Reflections From a Country Girl

Even today, this song from the 1958 movie South Pacific has as much to say about men as it does about women.

Now I want to make sure you men know you are loved by many if not most of the “fairer” sex. I mean, after all, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here. Right?

Although it takes two to tango, women have played a great part at setting history in place. Behind many good men there are women who have helped get them there.

Before I get in too deep here, I want to get back to all our “dames” in the world.

I love it when this song makes it sound like men can’t do without us. After all, we are some of the most talented and patient people in the world.

If you look around the corner, or even in your same house, you will find us to have some of the following unforgettable qualities. This list is not complete…there are many more I could add here but I just don’t want to overwhelm you.

We “dames” have:

1. compassion – we often understand where someone is coming from without a word
2. a good sense of humor – you have to if you want to live in this world with men around
3. courage – to live with, work with, and communicate with men
4. patience – to go through ups and downs with your man and still maintain your sanity
5. multi-task – the ability to do many things at one time and be pretty good at all of them – raise a family, work all day outside the home, take care of the house, etc.
6. care – to often put our man first before we take care of our own needs
7. drive – we want to be the best we can be and we aren’t scared to work hard at it.
8. beauty – both on the outside and inside and we continue to try to maintain both
9. love – we women know how to love our men and our families and we are often interested in showing this in unique and creative ways
10. faith – both in our spiritual selves and our families. We nurture both our souls and those that are special to us and do our best to continue to grow in both areas.
11. humility – we know we aren’t perfect, but we strive to be and we don’t ask for too much in return.
12. femininity – we enjoy our gender and appreciate men as well for their uniqueness
13. sensitivity – we often can understand and sense what our men and our families need while we share our feelings easily.
14. high language skills – we know how to express ourselves well – what woman doesn’t?
15. receptivity – we are willing to listen and try to understand where our men are coming from.
16. an encouraging nature – good women are a natural at this, and many of us are.

The list could go on, but let me summarize here.

If you are fortunate enough to have a good woman in your life, be grateful, men. Whether it’s an understanding and loving mother or a loving wife or companion you’re darn lucky if you have a dame with the characteristics listed above.

My wish for men today – that you thank your wife or companion for the wonderful qualities she shares with you each day. We all know she’s not perfect, but think about life without her. It just wouldn’t be quite as rich. Make sure you treat her well at all times and never take advantage of her good nature. My wish for women today – is that you embrace the qualities listed above as a minimum and concentrate on the ones you are a bit weak in, making yourself a better woman each day.

~ Joellen

Don’t worry, men, next I talk about your good qualities…from a woman’s perspective, that is! 🙂

Are you a woman who loves to wear high heels?

It may be that many of you out there just can’t wait to slip them on every morning.

At 55, I am not the high heel wearer. My feet told me long ago that my high heel days were over.

Now I really did like wearing them when I was younger. At 5’11” that made me about 6’4″ with my highest ones on. That’s pretty tall and I venture to say that may have intimidated some men.

I, on the other hand, loved to wear them…even if it was for only a few of my early years.

As many of you know, Kelly Pickler loves high heels. In fact, she made such an issue of her shoes on American Idol that she has now recorded a very popular song called “Red High Heels.”

I was traveling early one morning to Greenville, SC which is about two hours from where I live. It was 5:50 am and I had my favorite country radio station on singing along as I traveled up the highway.

The disc jockeys asked the question “Does anyone out there have any idea what the answer is to this? If you do, call in and tell us.”

The statement was “In a recent survey, women said they would do this only for their man.”

I laughingly thought that it must be wear high heel shoes. You see, I like to go barefooted as much as possible and I had my shoes off then as I was driving.

I called in.

It was their first call.

High heels was the answer.

Believe it or not, I once saw a man dressed in a skimpy red sequined dress with knockout red heels. I’m wondering just how long HE kept them on!

I suspect that many women out there have worn very high heels and that there was some point in their lives when enough was enough. Now, many of us may only wear them for our man….at least according to the survey. In fact, you may have a closet full of them and are thinking that one day – maybe just ONE day – you will wear a pair of them again out in public.

