mamacuccia

I was a good student…top 10% of my high school class – took all the advanced placement & honors classes in preparation for attendance at a University (& I’m sure I could have taken my pick at the time, as my SAT scores were amongst the top 10% for the whole country!) But then, I wasn’t emotionally prepared to leave my friends, my home, and (in particular, although I never would have admitted it at the time) my Mom.

So I dropped out of Jr. college after about 3 semesters and went to work full time. Of course, working is an education on it’s own merits, (learning new skills, dealing with office politics, learning to negotiate, etc.), and either way, I was gaining life experience.

What my limited insight failed to demonstrate at the time was that the education I had rebuked as worthless could truly have put me on the path to a higher paying job in a field I love.

It’s a sad fact that my advisor in high school was too old to realize when I told her I wanted a career in writing, she could have suggested a multitude of viable career choices centered on that skill. But instead, she suggested that I change direction altogether, because, as she put it, “You need to have something to fall back on that isn’t in such a risky field.” UGH!!! Talk about bursting my bubble!!!

I think now that the only thing she knew about writing was that the people who could do it wrote books, and it was only the luckiest and most talented of these who found any measure of success in their chosen field, (in finding publishers, agents, and an actual readership, etc.). If only she had considered proofreading, editing, ghostwriting, research, script writing, journalism, etc. – the list goes on and on. But, as she had ALSO been my own mother’s advisor 25 years earlier, I believe she still had the “woman belongs in the home, barefoot and pregnant” -mentality. Why didn’t I just ignore her stupid advice and continue to march to the beat of my own drummer, as I always had before her fateful speech? I don’t have a clue, and if wishes were horses, beggars would ride…so I’ll just have to get over it already and chalk it up to my youthful ignorance.

My obstinate desire to remain ignorant of the facts of life in regards to education and income (until I had reached a riper age more suitable to mature thinking…30?) has cost me more in terms of self-esteem and -respect than simply plugging away at school until I was done (like I should have done) has cost me in income and social standing!

Never fear, though, because I’m not dead yet; I don’t intend to reach the grave in an uneducated state. There’s still time. If some 80-something year old fart can still garner his high school diploma, 60+ years after the rest of his peers have theirs, then I’m sure I can succeed at this goal of mine; to get a college degree!

Now I just have to figure out what I want to be when I grow up!!! ;)

We took the girls to both D-land and CA Adventures when they were 4 and 7, but now they’re 7 and 10, and I think it’s time we think about heading south again!

We planted roses, flowering fruit trees, azaleas, honeysuckle, grapes, gerbera daisies, gladiolus tulip and narcissis bulbs. We put in a lawn and created a stairway through an arched gateway to the street. The entire yard is fenced and so now the dog has boundaries! It is so wonderful to sit on my front porch and watch the butterflies and birds flitting from plant to plant or watch my kids play on the lawn instead of the dirt patch they used to have and never played on!

This is what we started with: