Guest Bloggers – Page 19 – Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker

Gardening by Lorie Sheffer

March 27, 2011: “Gardening”

I remember reading something not too terribly long ago, about friendship being like a garden. They need to be tended and nurtured or they will wither and die. The analogy failed to include the part about having to pull weeds from time to time. If we are going to look at friendship, or any relationship, as a garden, then don’t we need to also think about the weeds? Weeds can be invasive, crowding out the “good” plants, stealing nutrients and water and leaving them prone to disease and distress. They tend not to notice or care about the good plants they have to take down in their effort to dominate.

Sometimes I think of that garden analogy and realize that it is time to pull some weeds. Sure, every friendship has its ups and downs, its misunderstandings. Those are the ones that need the extra care and attention. The weeds are the relationships that leave you feeling emotionally drained, used, or perturbed most of the time. The weeds tend to be those who, through consistently poor choices, create drama and then try to pull you in. They are the ones who always respond to your down times by telling you how perfect their life is by contrast. The weeds expect you to be there to help them through a crisis, but tend to become unavailable if you ever need to have the favor returned. They don’t respect boundaries.

I am not one to use herbicides in my garden. I don’t like to see that slow withering of the plants. I would rather just put on some gardening gloves and get in there and yank them out by the roots. It seems kinder, in way. In today’s age of technology such as caller ID and voice mail, you would almost have to try to be caught off guard by someone attempting to sabotage your time.

Last week marked the first day of Spring. What a perfect time to take a look at your garden, Tend to it as necessary, plant some new things you feel may be interesting. Spring is also the perfect time to make sure you are ahead of those weeds. Pull them as you see them, before they start to drop seeds or develop strong roots. You’ll save yourself much hard work later in the season and your other plants will be happy for the extra time you have to spend enjoying them.

Guest Blogger Page

It’s so easy to miss the constant change that happens right before our eyes…

Lorie Sheffer has been a featured, weekly blogger at Mid Life Celebration and has her own page of posts. Here’s Lorie’s latest, “Taking Care”:

“If you took as good care of yourself as you do the rest of your family, you wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

My doctor said that to me a few years ago. He told me that I was not the first person he had ever said it to. In fact, it is a line he repeats almost daily.

Why do we treat our loved ones better than we treat ourselves? Looking back, I think of the times I would make my grandson’s lunch, taking care to include some raw veggies and fruit slices. Then he would lie down for a half hour nap while I ate the crust he left from his sandwich, multitasking laundry, dishes and wiping sticky fingerprints from the walls. Or those summer days when everyone was having fun swimming in the pool I had just spent all morning cleaning, while I was inside preparing a meal for them to enjoy. I don’t think that I am alone in this, either. At least according to my doctor I’m not.

It is not selfish to say “no.” It does not mean you are negligent if you make someone help him or herself while you take a few minutes for you. One of my very favorite friends, who has obviously learned to take care of herself, said it best this past Christmas. She told me that her husband had said he sure would love to have some fresh baked Christmas cookies. She handed him a cookbook and went out to get a pedicure.

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100 Year Old Giggle Monster

Thank You Lorie Sheffer For Always Sharing

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…of Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer:

“Do you know I’ll be 100 next month?”

That’s one of the first things my father’s aunt asked me when I stopped by her house last week. Dad always takes an arrangement of Christmas flowers to her over the holidays, but since he isn’t out and about yet I offered to do the honors. My brother runs into her from time to time and it always leaves him smiling. I thought I had better visit soon if I wanted a chance to chat. She was my grandmother’s little sister. The physical resemblance, voice and mannerisms are striking.

Ruth lives with her daughter. They get out to restaurants and have their hair done in a salon on a regular basis. When my brother saw them they were at the grocery store. Ruth immediately told him that she does not need to use the scooter she was riding; she can walk, but her daughter makes her use it. Then she rolled her eyes and sighed. When she was in her early 90s she had a hip replaced because the arthritic one was slowing her down. She liked to travel to Florida to visit her granddaughter. One time on a visit there she found out the hard way that while a Jacuzzi is soothing for aching muscles, one cannot dump in copious amounts of bubble bath. Not too many years ago my parents ran into her at a First Night celebration in the city. She was ringing in the New Year wearing a glittering paper crown and blowing a party horn. She has slowed down since the wild days of her 90s.

I was struck by her appearance. While she spoke to me I just kept thinking, “You have GOT to be kidding me!” There she sat on her easy chair, wearing brown slacks and a printed ¾ sleeve knit top. She gets too hot for long sleeves. Always has. She likes that her bedroom has a ceiling fan. She also likes to watch the Home and Garden channel on her TV, but wonders why all of the really good Christmas movies are on so late at night. She was up so late watching movies the night before that she didn’t get out of bed that day until noon. This made her giggle.

