The older I get, the more I yearn to know something of our family history. My timing for all this  has turned out to be rather poor. My mother and her siblings passed on years ago. My father is still around, but his long-term memory is not. We recently looked at an old picture album together and I remembered more than he did about relatives I’d never met. After I was born in 1959, I became extremely ill and required a three-week hospitalization. My elderly father had no memory of any of this.

After my Aunt Engie passed away a few years ago, I went through an old shoe box I found buried in her closet and found several photographs from the 1920s and 30s. Sadly, there was no information scribbled on the back of the black and white snapshots. Now I can only make educated guesses as to who these people were.

During the years my children were growing up, I faithfully maintained photo albums, replete with names and dates and places. These many years later, those photo albums are the source of much joy. My oldest daughter Crystal told me recently, “If the house catches fire, and you can only save one thing, save the photo albums first! Everything else can be replaced!”

But what to do with all these early 20th Century photos that I found stuffed in a shoe box? These were my ancestors - I think. These were people my mother and her sister loved - I think.

Back in the day, photographs required an investment of time, effort and money. Photos were reserved for important days and special events. Who were these people? And what were the stories? All I know is that these pictures were taken in Rockford, Illinois (early 20s) and then sometime in 1925 or 1926, my grandfather (Edward Brown) moved his children to Alameda, California.

I wish I knew more.

The only person I recognize in this photo is my late mother (center on bottom row).

This is a photo of my mother (youngest girl) with her sister (Engie) and older brother Harry.

This is probably a picture of my maternal grandmother with her first son, Harry. It was probably taken in early 1910s.

Mom (the younger girl) and Aunt Engie with unknown person, perhaps a nanny?

Unknown person at unknown house in unknown place (house is late 1910s or early 20s)

I believe this is my Uncle Harry with his father (my maternal grandfather).

So reads a large advertisement in the 1912 issue of American Carpenter and Builder. I own a number of these architectural magazines from the early 1900s and the majority of advertisers offered products with a connection to the new and modern building miracle:  Concrete.

In 1867, Parisian gardener Joseph Monier was awarded a patent for reinforced concrete, which is concrete with embedded metal.

By the early 1900s, concrete became a hot item in the building trade. The rear pages of American Carpenter and Builder were filled with concrete products and concrete dry mixes and concrete mixers and concrete block makers. Concrete was big money. One of its biggest selling points was the fact that concrete was fireproof. In a time when fire was one of the great threats facing city residents and farm owners alike, creating a fireproof building was a big selling point.

As someone who loves to read old architectural magazines, I thought I’d seen it all - until I found this ad for concrete pine boxes. The ad promises, “Wooden boxes are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.”

Uh, it’s been almost 100 years since that statement was made and it hasn’t proven true.  “Wooden boxes” still abound.

I’d love to know how many contractors made money selling concrete caskets during the slow seasons of their building business.

Concrete pine boxes offer big profits (from 1912 American Carpenter and Builder Magazine)

Conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can. - Mary Baker Eddy

In the 1995 remake of the movie A Little Princess, there’s a scene where Miss Minchin, the black-hearted school marm, is confronted by Sara (the little princess). With an astonishing measure of boldness, Sara tells Miss Minchin that she is a princess and that all girls are princesses regardless of their station in life, their physical appearance, their intelligence or even their age. With innocent eyes, Sara stares into Miss Minchin’s hardscrabble face and asks her, “Didn’t your father ever tell you that? Didn’t he?”

Judging by the look in Miss Minchin’s eyes, she never heard those words or even that sentiment expressed by dear old Dad. And judging by the current epidemic of low self-esteem among women, I’d venture to guess that most of today’s fathers follow the parenting model of Miss Minchin’s dad, rather than Sara’s.

I have four basic theories regarding beauty and self-esteem, and the first is The Little Princess Theory of Beauty.

You are miles ahead of most of us if you were raised on a steady diet of compliments and kind words. Bonus points for hearing these compliments and kind words from a man with an important position in your life.  If your father (or a suitable alternate) told you that you were beautiful, you’re going to act, feel and behave like someone who is beautiful.

The self-confidence that has its roots in childhood is like the tap-root of an old, established tree, which in time, has grown down to the water table. Such a tree will not be adversely affected by the summer’s heat or prolonged drought or the other storms of life. Self-confidence that’s nurtured and developed in the early years is a powerful, enduring quality that lives on, completely independent of the mean-spirited opinion of others.

If I were queen of the world (and it shouldn’t be long now), I’d tell all the fathers of the world this one thing: “You possess the ability to make your daughter - your little girl - feel good and confident about herself and you wield a powerful influence over her ability to attract a desirable partner. Further, the man that she selects as her life partner - good, bad or horrific - will be determined largely by your words and actions. You’re teaching her what kind of man she should select, accept, or settle for. You have the potential to make her adult life perfectly lovely or unspeakably hellish. Open your eyes and your heart before you open your mouth and think about the far-reaching implications of your word choices.”

Read the rest of Rose’s book here.

