Love what you do and do what you love

                    Love What you Do and Do What You Love

                                                                                   By

Annette Bergman

 

 I just saw this statement in a quilting magazine, Love what you do and do what you love, and I had to wonder when it is time to let go of the things you love to do.  Time has taken care of my two favorite things to do. Sell real estate and being a beautician.

The real estate was a surprise for me.  I absolutely love it because I met so many nice people and they were so happy when I found what they were looking for in a home.  I did that for thirty years.  Being a beautician was my life’s dream.  There again, I met a lot of people and it made me feel good to make them look their best.  As a child I would brush my mother’s hair for what seemed like hours.  I was licensed for over forty years.

One thing I love to do as a child was roller skate.  I remember having skates that clamped to my shoes and then there were the skates I wore at the skating rink when I was a teenager.  I love to skate so much that a few years ago I purchased a pair of skates like I use to have when I went to the skating rink.  I could hardly wait to lace them up and see if I could still skate backwards and make turns seem effortless.  I immediately was reminded that I wasn’t young anymore and my balance wasn’t what it used to be.  Maybe if I had skated every few days or weeks all my life I could still skate.  So there went one thing I love to do.

I use to sew like there was a reward for the person who went through the most fabric. I started sewing at the age of twelve and amazed people at the level that I started.  I made my younger sister’s dresses…with some custom design work on them.  I made a slip cover for a big wooden box; mother kept extra linens in, and even put a box pleat around the bottom.  Soon I was making my own clothes and in school I made mine and my best friends sewing project.  We both got an A on our sewing project and at the end of school year my teacher gave me the projects that looked hopeless and I revived them.  

 I had visited my high school friend in Atlanta and on my drive back home I designed a shirt that I sold to Simplicity.  I ended up making nine designs in all for a pattern book called Casual Cut-ups. I was doing what I loved.

Once I made four quilts for my four children for Christmas.  Then I teamed up with a friend and we made over a dozen quilts for our church’s annual auction that helped support the missions.  Our last quilt was a reversible king size quilt made from John Deere fabric, antique tractors on one side and modern John Deere tractors on the other. That was the largest project to pass under the needle of my machine.  However, it did bring a whopping $1350.00 at the auction.

My granddaughter called when she was in high school to ask if I could help her with her Home Economics project and of course I said I would.  She showed up, with three other girls she failed to mention, that afternoon almost done me in.  We made dresses for four different countries…without patterns.  I heard later that they all received an A. Now I find I have to be in the mood to sew.

I always like having the prettiest yard in the neighborhood and after creating a beautiful yard at our last home I have found no humor in the yard signs that say, “Free weeds-pull your own.”  I have to wear rubber covered gloves just to get a grip on a weed.  My hands are about worn out from doing hair and garden work.

Last year we bought another home I had some weeds that were over six feet tall.  I’ve tried to keep them down this year.  I had big plans for this yard and with the help of my son and a friend I did get some things started, one being a flowerbed in front of the picket fence in front of the house.  I haven’t done a very good job of keeping the weeds out of that flower bed and the other one is thriving on neglect, weeds and all.  I think I have transplanted two huge weeds from the former yard.  The reason I’m almost sure they are weeds is because they never wilt. 

 The daisy I planted to remind me of a day I bought my first Shasta daisy for the old house needs water all the time.  Another thing I loved to do has bit the dust.

I have flipped houses before flipping houses was called flipping houses.  I love to paint and paper, make drapes and decorate. Now I have a house that I may or may not flip. I can only work for a few hours a day and I come home hot, tired and sometimes needing minor first aid. I’m waiting for the sun to go down as I write this so I can clean out the back of the truck and make way for tomorrows debris.

 I loved working on houses, but I have promised my husband I would not buy anymore home to work on.  You notice I said, to work on, I pray my next home will be finished and I can relax in my retirement…if there is such a thing. So one more thing that I loved to do is gone by the wayside.

I’m still a foodie and yesterday I baked an oatmeal cake that had chocolate in it.  That was the first recipe I had tried with chocolate and it has a coconut and pecan icing on top.  Talk about delicious, Paula Deen would be envious.  Today I helped myself to a small piece of the cake and added Blue Bells new Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream. Its right up there with one of the best desert I have ever tasted.

Looks to me like time has narrowed my choices for Love what you do and do what you love.  I can only pray that I will always have someone to cook for while I’m waiting on a mood to sew.

 

 

Life Lesson

Life Lessons

By

Annette Bergman

I attended a funeral last Wednesday morning and I couldn’t help but wonder when my time comes if I would leave the beautiful memories that this lady left.  Along with the memories she had her own art show at her funeral and one of her best painting had been copied and was on the front of the bulletin for her service.