I gave all mine away long ago. I’m taller than my man anyway and he likes me just fine in my flats.

If you are a high heel wearer – and I mean anything over 2″ high – then I commend you.

If you aren’t, do yourself a favor and don’t start. It’s sort of like smoking. It’s easy to start and darn hard to stop…that is until your feet start hurting every time you wear them.

My wish for you today is that you wear clothes and shoes that are comfortable and forget trying to impress people. You will be a happier, and probably a healthier, you. However, if you can’t bear not dressing up and wearing high heels once in awhile, we’ll all enjoy seeing someone else wear them – and maybe even envy you briefly.

~ Joellen

Have you always wanted to travel around the country?

I have married friends – one a secretary and the other a director of a professional association – who both decided to learn how to drive tractor trailer rigs a number of years ago. Their goal was to retire and to go on the road as long distance drivers. They thought it would be great fun to do that since they loved to travel and have dreamed for years of doing this.

Can you imagine the secretary – who is a prim and proper sort of woman – going to truck driving school with a bunch of guys? She had lots of fun and the stories she told of that experience were too long to tell here.

Their lives have taken different turns since then and I’m not sure if they will go on the road. They both retire in the next year or so.

I’m watching to see if they decide to do it.

When my son – Pierce – was nine we decided to take a trip around the country. I’d always wanted to do that and having Pierce plan the trip with me would be a good experience. Since I was working on a nine month contract in the public schools then and had the summers off we could easily make the trip in 30 days.

July was the month we decided to go. It took us four months of planning.

At first we decided to camp along the way. That was, until my mother and my Aunt from Wales decided to come along.

Seems traveling around the USA was their dream as well.

My Aunt Mary was used to cold and wet weather. Little did she know that it would be the hottest summer on record and we were getting ready to hit 100 plus degree temperatures in many of our destinations.

We set out the first day of July with a goal of driving no more than six hours a day. Since I was doing all the driving, that was about all I wanted to tackle.

The sites we saw along the way were awesome. We started picking up stones when we stopped to sightsee. To this day there is a shadowbox over my office desk with the stones. The “title” of the shadowbox is “Memory Rocks Around the USA in July 1995.”

We traveled through 21 different states on this trip.

One of the highlights of the adventure was sitting under the arch in St Louis listening to Tom Jones perform on July 4th. Since he grew up in Wales about 20 miles over the mountains from my mother and her sister…it was another dream come true for them to hear and see him perform live.

Other experiences included the South Dakota Badlands at 125 degrees; snow in the Rockies in July as we made snowballs in a snowstorm while dressed in summer clothes; seeing the Grand Canyon – another 100 degree plus day; and eating seafood on the Galveston, Texas coast for my birthday….right before a hurricane came inland.

For me it was the chance to drive around the country and see that, indeed, life in other locations was just like life here…it was just different scenery.

When we arrived home I took the van back to the rental company. I suspect I am the reason they don’t have unlimited mileage on rental vans anymore. 8500 miles later we pulled back into the yard.

My wish for you today is that you take the time to plan a trip with your children and/or family and experience it to its fullest. It doesn’t have to be a 30 day trip around the USA, but the memories of that experience and the thoughts that will go into it will well be worth it. Happy planning.

~ Joellen

Who among us doesn’t remember this comment with a smile?

As a child, many of us saw the wicked queen look into a mirror only to find that – as she grew more wicked – there was a lovely young girl in the kingdom that had grown more beautiful each day.

When the queen asked “who’s the fairest of them all?” everyday, she was horrified to one day find the mirror telling her that she was no longer “the fairest of them all”…someone else was.

It was a defining moment in her life.

For those of us who aspire to be “the fairest of them all” lets face it, even if we are fairly beautiful right now, we will, one day, be replaced by someone more fair and more stunningly radiant than we are.

It’s aging at it’s finest.

Depressing thought early in the morning, isn’t it?