In 1912, this vehicle (see photo below) was apparently considered “modern” transportation. It was offered by International Harvester and it was promoted as a device for “saving time” and tooling around town.

The solid-rubber wheels offered two benefits: One, as the ad promised, there’d never be a “blow out.”

The other benefit was the molar-jarring ride that’d jiggle you senseless and probably leave the badly bounced rider in a mental state that was akin to a bad trip on LSD. Perhaps this 1912 International Scooter with its hard-rubber wheels and ultra-primitive suspension system are the very source of that phrase, “bad trip.“  (Those of us who are less than 60 years old and riding around happily on our Michelin Tires don’t realize that there’s a reason that old cars carried TWO spare tires! Early tires were extremely unreliable and suffered catastrophic failure and blow outs on a regular basis.)

But I digress. This interesting “vehicle” (and I use that term loosely) was promoted as an “international auto wagon.” Now I realize that the name “International” is part of the company’s title, but labeling this inter-farm transportation device with the heavy moniker “international” is generous to say the least. I doubt this vehicle saw much service on rough country roads. I *know* it couldn’t traverse the seven seas.

Nice wheels

We’ve broken a record in Norfolk. A bad record. We’re not far from breaking the 1889 record of 70 inches of rain in one year. And hey - we got three weeks to go!

We had more torrential downpours last night. And then more rain in the wee hours.

This morning, I arose at 4:30 to get some writing work done. I went out to my sunporch and heard the plop, plop, plop of a leaky roof splashing raindrops onto my beige carpet. So then I had the husband run around and fetch plastic buckets and containers for the SEVEN places that were dripping water.

I ran upstairs and out to the sunporch ROOF (which is flat) and wearing my jammies, I went out on the roof (barefoot), got down on my hands and knees and bent over the edge of the sunporch roof in the POURING rain and cleaned out the gutters. When the gutters get too full, the water rises up behind the flat-roof’s flashing (bent over into the gutters) and then - thanks to that little miracle we call “gravity - flows merrily into the sunporch ceiling. The low spot on the sunporch ceiling is in the center, so that’s where it drips.

While I was up above - traipsing to and fro on this black rubber roof - my bare feet hit a slick patch of black rubber roofing (at 4:30 am keep in mind) and that sent me slip-sliding across the roof. In that split second, as the roof’s edge came closer and closer, I thought, “Great. This is how it all ends. The architectural historian slides off the flat sunroof of her own 1924-built Colonial Revival at 4:30 in the morning, with green-handled salad tongs in one hand and a blue Mag-light in the other.”

However, I survived that event.

Then hubby came out in the darkness and held the flashlight for me while I cleaned partially decomposed leaf matter and acorns and twigs and squiggly pink worms out of 35 linear feet of gutters in the pouring rain while wearing my jammies.

About 20 minutes later, I came back inside, drenched to the bone, and put on clean jammies and dry socks.

At 10:30 am, another torrential downpour clogged up the gutters again. This time, I went out with my drill motor and my hammer. I was going to fix those *&#^ gutters once and for all. I drilled about 129 half-inch holes in the gutters and then using the hammer, I *beat* the downspout off the gutter. I could *see* the problem - the downspouts were clogged with all manner of debris, but everytime I jammed my hand down into the downspout’s elbow, I only made matters worse, because when I pulled my hand *out* of the downspout, the razor-sharp sheet metal screws removed a little more downspout-clogging organic matter from my right hand.

I saw someone driving by on the street slow down to watch this amazing show. I am quite sure I looked like a mad woman. That’s because I *felt* like a mad woman.

At this point, if I’d had access to 13 sticks of dynamite I would have used all of them to blow those sunporch gutters to aluminum-gutter hell, where they surely belonged.

Again, when I re-entered the bedroom (where you access the sunporch roof) I was soaked through and through. As I walked toward the bathroom to peel off soaked clothes, I muttered, “Those gutters won’t hurt anyone now.”

I washed my hands in the bathroom and they burned from the death of a thousand cuts. Forcing my large hands into the downspouts’ mouth again and again and again left me with a right hand that resembled an uncooked rump roast. I focused on something other than pain and wondered if it’s possible to go into shock from having 83 small slices on one hand.

So I went back to my work and then I realized I need some boxes to ship books to people overseas. I went downstairs to my basement (where we store boxes) and as I descended the steps, I saw one of my boxes gently floating by at the foot of the stairs, like a cardboard gondola (sans gondolier).

My basement has five inches of standing water and a POS sump pump with a lot of ’splaining to do. Remembering the MANY extension cords we’d draped throughout the basement floor (to run fans and humidifiers after the last GREAT FLOOD - two weeks ago), I decide to not step into the potentially electrically charged water.

Instead, I pause and don my husband’s insulated rubber-sole boots and then courageously step off the basement steps and into Lake Colonial Revival. Nothing sparks or zaps and if I have just died instantly from an electric shock, it happened so fast that I have no conscious memory of it, so it’s all good. Perhaps with this one great step, I’ve walked right into eternity and never even knew it. I wonder if this is the case. However, I don’t see Mother anywhere nearby so I figure I’m still among the living and walk over to the sump pump.