Ruth’s birthday is mid January, and here in Pennsylvania that can mean anything from an unseasonably balmy day to snow, icy roads and bone chilling winds. Her immediate family will come to her home and celebrate the actual day, then in the spring they will have a much larger celebration. She jokingly suggested a dance party. Says she can probably kick higher than anyone there. To prove it, she kicked her leg out from her chair to a rather impressive height. Her daughter informed her that she may kick, but she would also end up on her rear end. With that, she smiled, put her hand on her hip and shot back, “WELL, Phyllis, I said I could kick higher than anyone. I never said I could stay on my feet. I’m sure someone would stand behind me and catch me!” And with that said, she let out one of her giggles.

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Everyone’s A Critic

Walt Said His Brother, The Mailman, Was The Smart Disney

It’s Saturday, which means only one thing, Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer is here to make us think:

The recent publicity surrounding the upcoming wedding of Prince William reminds me of the great lesson I learned about life from his mother, the late Princess Diana and Sarah, Duchess of York. Be happy and true to yourself, because there will always be people around whose main goal is to tear you down. Diana and Sarah, or Fergie as we all came to know her, were victims of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” Diana seemed to have a love/hate relationship with the press, while Sarah’s fall from grace was much more permanent.

I remember waking up at some God-awful hour to watch the much-anticipated wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Theirs was a fairy tale come true, or so we were lead to believe. We then read stories of the feisty redhead who stole the heart of Charles’ younger brother, Andrew. I watched as Diana and Sarah became partners in crime, so to speak, and in doing so breathed a new life into what had become a tired monarchy. Then the tabloids turned on them. Diana was called out for being too thin, suspected of having an eating disorder. She was criticized for focusing too much on high fashion. She was accused of being too smothering with her sons. Sarah, on the other hand, was named The Duchess of Pork because of her more curvaceous figure. She was called frumpy, and fingers wagged at her supposed lack of maternal instincts. Diana was too shy and aloof, while Sarah was too gregarious. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Of course we all know how it turned out for the two of them. Hard to imagine, but had she lived, Diana would have been 49 years old this past July. Sarah is now 51.

I watched as William and Kate, the next generation of royals, stood before the cameras to formally announce their engagement. I hope these two lovely young people have learned from the past and that they are given some peace, respect and privacy. Most of all, I hope that they somehow understand that since they cannot possibly, nor should they feel the need to, please everyone else, the very most they can hope for is to please themselves and one another.

“I, on the other hand, completely believed everything they wrote. I believed I was the worthless person they were talking about.” – Sarah Ferguson

“Being a princess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” – Diana, Princess of Wales

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Take A Deep Breath

Lorie Sheffer, Guest Blogger, thank you for being here for us every weekend:

Last week I spent the night alone in my childhood bedroom. The lavender walls, which I grudgingly compromised my original choice of dark purple for, have been changed to antique white and my beloved window seat has been removed. Needless to say, my posters of Peter Frampton and Aerosmith are long gone. It now has the look of a very pleasant but infrequently used guest room.

Exhausted, I soon found that I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the thought that I had just peed in my closet. After my brother and I left home, my parents converted our closets into what is now a bathroom that is shared by both bedrooms. Nice, waiting till we left home to think of that one! Growing up, we had one bathroom, and it was on the first floor. I opened the door to the little storage area under the eaves and gingerly lifted the loose floorboard, hoping to find something that I had hidden there years before. Apparently I had cleaned things out long ago or my father had discovered my secret hiding place. My stomach lurched, and then I reminded myself that I am 51 years old and my dad hasn’t grounded me in a very long time. Snooping through dresser drawers, I found boxes of jewelry that had belonged to my now deceased grandmothers. Picking up each piece, the vivid memories of them being worn had me in tears. The last thing I found was my puka shell necklace. My best friend and I each bought one in Ocean City Maryland in the summer of 1976, just before our senior year of high school. She committed suicide when we were 30 years old. I sat on the bed holding the necklace, thinking of the countless sleepovers we had, the secrets we shared and the midnight laughter that would wake the rest of my family. I put the necklace into my overnight bag and finally fell asleep.

I woke to the sound of morning rush hour traffic on the busy rural road. Slightly disoriented, eyes gritty from lack of sleep, I realized the sun was just barely rising. I almost felt as if I should hurry down the steps, shower, and run wet headed out of the door so I wouldn’t miss the school bus. Instead I padded down to the kitchen, only to find two elderly folks, one using a walker and the other looking to me for guidance. I poured a cup of coffee and headed out to the end of the driveway for the morning paper. Just as I walked back up onto the porch, the school bus drove by. I crossed my arms against the cold air, took a deep breath and walked back inside.

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