Her service was among the best I had ever attended and the art work displayed was awesome.  From the drawing she did in her senior year I high school of three sewing projects she brought to life in the form of three well designed outfits. I thought she was a class act from the first minutes I met her.

We left the gathering in a hurry because a storm was on its way.  The storm started before we arrived home.  The wind blew and the rain came down by the buckets.  I had prayed for the rain so I wouldn’t have to water the garden.  So I was glad for the rain.

In no time our power was out and the corn in my garden was flat on the ground.  It was the first time I had planted corn and I delighted in watching it grow from the kitchen window.  It has stated to tassel and I could see corn silks on one small ear of corn.  Now, here it was laying flat on the ground.  There were too many stalks to try and stake them all back up.  So I gave up on the corn…just like I do on a lot of things.  I felt beat and I felt flat.

  I had lost a friend a couple of weeks back and I think the funeral, losing power to our house for over seven hours and my corn being the only visible evidence of my lost brought me to tears.  I had been suffering in silence over my friend leaving and the storm brought it all to a head.

Two days later the corn started to lift its self towards the sky.  It was as though a sun beam was holding on to each stalk and helping it to stand up straight again.

That was what I needed to see in order to understand that I needed to look up to God and know in my heart that one friend was in heaven and the other one chose to leave for a reason and God would look after my friend too.  I just pray I wasn't the reason.

Shades of Tan by Annette Bergmanwww.annettebergman.c...

Things That Make Me Nuts: Shades of Tan   www.annettebergman.com..: Shades of Tan by Annette Bergman www.annettebergman.com Shouldn't we have some samples of make-up available to try so we can de...

Shades of Tan

Shades of Tan

by

Annette Bergman

www.annettebergman.com

Shouldn't we have some samples of make-up available to try so we can decide which shade looks the most natural on our skin, either in the privacy of our home or with a mirror on a sunny day outside, just in case the light in out bathroom isn't natural?

I know we have all seen the ladies who show up in public looking like they needed a second opinion on their make-up.

Have you ever gone to a discount store hoping to find some make-up that wasn't $1,000 to $1,800. a gallon?  Yes, that is what it sells for per gallon and we don't have the luxury of trying a small sample and some company is collecting so much money and not supplying a small sample for us to try first.

The sad part of it is I try to look at the different shades of tan and there are more than 50 shades of tan.

Then there are at least three to four other ladies right there in the make-up isle trying to discover if one of them will match their skin.  We're all in the same boat because there aren't any samples to try.

Of course, if you're out doors a lot in the summer you need a different shade of tan than in the winter when the sun goes south and all we get up north is a glow.

There we all stand first on one foot and then the other trying to select the right shade of tan, knowing once we purchase a bottle, tube of  some with a pump we can't return it.

It could be the lights in the store or it could be the shadows from the crowd around the make-up section, but regardless of exactly what the problem is, when I get home and apply the new make-up for the first time I always look like I've been embalmed.

I do believe that supplying small samples would probably up the sales of the first make-up company to have them available.  We could take several that were close to our shade of tan and try them in natural light and know for certain what shade to purchase.   I know I would stick to the same brand instead of spending all that time in a store trying to figure it out every few months.

                                    A Pinecone Christmas

                                     By Annette Bergman

When you’re young the meaning of Christmas leans more towards what you get for Christmas instead of, the Reason for the Season.

 As a child I remember going out in the woods to look for a tree for Christmas. I hated having a pine tree for Christmas, I knew there wouldn’t be very much under the tree on Christmas morning, but we were always grateful for what we did get.

  I wanted our Christmas tree to be like other people’s tree. The kind with the pretty flat and full branched. That almost looked silvery sometimes. The pine trees that we had where the candelabra pine and had a minimal number of branched. As they say in the South, “ you could read through it.”

  So I took the path that lead across the marsh to an area that was pretty heavily wooded to look for a cedar tree. Our choices on the Island where just a little better than, take it or leave it, we could have a cedar or a pine, if you could locate a Cedar tree. I had waited until low tide to take the short cut across the marsh. It was a little muddy, but I never mined getting in the marsh mud. I crawled across the large fallen pine tree always careful to watch out for the rattlesnakes, and walked my normal path through the thicket looking for a young cedar tree. I was thrilled to locate one after much searching, and went running back to the house to get my Daddy to come and cut it down.

He grumbled most of the way back, “Couldn’t you find one a little closer to home?” That was just how Daddy was, gruff when he was kidding me. We drug it home and I was really pleased that we would at least have a tree that you couldn’t read through, for Christmas.

  It wasn’t as pretty as I had pictured in my mind, but I was just a kid and I vowed that one-day I would buy my own pretty Christmas tree.

  The Christmas of 1989 I found myself back home with my father for Christmas. Daddy probably remembered how I felt about the pine trees for Christmas, but he never said anything. Neither of us talked much. Daddy was in bad health and when he did say something he would make comments like, "It’s just like having your mother back. You burn everything you cook.”