Once at the sump pump, I give it a good swift kick in the float and it roars to life. Forty minutes later, we’re down to 1/2″ of water. Using my water-puddle-rapid-movement-device (something I used to call a broom), I sweep a little more recalcitrant water into the sump and then I notice that the formerly dry spots in the basement are wet again. The basement is refilling itself with an endless supply of flood water.

At this point, I call my husband and tell him, “I’m leaving. Don’t know when or if I’m coming back, but I’m leaving. I’m off to find dry ground and a dry house with beige carpet that doesn’t squish when I walk across it and gutters that don’t channel rain water into my office space where I store boxes and boxes of early 20th Century irreplaceable documents. If I come back with an olive branch, you’ll know I was successful. If not, it’s been nice knowing you.”

Long day. And I just got back home. He reported that the basement refilled after I left.

It’s nuts I tell you - just nuts. Our basement hasn’t flooded since 1924. An old man built our house in 1924 and he built it on its own tall hill. And yet - we flooded. Second time in 87 years. And the first time was two weeks ago.

Anyone got a rubber room I can borrow for a few weeks? I might need it…

As most single women know, there are a lot of rules for dating, and those “rules” are probably one of the reasons that I had 70 first dates. For instance, a girl should never call a fellow. In fact, when the fellow calls, the girl should ignore him for a time until he becomes more desperate. That’s just the way men are wired. They need to chase. They like to win. It’s a testosterone thing.

Wrong. Wrong, Wrong.

It was these so-called rules that about drove me to drink.  And trying to follow those rules - trying to play a part that wasn’t true to my nature was emotional torture, with extra heapings of misery and angst. It wasn’t until I was ready to abandon those rules that my life became sweeter, simply and above all, authentic.

When I stopped playing games, when I stopped following all the so-called advice, my life turned a corner. And when I found a man that I admired and respected, I chased him like a dog running after a bus.

Women do not need another “how to find a good man” book with more advice on how they should “act.” If you invest your best energies in being real and authentic, there’ll be no need to devote any energy to acting. My friend Pamela was right when she told me, “Exude confidence and peace and joy and men will sense it. Inner beauty really does magnetize.”

In Gloria Steinem’s book,  Revolution From Within, she wrote, “As many women can testify [getting a man to fall in love with you] is alarmingly easy, provided you’re willing to play down who you are and play up who he wants you to be” (p. 264).

She goes on to explain why her marriage, which had been based on playing a part that wasn’t true to herself, ultimately failed.

“Having got this man to fall in love with an inauthentic me, I had to keep on not being myself.”

Current dating wisdom is very focused on getting a man to fall in love with you, even if it means that you have to bind and gag your very soul. Such a relationship is not only unsustainable, but is usually misery for all parties involved, and always miserable for the woman who’s putting on the show. And these mental games take up an enormous amount of space on our emotional hard-drive. Been there, done that, and have the t-shirt, wet with tears.

If you want to glow with a warm, sincere luminosity that has the potential to be irresistible to all men with two brain lobes to rub together, visit that land (or that time) when you were real.

Remember the children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit? The wizened old Skin Horse was the real hero in that story and he also had the secret to success in internet dating.

The Skin Horse told Rabbit, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Beauty - true beauty - is about being real. It’s about becoming the real person that our Creator intended us to be.

Or as the poet Robert Browning said, “No need to make yourself over. Just make the best of what God has made.”

Be real. Be authentic. And ignore those rules.

Worked for me.

Next:  Good Christian Man Wants Good Christian Woman for Friday Night Booty Call!

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When I finally abandoned all the "rules" for women and dating, in short, when I became authentic and real, I found true love.

When reading men’s profiles, you need to learn to read between the lines. It’s a lot like looking at the real estate ads in the Sunday paper. The advertisement might read, “Cozy cottage in the woods that needs a little TLC,” but you understand immediately that it’s actually a hunter’s shack with a dirt floor and a privy out back.

Salesmen often engage in a little puffery when promoting their product and nowhere is that more evident than when we’re selling ourselves to a romantic partner.

In that spirit, here are some of the phrases you’ll often find in men’s profiles. Following each phrase is its honest interpretation.

I prefer slender women. I don’t care if you’ve had a frontal lobotomy and drool out both corners of your mouth, as long as my drinking buddies get jealous when they see us together.

Hey, I’m a guy. Looks matter. You’ll be replaced as soon as the new sleek models hit the street.

I prefer women with a little meat on their bones. I weigh 1200 pounds and haven’t left my bedroom in seven years.

I’ve lived alone for a time but now I’m ready to share my life with someone special. I don’t know how to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.

I’m financially secure. I just made the final payment on the Yugo.

My home is spacious and beautiful but so very empty. If you’ll come live with me, I’ll give you money.

I’m recently widowed. I haven’t found the pots and pans yet.

Intelligent, powerful women are a real turn-on. At least one of us should have a real job.

