cast my ballot. I have several techniques that I use to do this. I read the arguments against a ballot measure first. This gives me a sense of what, if any, problems it has. Then I always look at who is supporting and who is not supporting the proposition. I have learned that when the League of Women Voters is listed as a supporter it is a good indication that this is a proposition I should vote for. It’s amazing to realize that not too long ago there was no League of Women Voters because there were no women voters. My grandmother cast her first presidential ballot in 1920. She was 27 years old. In that election, Warren G. Harding (Republican) defeated James Cox (Democrat) following the ratification of the 19th amendment to the Constitution that gave women the right to vote. I am grateful to all the women and men who fought to give me that right and this year I take great pleasure in casting my ballot. I have not made my liberal political views a secret (see my blog from 9/12/2015 “Confessions of a Flaming Bleeding Heart Liberal). I am happy that I will be voting for a potential presidential candidate who shares my political beliefs and I am very excited that this candidate is a woman! A HISTORY OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE It has been a long struggle for women to win the right to vote. The Scandinavian countries were some of the first countries to grant women this right, Finland being the first in 1863. In the years before WWI women won the vote in Australia (1894), Norway (1913), and Denmark (1915). Most European, Asian, and African countries did not pass women's suffrage until after the end of World War I (1918). Amazingly the fight still continues in countries around the world. It wasn’t until December 2015 that women in Saudi Arabia were first allowed to vote and then only in municipal elections. Women’s rights have a long history in the Americas. Marie Guyart, a French nun who worked with the First Nations peoples of Canada during the seventeenth century, wrote in 1654 about the suffrage practices of Iroquois women, "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like the men, and it is they who even delegated the first ambassadors to discuss peace." Under British rule, Lydia Taft of Massachusettes became the first legal woman voter in colonial America in 1756. The New Jersey constitution of 1776 allowed all adult inhabitants who owned a specified amount of property to vote. Laws enacted in 1790 and 1797 referred to voters as "he or she," and women regularly voted. A law passed in 1807, however, excluded women from voting in that state.
In 1851 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, among others, began a seventy-year struggle to secure the right of women to vote in the United States. There was gradual progress as increasing numbers of territories and states adopted women’s suffrage. Wyoming Territory allowed women voters in 1869 and Utah in 1870. Colorado was the first state in the union to adopt women’s suffrage by popular vote. American women finally won the vote on the 26th of August, 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment. My recently deceased Brother-in-law was a fan of Buford Pusser. For anyone unfamiliar with Buford, he was a sheriff in a small town in Tennessee and was known for cleaning up corruption and mafia-style terrorism in the area. His life as a sheriff was made into a movie called “Walking Tall.” Buford was a big, six-foot-five-inch muscular guy. Before becoming a sheriff he had been a wrestler. He did things his own way. In the “Walking Tall” movie he carried a big stick instead of a gun. My brother-in-law was also a big, tall man so I could see why he identified with Buford. More importantly, what Buford represented to my brother-in-law was a man of moral as well as physical strength who wasn’t afraid to take on the bad guys. Buford was, and still is, a controversial figure. He is held up as a hero by people in law enforcement and fans of his movie, but the movie may or may not have portrayed the “real” Buford Pusser. It was important for my brother-in-law to discover the truth about him and he spent hours researching the circumstances of his life and death. What he found did not dissuade him from thinking of Buford as a hero. While I was helping my sister we found boxes of his research and the Buford Pusser mementos he had saved that spoke volumes about what an important role model he had been. When my sister first met her husband and she told me about his interest in Buford Pusser I was taken aback. I remember seeing advertisements for the “Walking Tall” movie and it was absolutely the last thing in the world I would ever have wanted to see. For me Buford represented that annoyingly macho guy who finds great pleasure in beating the beegeebeez out of people. My sister’s husband was the kind of person who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I didn’t get what the attraction was for him. Now I realize it was more about how Buford stood up for himself and his beliefs. At under five feet tall, I will never have a physical presence like Buford Pusser or my sadly missed brother-in-law but I understand the symbolism of “Walking Tall.” I will always think of my brother-in-law whenever I see a reference to the legendary sheriff and remember him as a living example of a man who, despite his soft spoken exterior, was amazingly strong both physically and mentally. |
Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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