Retired and Smiling

Welcome to my blog!  Not sure what you are hoping to see, but I can tell you on my site you will see a little bit of a variety of topics. Everybody that knows me, knows I love to talk and I seem to have an opinion about everything.  I am hoping you will find my posts engaging and will come along on this journey of self-revelation to be enlightened, amused, engaged and who knows, maybe provoked.  Let me introduce myself so you can begin to understand what I will bring to my postings.

I am currently retired from teaching elementary education off and on since 1973.  I spent my last 24 years of teaching in a Milwaukee suburban school district called Whitefish Bay.  Later in the blog I will post stories related to my teaching because friends always say “You ought to write a book about all the things you saw as a teacher.”  I started out in Rockford, IL, teaching Special Education in 1973, got married and moved to Ohio, where I continued.  A couple short years later, I separated from my husband and came back to the Midwest, At this point, I left teaching and worked at the home office of Northwestern Mutual and got divorced.  After 5 years, I returned to teaching where I remained until retirement in 2012.

I am a mother of 2 adult sons and became a single parent when they were 1 and 3.  So, again, you will see a lot of future posts about those times.  Being a single parent brought great joy and great fear.  In the early 80’s my youngest son got Stage 4 cancer (he is now 32 years cancer free).  I remember in the early 80’s dealing with a change of job, a move to a new state, a child with cancer and divorce, all within a 9 month period.  I have to say that didn’t kill me, but only made me stronger.

I am an African-American woman who has had issues with my color, forever!!!!  Now mind you, it is not issues about being black, because I absolutely love it.  But rather issues of looking white, although I am NOT bi-racial and having to deal with everything that comes along with that.  I have always struggled with my fit;  blacks assume I am white and have treated me differently and whites assume I am white and say things they would never say knowingly in the presence of a black person.  And I have a zillion future posts relating to all of my experiences growing up, related to that.  One of my blog post headings is “Memory Lane”.  On there, you will find so many of my experiences as a child which has shaped me in who I am now.

I am a strong woman of faith, a believer in Jesus Christ.  I am not ashamed of the gospel but rather gladly shout it from the rooftops. I know firsthand that faith can sustain you and propel you through some of life’s greatest challenges.  I seriously do not know where I would be if it were not for the Lord.  You will find, as you read future posts, I choose to live a joyful life and seek joy.  It certainly is a state of mind that has nothing to do with circumstances, but rather who you put your hope and trust in.  So one on my blog posts will deal with “Blessings” as we go forward.  Keep your eyes open for future postings.

I could go on with more tidbits about me, but I believe you will come to know me in a clearer sense through my future postings.  This is really too much dialogue at this point so I will wrap it up.  One final word, anyone that knows me, also knows, I love to talk politics.  So I will add a blog post “Straight Talk from Pam” on that.  Keep in mind, you don’t have to agree with me.  I am not looking for allies or enemies.  I just want write what I think and let it go.  That will be the beauty of the blog in one sense.  I will be able to free my friends, on Facebook, from dealing with my opinions and you can merely choose not to click on the blog topic if you are not interested.  I think that will work for all of us.

So thanks for reading thus far, and I hope you will choose to take this journey with me as I continue to enjoy being “Retired and smiling”.