I don’t have a subscription on this site, so please include your email address when you write to me. For our first date, I was hoping you’d meet me at the Quickie Mart, pump number seven.

I feel strongly that women should be treated as equals.  Be sure to bring your wallet on our first date because you’re paying for your dinner.

Looking for a woman who is down to earth and practical. And willing to live off the grid in an isolated mountaintop cabin in the pacific northwest.

Looking for someone who wants to spoil her man. I wouldn’t be at this site if I could teach the dog how to open the fridge and fetch me a cold one.

I have been to college but I didn’t get my degree. One time, I made out with a girl in the parking lot at the local community college.

I’ve had an interesting and varied life experience. They let me out for good behavior after serving only six years and four months.

Looking for a real woman. My inflatable doll sprang a leak.

I’d like to have a partner so that we can work toward common goals. Behind every successful man is an exhausted woman and I’d like you to be my exhausted woman.

My children are my first priority. You’ll fall somewhere between the dog and my favorite remote control.

I’m new to this country. And desperately in need of a green card.

I’m currently separated. And looking around to see if I can find someone better before I give this one up.

My home needs a woman’s touch. The maggot eggs in the kitchen will be hatching soon if someone doesn’t get in there and do some cleaning.

I’m just a regular guy who needs some loving. And I’m sick and tired of paying for it.

Next: Read Rose’s “Little Princess Theory of Beauty” here.

Want to read Rose’s book? Click here!

When I hear the word “Grandmother,” I think of two people:  Grandma Walton and Grandma Joyce . The first is from the popular TV show, The Waltons and the second example is from my own life: My ex-husband’s mother.

The Waltons premiered in September 1972 when I was 13 years old. I adored television shows about family and like millions of others, The Waltons fast became one of my all-time favorites. And Grandpa and Grandma Walton were my two favorite characters.

Did those kids know how lucky they were to have a grandma and grandpa that loved them unconditionally and that was a constant presence in their lives? Maybe they did. With my powerful imagination, I sandwiched myself into the Walton clan, somewhere between Mary Ellen and Jason, and wondered what it’d be like to be ensconced by the love of extended family.

Before I was born, my father moved his wife and their two sons 3000 miles due east from their native California. He left behind his parents and her parents and countless aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins. Before I was born, my maternal grandparents died. When I was in my mid-30s, my paternal grandparents died. I’d seen them three times in my life, and the sum total of those visits could be measured in hours.

When my first child was born, I was a little surprised to see my mother-in-law showing up at the house several times a week, and more often than not, she was bearing presents such as clothing, food and toys. When the second baby came 16 months later, Grandma Joyce was still appearing regularly and at this point, I’d grown to love her and appreciate her in a whole new way. Seven years later, a surprise baby came and Grandma Joyce acted like it was the first baby she’d ever seen and the gifts and clothing and food and toys came with a renewed vigor.

One Christmas, as Grandma Joyce and her husband (Grandfather) sat in awe watching “our” three perfect daughters dig into the Christmas loot. I looked away from the kids for a moment and saw Grandma Joyce and Grandfather staring at the girls and grinning from ear to ear.

“This is what it’s like,” I thought to myself, “to have a grandmother who adores you.” And just basking in the glow of the love she felt for this kids was a delightful, powerful and heavenly experience.

“My mother would have adored you,” my own mother frequently told me. “She loved little girls and she was such a lot like you, a gentle, sensitive soul. She would have fallen in love with you the first moment she laid eyes on you. I wish she could have met you.”

So do I.

Click here to read more from Rose.

Grandma Joyce gets Annie ready for Sunday School (1983)

Grandma Joyce and Annie heading out to Sunday School

My mother standing beside her mother (Flossie) about 1938

These “happy holidays” can be hard on people who are already struggling day to day with isolation and loneliness. And this time of year can be extra tough on the freshly divorced.

In 2002, after my divorce, I lived alone for the first time in my 43 years of life. And one of the harshest surprises of this new solo experience was the soul-crushing pain of loneliness. I lived alone. I worked from home (alone) and I ate alone and I slept alone. Many days passed when I didn’t see another human face. Work kept me busy and distracted most days but the holidays presented a special challenge.

In 2004, I gave a lecture in Muncie, Indiana. It was a small group and a lovely gathering. After the lecture, an older woman came up to me and started chatting with me. I told her my mother had died in 2002 and that I still missed her.

“She always insisted that I call her when traveling and let her know that I’d arrived safely,” I told the elderly woman who looked back at me with the sweet smile and understanding eyes. “But now there’s no one to call now. I just sit in my hotel room and stare at the phone, wishing I could talk to her one more time.”

“I know about loneliness,” the elderly woman said quietly. “I know how it feels to realize that there’s no-one waiting for you at home and no one expecting your call. I know all about that.”

Her words touched my soul.

After my first post-divorce holiday, my daughter Crystal told me what she’d learned about loneliness while working during the holidays at a video rental store.

