Well, Natalie is in season. Sigh. She's an early bloomer. Most of our females have not come into season until at least (or almost) one year of age. I don't know why but I thought of that old song by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap 'This Girl is a Woman Now.' So the equivalent for an unspayed female, for my non-dog show friends, is a bitch. Right now she is sporting the rather large panties we had for Hailey when she became incontinent. We just call her Bone Butt because their are large bones all over the panties. We need to buy her some real seasonal panties today that fit her better.

Don't you remember your mom saying to you after you started your first period, 'you're a woman now!'  Oh yippee. Thank you for giving me a curse every month for the next 40 years of so of my life. Wonderful. What a joy, what a blessing! NOT.

It seems like it was just yesterday that I couldn't wait to start my period. I was jealous of girls who had theirs. What little I knew then! All I knew was that the girls that had started wore their new-found 'womanhood' like badges of honor and I wanted to be part of that club.

The first girl I knew that had hers was Stella Marianni. She was in my 6th grade class in Elfers Elementary School in Elfers, Florida. (This was right after my parents moved the family to Florida and ripped me out of my own lovely school in Staatsburg, NY at the end of the 6th grade school year just after Easter. Stella was my first friend in that alien place.) She had large brown doe eyes that she enhanced with plenty of blue mascara. I also remember a dress that she wore —baby blue voile with pale pink polka dots. She would whisper to me before she got up from her desk, to please check and make sure she hadn't overflowed onto the back of her dress. 

Now, really, can you please tell me why anyone would be jealous of that? But like I said, they were part of something I was not. They were moving on and leaving me behind in the world of children while they were entering the world of grownups. 

Silly me. 

As I sit here in my lovely new home, I am struck by looking around me that we’ve decorated with things we bought while living in France, or things that remind us of France. It didn’t start out that way, just kind of evolved.  Since we moved in we’ve been taking a laissez faire kind of attitude about hanging things on the wall.

Typically the houses we’ve lived in have had mostly my father’s original oil paintings on the walls. Many of them are still hanging on walls in the cabin. My father painted two kinds of scenes: Colorado and Florida, both being places we lived and visited when I was a teenager. None of which really fit into our new home, although we do have a Florida beach scene of his hanging in our bedroom over our bed. (I know Kim Murray, GASP, if you are reading this blog entry.) But, it seemed to work.

But back to the decorating scheme ...

First to go up on a wall was a print of a steep staircase ascending an obviously European city we bought at American Furniture Warehouse, of all places. Not only did it remind us of old Lyon, it had the right colors and height to hang above the fireplace.

We looked high and low for a good-sized clock to hang on the wall, and when we finally found one we loved it said Cafe de Paris ... France on the face of it. Not planned, just liked the clock. 

In our dining room hang four miniature oil paintings that we bought on various visits to Paris’s Montmartre. We watched each and every one of them being painted by the artist. Also, there is a watercolor painting of sunflowers we bought in Provence. Two framed menus remind us of beloved restaurants that we ate in, one is signed by the restaurant owner, Paul Bocuse.

And last but not least, the oil painting by my father, the last one he ever did for me, of the view we had from our house in France of the medieval walled village that we lived in, Crémieu, hangs in the bedroom hallway.

I've been thinking. At first it was just a tiny little seed in my brain telling me that I miss writing. My fingers itch. Whether I am any good at it or not, I'll let you decide. But whether I am good or not is not the issue here. I miss putting my thoughts down. Do I blog privately, just for myself? Or do I open myself up to the world once again? The seed has begun taking root, but will it continue to grow?

Of course, I woul have to change the name of the blog. But to what? A Former 'new' Jersey Girl? A 'new' Jersey Girl in Colorado?

Are any of my old blog peeps still out there and checking back once in a while?

Time in New Jersey is counting down for us day by day. Next week this time the movers will have come and gone and we will be preparing for the estate sale which is not going to be any fun. I guess we will stay holed up in the bedroom upstairs, occasionally popping downstairs to take the dogs out in the back yard. House emprisonment! 

I have an Exit post in mind and will post it when the time is right. It's bittersweet leaving our home of 10 years, but also very exciting to finally be close to living our dream.

If you have stuck with me all these years, bless you! I will be exiting soon ....

Yesterday I went for an eye exam since it's been 10 years since I last had one. I think my vision is pretty good except for an annoying "floater" in each eye. Most of the time I don't see them but sometimes they bother me for weeks at a time. So before we go off eye insurance I thought it was a good idea.

Last time I got an eye exam it was from our long time optomologist in Colorado. I got both reading glasses and long distance glasses, neither of which I could ever really wear because they were too strong. I went back to him and argued about the prescription but he insisted that it was correct. Money down the drain. He also told me a few other things on that long ago exam. He told me that a had a bad astigmatism and should not be wearing over-the-counter readers because they would harm my eyes. (I've used them for 10 years now.) He also told me that I was a little bit color blind. I've always thought I had a good sense of color and its nuances so I was quite surprised to hear that.

So needless to say I was a bit anxious about going to the eye doctor. I am glad to say I aced it! My eyes are healthy and I don't really need glasses for long distance, just if I feel I need objects slightly clearer. My vision is 20:30. Reading is a whole 'nother matter. But guess what? He said if I'm comfortable with over-the-counter readers I should keep using them, but if I wanted glasses tailored to my eyes then I could fill the prescription. When I asked about the astigmatism and told him what the other doctor had said he said yes I had an astigmatism from the Lasik surgery (it almost always causes that) but it was very slight. I also asked about the color blindness since he hadn't said anything and he just laughed and said I had gotten everything but one right, and by the way, it's mostly men that can have color blindness but it's very rare in women. 

Well. So much for Dr. Straub.

These days instead of dialtion they do a really cool computer scan of the retina. It was interesting to see photos of my eyes. Kind of creepy.

Since my mom had macular degeneration I asked him about that as well since it is hereditary. The first thing he said was "Do you smoke?" I replied that I never have and he said GOOD. Smoking is related to macular degeneration which I had never heard before. My mom did not smoke but my father did. Could it have been second hand smoke for all those years? He said it was very likely. My mom would be furious if she knew that. My dad died from emphysema caused by his smoking. Rick's father also has macular degeneration and is almost blind. He smoked, had lung cancer and one lung removed many years ago. Interesting, yes?

Anyway, long story short, my vision is great! I am going to look into reading glasses to see how much they would cost while we still have the insurance but I'm just as fine with readers which have not damaged my eyes. I am not the slightest bit colorblind.