Many of us spend huge amounts of money trying to make ourselves look as young and beautiful as possible. As I’ve aged, I even thought about a face lift…not to mention a few lifts in other places!

Alas, I’m just not sure I want to spend that kind of money to make myself look younger. After all, I did “officially” retire in July last year as I turned a remarkable 55.

That’s a miracle in itself as far as I’m concerned.

For most of us, no mirror on the wall ever told us we were anywhere near the fairest of them all. In fact, the mirror reminds me that, indeed, life is moving on and I am “maturing” with it.

As I look at where life has taken me though, I am not unhappy with that. I use to be an unsure, girl of few words, timid (if you can believe that!), tomboy with long straggly hair, teeth that were crooked and a complexion that changed daily. I use to make myself sick if I even thought there was a possibility of having to speak in front of a class.

Yes, I’ve changed…just like that young lady in the story…for the good. Most of the time, that radiates into someone people might like to be around…and I use that ability to try to make a positive difference…doesn’t always happen, but I try.

I suspect that most of us do the same thing. We try to be the best we can be and make as much of a difference as we can in our daily lives with whomever we come across.

There are many wicked people in today’s world. That doesn’t mean we have to join in on that wickedness. We can choose the high road and be the best us we can be.

Yes, there’s lots more to mirror, mirror, on the wall than wickedness…and it starts with each of us being the most beautiful person inside that we can be.

My wish for you today is that you find the most positive qualities you possess and nurture them to do good deeds. If you can’t find them, make them…you have the ability if you seek them out within yourself. After all, it’s not what’s on the outside that really counts.

It’s what you do with what you have.

~ Joellen

Have you ever tried to surprise someone and it didn’t quite turn out the way you thought it would?

My late husband and I loved to take vacations together. He often did things like blindfold me on the way out the driveway without my knowing where we were going. He said I’d just have to trust him and it most always seemed to be surprise. Once he took me on a nine hour drive to where we had been on our honeymoon…right down to the same room we had been in. That was truly a surprise.

We once took a trip to Nashville, Tennessee. I decided to surprise him by wearing a new “country” dress I’d carefully picked out for myself while I was shopping. I knew he’d enjoy it and I was going to surprise him by having it on to go out that evening on the town. He was always complimentary of me when I wore something new and I thought he’d really like this one because it fit into the “country” atmosphere we were getting ready to go to.

Unbeknownst to me, he had decided to shave his beard and mustache off while we were there. I knew he was taking longer in the bathroom than usual. I figured he was just taking his time and it really gave me more time to get the dress on, add the carefully chosen accessories, and be ready when he came out into the hotel room.

I don’t know who was surprised more…me that he was clean shaven after nine years of having that rustic look or him that I was wearing a country girl dress…not my usual conservative attire.

The real surprise however, was when we got back home to South Carolina. We arrived late that evening and our four year old son, Pierce Embree, was asleep. As was his usual practice in the morning, he would come in with his thumb in his mouth and his “blankie” gripped firmly in his hand, go around to his Dad’s side of the bed, wake him up, say a word or two, and then come over to my side of the bed and wake me up.

The morning after we returned Pierce Embree came in, went over to his Dad’s side of the bed, saw someone in the bed he did not recognize and ran around the bed to me asking quietly, “Mom, who is that man in the bed? Where is my Daddy?”

Yes, surprises can sometime not turn out quite the way you mean for them to.

Yesterday my mother and I decided to “surprise” my sister, Vicki. It is her birthday today and we usually have to celebrate a day before or after.

Vicki had surgery on her arm and elbow last Tuesday. She is in pain right now and is having a hard time getting around. Even though she lives almost two hours away, we thought it would be nice to surprise her and deliver her birthday presents in person for a little cheering up.

After all, when you have a sister like mine it’s worth the trip. There isn’t a sister any finer.

She was truly surprised when we showed up at the door and we had a great visit.

My wish for you today is that you look for simple ways to “surprise” special people in your life. It can be simple but fun and can add some spice to life when you least expect it.

~ Joellen