“On Thanksgiving  Day and Christmas Day, there are two kinds of people who rent videos,” she told me. “There are the smiling parents with the happy kids bouncing around their feet, looking for a video that’ll keep the kids entertained for a couple hours. And then there are the desperately lonely souls, whose number one goal is getting through the day without slashing their wrists. They can hardly bear to make eye contact.

“When I see them at my register, loaded down with enough videos to keep their brain turned off for eight hours, I don’t want to twist the knife by wishing them a ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ or ‘Merry Christmas.’ I just bag up their videos and say, ‘Thank you.’”

Before my divorce, I was clueless about this massive culture of loneliness. I had no idea how frightening and depleting loneliness could be.

Now I understand.

Next:  Real beauty, true love and The Velveteen Rabbit.

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When my husband and I first met and started sharing those many detailed stories about our lives, he told me about his mother. He said that she’d passed on Christmas 1992.

“You mean, she passed on around Christmas time?” I asked.

“She didn’t answer her phone when I called her on Christmas Day,” he told me. “The next day, I drove to Richmond to check on her. When I got to her apartment, I found her there. She’d died some time around the 25th.”

His story had a familiar ring. I’d found my mother - unconscious in her apartment - on Christmas Day 2001. We called the ambulance and we rushed off to the hospital. She never regained consciousness and passed on a few days later.

In Christmases past, my mother often talked about her mother. When my mother was in her early 30s, her mom had passed on.

“It’s been almost 50 years since I saw her,” she told me one time. “But what if for her, this passage of five decades is like me stepping into the kitchen right now to get a snack while you wait on the couch? What if the long wait is only from my perspective? I hope that’s how it is. I know she misses me. I don’t want to think of her missing me for 50 years.”

“You know what Einstein said about time?” I asked her. “He said that ‘to those of us that are committed physicists the past, present and future are only illusion, however persistent.’

“In other words, time is really a human construct and it’s an illusion.”

She seemed comforted by this explanation.

Now I’m the one wondering about all those same things. Is time just an illusion? I suspect that it is. Our eyes see a sliver of the light spectrum, our ears hear only a sliver on the sound spectrum, so it seems probable that we’re only seeing a sliver of the reality of this dimension of time.

Those are the hypothetical arguments. What I do know - beyond any doubt - is that sometimes, I miss my dear mother more than ever.

Click here to learn more about Rose.

My mother (Betty Fuller) and her mother (Flossie Appleby) in the late 1930s.

Yahoo news is reporting this morning that a man has been arrested for accosting his wife’s face with a cheeseburger. During a heated argument, the man lost his temper and began smearing a greasy cheeseburger over her face. Apparently, it erupted into a full-fledged food fight.

Read the short article here.

As a writer, I tend to pay way too much attention to non-verbal communication. And many sensitive souls - like me - are guilty of this, too. In fact, the experts say that 70% of all communication is non-verbal. I’ve noticed that when I see wedding videos and/or attend the weddings in person, that there are two kinds of men: The kinds of men who gently feed their wives their first bite of wedding cake, and the men who think that a woman’s wedding day is a swell time to act stupid and cram that cake into her face, embarrassing her, embarrassing himself, and proving to his friends and family that his new wife just married a real horse’s ass.

When did we lose our manners? When did we stop behaving well in public? And when did men get license to start treating their brand-new wives so unattractively at such an important moment?

I have observed that there’s an interesting semi-scientific insight that comes with the “feeding of the wedding cake.” Those men who do the cram often end up divorced. Those men who do the gentle feed, remain married.

Coincidence?

Nope.

Click here to learn more about Rose.

My 70th first date and I agreed to meet on a Saturday morning at a coffee shop in downtown Portsmouth. His profile had caught my attention because his photo showed him in a green flannel shirt. I have a thing for men in flannel shirts. And he had a beard. I’ve always had a thing for men with beards.

I arrived at the coffee shop about 30 minutes early. While I was sitting there waiting for Mr. Green Flannel, an email arrived from an old friend. He offered to fly to Virginia and spend a week with me. He missed me and I missed him. We had been very dear friends for a time but our friendship had never sailed into the great beyond of romantic bliss. I was in the midst of a lonely spell and in response to his generous email, I wrote, “Please come soon and fast. I’m so lonely. I need you.”

But I hesitated.

What if Mr. Green Flannel was The One, the last first date? Shouldn’t I give this the old college try before giving up hope? I saved the email in my computer’s drafts folder. As I was sitting there thinking about all this, my last first date walked through the door.

He was shorter than I thought. Or maybe the doorway to the old building was unusually high. He was wearing a green plaid flannel shirt, clean blue jeans and a belt with a West Virginia buckle. West Virginia’s upper-most hinterlands were hidden underneath his muffin top. He was grinning. And he was cute as a button.

“You must be Rose,” he said with that enchanting West Virginian drawl.

“I am. And you must be Wayne.”

I managed to rise to my feet without falling over. A good start.

“Nice to meet you,” he replied through perfectly aligned teeth.

He was way too relaxed. He appeared to be someone who actually enjoyed dating. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. Did that indicate good self-esteem (a plus) or a smarmy familiarity with the ladies (a big negative)? His body language suggested he was comfortable and planning to have a splendid time. He looked both relaxed and alert. He seemed happy and eager to get to know this newest offering from the internet dating world.