I had a feeling this could be my father’s last Christmas and he wasn’t in favor of a tree. The thicket had been replaced with homes so I didn’t have to worry about having an ugly pine tree for Christmas.

  Always when I went home, I picked up the pinecones in the vacant lot behind our house and Roy helped me make a Christmas tree out of Pinecones. We turned a tomato cage upside down and started wiring pinecones to it to make our Christmas tree.

 I added colored lights and made bows out of red ribbon and cut up some packing foam and made the squares look like little packages, wrapping them in white and red printed fabric and tied them with a bow.

We sat our tree in front of the double window and plugged in the lights. Daddy said it was the prettiest tree he had ever seen. We even had a neighbor stop and come inside to see the tree she had been admiring in the window.

  It still wasn’t the pretty blue spruce that I had wanted as a child, but I knew the reason for the season and I wanted it to be very special for my Father.

It snowed on Christmas Eve and we had six inches on the ground by Christmas morning. It was the first white Christmas that anyone could remember on Tybee Island. I drove around the island taking pictures, of the white marches, and the partially frozen tide water ponds, the light house grounds covered with snow, so I could show them to my Father.

 I had as many family members as possible to come for Christmas dinner and later that evening after everyone had left. Daddy said. “Today was one of the best Christmas’ I had ever had.”

My father died 17 days later. I’ll never forget the earliest Christmas with the pine tree and the last Christmas I would spend with my father in the same house. I had hated having a pine tree Christmas tree and yet the pine cone tree had been beautiful. Of course, knowing the Reason for the Season can change the vision from within.

 
 

Life’s Shadows

By

Annette Bergman

 

On the anniversary of September 11, 2001 I hope we haven’t forgotten to pray for: the people that were lost, the injured and the ones who have emotional scares that they will be remembering on this day.

As I was taking my evening walk after the attack on our nation, I was reflecting on the past two days:  the torment so many of the people in America were going through in our darkest hour. 

Since the sun had been at my back, I hadn’t noticed that it was an exceptionally bright sunset.  As I turned the corner,  the houses cast long dark shadows on the sidewalk that crossed the street. I was walking in one of the  shadow. In between the houses the sun cast brilliant beams on the bushes and flowers, as thought they were being spotlighted for their final hour of beauty for the day.

I began to think that is how our lives are, sometimes we walk in shadows and sometimes we walk in the brilliant sunlight. As Americans we are accustomed to living in the bright light of our freedom all of the time. 

When bombings, earth quakes, flood and disasters occur in other countries we are some of the first to offer aid.  We watch in horror on television and feel compassion for the unfortunate.

After September 11, 2001, we will always  remember that we no longer take our freedom for granted. We are able to have a deeper compassion for the suffering.

Everyone I have talked to feels a degree of illness after watching the horror of 9/11on television.

We have to keep a watchful eye out for our neighbor next door and be more aware of what is going on around us. We need to be more involved in our neighborhoods.

Right now,  Americans are walking in a dark shadow that has been cast by some evil acts over our country.   But, just as the sun shown in between the houses so will the sunshine in our lives once again. No one can stop the sun from shining on America.

We are a Christian nation. Together we must pray for fellow Americans in New York and in our neighborhoods counting our blessing every day for the life style so many of us have enjoyed living in a free country.

 

Attention Foreclosure Victims

By

Annette Bergman

Real Estate Broker

 

I didn't want to get into political article writing, but I feel like I owe it to my previous profession to let the victims of the foreclosures know how the foreclosures works.

 

I feel like, and I will explain why in this article, that the victims need to band together and sue the government and participating banks, and I believe the citizens will be behind you 100 percent.

 

Now I will explain why.  When a government insurance property goes into foreclosures the government has guaranteed the bank or lender 80 percent of the original SALES price.  For simplicity sake I will use simple figures.  Say you paid $100,000. for your property and put 10 percent down, leaving you a balance of 90,000. at a rate of  8 percent for 25 years.  Your payments were $694.75.  Not including taxes and insurance.  You made payments for 5 years and had your mortgage down, to whatever the balance is.

 

You lost your job so you moved out and let the bank take the house back. The government paid your banker 80,000. dollars and then the bank sold the house for 60,000. They have received 140,000 for the house, plus five years of interest.  Now you have a judgment against you for the difference between the latest sales price and the mortgage balance at the time of the foreclosure they have a judgment against you for the balance.

 

The money the government paid the bank was from us the tax payers.  I believe the 80,000 should have gone towards your balance and the bank should drop your rate and extend your term until such time as you have found a job or your income had increased.

 

My information came from a lady who worked at a title company and told me this is exactly how the foreclosures work.

          Why should the government give the money to the bank to make even more money and put your family on the street?

Anyone have a commit on this?