How did I get here?

I think we all know the biological way I got into this world, so I will spare you the details of THAT whole debacle.  The question I'll answer is how I got to this place on the world wide web.  I know there are newer, more updated terms than "world-wide web" or "information highway", but I'm an old lady (according to the definition I had of someone my age when I was sixteen) and so would like to cling to the terms that I became accustomed to when this whole infrastructure was being built.

It all started with my parents.  Obviously.  They were foolish enough to believe that, when I was developing into a thinking human being, that it would be appropriate to answer my questions with honest and direct answers instead of 'because'.  If they didn't know the answer, they would sit me down with the appropriate volume of our cherished set of Encyclopedias and figure it out with me.  The only thing this accomplished was to give me the impression that, when I was curious about something, I should ask questions or look up the answer.  What were they thinking?!


I went to college and got my degree in History and English (subjects regarded as 'useless' by the majority of the population unless I wanted to be a teacher -- which I decidedly did NOT).  To make my education even more impracticable, I added a minor in Religion.  When I graduated college in the early nineties, the interweb for the masses was in its infancy, cellular phones were the size of a shoe box, and it was still fashionable to wear tights under a pair of plaid wool shorts in the winter (a fad that is resurfacing much to my chagrin).

I've been blessed to enjoy continued employment since the day after my college graduation.  Along the way, I've traveled to various places in these great United States and gotten to meet different people and sample some regional cultures.  I've met wonderful and interesting people as well as some who I easily "left in the dust".

Along the way, I got older.  I'm not going to pretend that means more mature or wiser because I've learned that the more I know, the less intelligent I am.  With age, I've found myself to be more stubborn...  More resistant to change, maybe?  Not that I'm one of those "change is bad" people.  I'm just one of those, "Change for the sake of change is bad" people.  The world is moving so rapidly now (and I know it's not just because I've gotten older and can't keep up) that it seems like a waste of energy to keep up some days because it's just going to be different tomorrow.

A little over a year ago, one of my dear friends and co-workers retired after fifty years in our industry.  I asked what made this energetic septuagenarian how she knew it was time.  When her head tilted back as she laughed, her glorious mane of Texas big hair never moved, "Ohhh sweetheart," she drawled, "I just realized I'm tired of learnin'!"  I liked that answer and decided that I would also use that as my marker some day when I needed to decide the date of my retirement.  This coworker is now travelling the country in her RV with her husband and watching college football on her satellite.  I'm certain she's still learning -- but it's what she wants to learn and not what someone else is telling her she needs to know.

As for me...  I'm still questioning why things are the way they are.  I've shared my observations about the world with a few friends who have suggested that my sometimes sarcastic, often bewildered, and a little unconventional observations have caused them to stop and think, laugh, and (sometimes) cry.  They are the ones who encouraged me to start this blog.

So here I am.  There will be times I will shake the fist at the world.  Other times where my opinion will be blatantly clear and certain.  Maybe more times that I will just be confused in this journey of adapting and growing in the fastest changing era in the history of the world.

Welcome!  I hope you enjoy the ride!