We sat down together and engaged in the idle chatter that is the on-ramp to meaningful dialogue on a first date.

Less than 15 minutes into the date, my well-honed listening skills failed me. I gazed into his kind eyes and looked at his pretty red lips and wondered if he knew how to kiss a woman. His beard was also very distracting. He had a beautiful silver beard with a few remnants of the original red and brown. It was a really, really good beard. It was a very manly beard. And there were a gray chest hairs sprouting from his open shirt. A manly man with a manly beard and manly chest hair.

Read the rest of the story here.

Mr. Green Flannel (aka my 70th first date) and his pipe

Hordes of people have asked me, “Why do you think of yourself as ugly?”

The fact is, I don’t.

However, during my years in the world of internet dating, at least 30 men (out of 70) rejected me because (they said) they didn’t feel “chemistry” or I didn’t have “The Look.” This is really an indelicate way of saying, “You’re not pretty enough for me.”

I chose the title (Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating) because I have met *SO* many women who gave up on internet dating because of men’s ugly comments to them. The hits on their self-esteem were persistent and unrelenting. Ultimately, these women just threw in the towel and gave up their dream of life-long pair-bonding and decided to get another cat. I understand their pain.

My book is not about ugly women. It’s about the fact that in this internet dating culture, women are judged first and foremost by their thumbnail profile picture, often to the exclusion of all else. And what can you really learn about someone’s character, spirituality, maturity or goodness by looking at ¾” picture?

Nothing.

Like most women, I’m “average” looking (hence, the term). And in the process of these 70 first dates, I became disgusted with the fact that these men were only interested in women who had “the look.”

So I did a little experiment.

Continued at, “Why do you think of yourself as “ugly”? (Part II)

Buy the book here.

continued from part I.

Like most women, I’m “average” looking (hence, the term). And in the process of these 70 first dates, I became disgusted with the fact that these men were only interested in women who had “the look.”

Out of pure curiosity, I conducted a little experiment. With my daughter’s permission, I posted an ad at an internet dating site, using her beautiful headshots. Her “ad” (profile) was carefully written, and made it clear that she was high maintenance and had serious gold-digger leanings.

Within 24 hours, she had more than 20 emails. By the end of the first week, she had 75 emails from 75 men, pleading for a response. Within 30 days, she had received more than 250 letters from men (ages 25 to 62) who were begging to meet her.

Many men’s emails explained they had “plenty of money, a fine house” and blah, blah, blah. Their message was like saying, “You have plenty of beauty; I have plenty of money. We’re a perfect match.”

That made me angry.

Internet dating is only a little different from posting your picture at “Rate My Face dot com” and asking strangers to rate you on a score of 1-10. If you’re a ten, you get a few emails. If you’re a five (like me) you get six emails in 90 days.

I found the whole process to be hard and harsh and it did a number of my self-esteem. I did have a happy ending, but mainly from what I learned about myself and men. I learned that the opinions of others really do not matter.

And I found myself a nice guy, too. He’s good and decent and kind and patient. And he has a job and he doesn’t sniff gasoline and he doesn’t have any addictions and he loves me with his whole heart. And he tells me that I’m his “eight-cow wife.”

Learn more here.

During the four years that I dwelt in the land of internet dating, I learned a few things about single men and internet dating. Actually, I learned a *lot* of things and the most important “red flags” are delineated below.

Red Flag #1:  Three Strike Rule. If a man mentions the ex more than three times during any one event, he’s out. The opposite of love is not hate (or obsession), but apathy. If a man can’t stop talking about the ex, it usually means that he’s not over her yet.

Red Flag #2:  If a man is mean, run away fast.  It doesn’t matter how much good a man does or how good he makes you feel; if he has a vicious side, that viciousness will taint everything and can ruin anything. Any man who shows a vicious side must be exorcised from your heart, mind and soul. There is no counterbalance to viciousness.

Red Flag #3:  Watch out, sheepies! Some of the most treacherous and lecherous wolves you’ll meet are the men who claim to wear the garment of a Christian. The most dangerous evil in this world is the evil that sneaks into our lives disguised as something good. To learn more, read Chapter Four in my book titled, “Good Christian Man Seeks Good Christian Woman for Friday Night Booty Call.” The chapter title says it all.

Red Flag #4:  Do not trust your body and soul to a man who has not proven himself worthy of trust. It is inappropriate (and immature) for a man to pressure a woman to have sex before she feels emotionally ready. Studies show that casual sex can lead to serious depression and even suicidal ideation.

Red Flag #5:  If a man uses vitriol and contempt and ugly words to describe a woman that he once cherished and loved, he’ll eventually use those same words to accost you.

Red Flag #6: Time in the wilderness. If a man from a long-term marriage has been divorced less than two years, he’s probably not ready for a new relationship. The severance from such emotional and spiritual ties takes time to heal.

Red Flag #7: Childless fathers. If a man is able to sever ties with his own flesh and blood, that doesn’t bode well for his potential as a future mate. Ditto on men who don’t pay child support.

Red Flag #8: Watch out for married men at dating sites. Most studies show that about 20% of the male subscribers at internet dating sites are married men. Be wise and be alert that too many men are not honest about their marital status.

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Next:  Eharmony vs. Match.com - which is better?

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Somewhere around the 29th first date, I’d figured out that meeting for drinks was a far better plan than meeting for lunches and dinners. Get stuck with a ne’er-do-well on a dinner date and you’re committed to chow down 2,000 calories of fat-laden Shrimp Scampi just so you can make a fast get-away. Too many calories, too much money and way too much time invested in some pitiful man who’s got 101 equally boring stories, all of which begin or end with, “My ex-wife is such a crazy witch…”

But then I discovered that meeting for “drinks” presented its own problems because people usually meet at bars when they’re meeting for drinks. I’m highly allergic to cigarette smoke and it’s hard to be your best charming self when you’re busy trying to surreptitiously sniffle and/or wipe a drippy nose on the cuff of your pretty shirt. Further, I don’t drink alcohol, and I don’t like bars. Being around drunken sots is a lot more fun if you’re one of the sots. Or so I’ve surmised.

So then I started meeting a few guys at public places. I met a couple fellows at parks and I met two guys at a local library. Meeting at the city park was nice and gave both me and Mr. Potential Suitor a chance to walk and talk and admire nature’s beauty. Meeting at the library wasn’t such a good idea. It’s hard to be clever and cute when you’re forced to keep your voice to a whisper.

In the end, I discovered the best meet and greet places were little cafes and coffee shops and outdoor restaurants. For  these quixotic quests, such places were quiet and quaint, just right for a quirky girl, like me.

And in fact, that’s where I met my 70th first date. And while I was impressed with so many of #70’s fine qualities, perhaps the one that impressed me most of all:  He never said anything ugly about his ex-wife or ex-girlfriends.

Once a year, we go back to that coffee shop and sit in the same spot and drink the same drinks and hold hands and gaze into one another’s eyes. It’s wholly delightful.

And so many people have asked me, “Why do you think of yourself as ugly?”

The short answer is, I don’t.

However,  during my years in the world of internet dating, at least two dozen men rejected me because (they said)  they didn’t feel “chemistry” or I didn’t have “The Look.” As most experienced female daters know, this is a frightfully indelicate way of saying, “You’re not pretty enough for my tastes.”

I chose the title of my book with much forethought and care. And I chose the word “ugly” because I know so many women who gave up on internet dating after experiencing the persistent and ruthless assault on their self-esteem. The book, in fact, is not about ugly women, per se.

It’s about the fact that in this internet dating culture, women are judged first and foremost by their thumbnail profile picture, often to the exclusion of all else. That’s what it’s really about.

And what can you really learn about someone’s character, integrity, maturity or goodness by looking at ¾” picture?

Nothing.

Back in the day, we met through church gatherings, the workplace, social organizations or common friends. And in those settings, you could really learn about a person; their likes and dislikes, their integrity and behavior and intellect and capabilities.  And that’s a far better way to get to know someone.

For years and years, we taught our children that one should never judge a book by its cover, yet now we’ve created a system of pair-bonding that does just that. During the time that I was dating, I felt like I was being browsed. I wanted to find a man that’d decide I was worth more than a cursory glance at my “cover.” I wanted to be studied.

And ultimately, I found that man. As I look at this experience in the rear-view mirror, I feel sympathy for my women  friends who did not have the courage or resolve to endure as much rejection as I endured. Finding a suitable mate shouldn’t be so rife with heart-ache, disappointment and rejection. Unfortunately, for the less-than-beautiful woman, internet dating is no fun whatsoever.

And all because - it would appear - that society has taught men that women should be judged by their cover.

In 2006,  I moved into Mr. E’s home. He’d been a favorite teacher in high school and we’d stayed in touch through the years. In 2004, his beloved wife died. By 2006, I was divorced and short on funds and wanted to relocate to the East Coast. Mr. E. was gracious enough to invite me to live in his home until I got settled and found a new home in Virginia.

Not two weeks after moving in with Mr. E., I had my 70th first date. I’m happy to report that it was also my *last* first date, and less than 90 days after that first date, we were engaged to be married. I invited Mr. E. to sit on the front row at our wedding, alongside our family members. He was happy to have a ringside seat.

But I worried a lot about Mr. E. He was alone in that great big house of his and he didn’t like being alone. I visited him from time to time but it was different. However, he never complained. About a year after I was married, Mr. E (now in his 80s) met Mrs. E. She’d been widowed for several years and they attended the same church and had a lot in common. After a few months, these two folks fell in love and decided it was time to tie the knot. And the good news was, Mrs. E. wouldn’t even have to change the monogram on her towels and dinner napkins. She was good to go.

This Thanksgiving, Mr. and Mrs. E. (now married 10 months), joined us for a Thanksgiving feast. It was nice to see Mr. E. so happy. And it was nice to know that sometimes people still meet and fall in love - without any help whatsoever from the internet.

Thanksgiving Dinner at our home

In the 1930s, The “Monitor-top Refrigerator” quickly became one of General Electric’s most popular appliances. Its design was based on a sound principle and a highly efficient plan: The compressor sat atop the fridge, and heat extracted from the appliance cabinet naturally moved up and away from the refrigerator.

According to all reports, these were also unusually well-built appliances, with a life expectancy of 25 years - or more. Today, appliance aficionados are always on the look-out for these vintage refrigerators, because with a little work and a few new parts, they can be restored to their original condition and live on - indefinitely.

Heretofore, no one has created a reproduction Monitor Top refrigerator which is a surprise, especially consider how hot these used appliances have become. A thoroughly restored three-door Monitor Top fridge (fully restored) can fetch $10,000 or more.  For more information and detail on these appliances, click here.

When I was researching The Houses That Sears Built, I read 32 years of American Carpenter and Builder, a popular building magazine of the early 1900s. Whilst studying its pages, I found an ad for a Monitor Cupola and a few bells rang in my tired brain. Was this where the “Monitor Top” fridge got its name? The resemblance between this Monitor Cupola and the GE’s compressor was sound. I’ve googled all the terms I can think to google and yet to no avail. I love to know - is this the source of the moniker Monitor-top?

Update: A friend found a link explaining that monitor-top GE refrigerators got their name from the iron-clad Monitor Ship from The Civil War. Maybe that’s where Monitor Cupolas got their name?

Want to read more about Rose? Click here.

Ad from 1915 building magazine showing Monitor vent

An image from a 1930 magazine, showing the GE Monitor Top

Full ad from a 1930 magazine

There’s a wonderful book titled, “The Good Old Days, They Were Awful!” It’s an interesting book with many stories of how life “back in the day” was not all peaches and cream. I agree with that - to an extent - but there were some bonuses to life back then. However, as far as issues of sanitation, we’re miles ahead of our ancestors who lived in the early 1900s.

Here’s an ad from the American Carpenter and Builder Magazine, from 1912. (Story continues below photos.)

1912 American Carpenter and Builder ad

Close up of the modern toilet

Take a better look at this contraption. In short, the (ahem) “human waste products” were dropped into a steel box directly under your house (aka basement or foundation). After a time, you’d stir the (ahem) contents in this box and add chemicals a couple times a week.  See the handle beside the toilet (on the floor)?  That’s your stirrer. And see the large pipe behind the toilet? In a perfect world, that’s a vent pipe that directs odors out of the living space. In a perfect world.

I suppose for those who were accustomed to donning warm shoes and making the long trek to the outhouse in the backyard, this “chemical toilet” was better. I suppose.  But in the real world, that thing must have stunk to high heaven. And what poor soul was charged with crawling under the house and cleaning out the box twice a year?

I love studying the good old days and I love writing about the good old days. However, when I finally learn how to travel back in time, I think I’ll take my modern plumbing with me.

Take a look at this “modern” tub. The picture below is from a 1925 American Builder, a very popular trade magazine of that era. Now I suppose on the face of it, this “combo unit” is a swell idea but c’mon, really?

The best part of a hot shower is relaxing and letting your mind drift away to a happy place. In this shower (see photo below), you’d darn well better keep your mind on the task at hand. It’s hard to imagine that any builder ever thought that this was a swell idea. And more to the point, if such a thing were offered today, it’d come with enough bright-red legally-worded warning labels to wallpaper the most spacious bathroom.

Speaking as someone who loves old houses, I’d love to know - anyone ever see one of these in real life in residential construction? Apparently, there were 60 of these put into the Mira Mar Hotel in Chicago, Illinois on Woodlawn. A quickie search on Google shows that the hotel was still in business in 1951, but I couldn’t find any more information.

Ad from a 1925 architectural magazine

A closer look at the tub/shower

Accompanying text

The time really does go by so quickly. It seems like a couple years ago that my youngest daughter Corey (now 22 years old) was just a baby. When she was little, my dear Mom would drop by our little house on Arizona Street in Portsmouth, just long enough to hug me and hug the baby and drop off a little gift. Sometimes it was a potted mum or sometimes it was a box of Little Debbie’s or sometimes it was a $20 bill to buy ourselves a little treat.

She’d look at my babies and say, “I know this is hard to believe, but this chapter of your life will be over before you know it. In no time at all, they’re grown and gone and what remains are the memories. I know this feels like an intense time of life, but enjoy it. Relish the moments because you’ll have the rest of your life to reflect on and remember these happy days.”

My mother was very wise.

On Thanksgiving Day, my husband and I sat quietly with each other in our spacious dining room and enjoyed our freshly-cooked turkey and home-made stuffing and yams and pumpkin pie. I’m sure we were both thinking about our children. I’ve had a couple Thanksgivings utterly alone and I can tell you, it’s 5000% better to have someone with whom to share a holiday and yet, your thoughts return to those days when there were little kids running around the house making their happy noises.

Corey - about seven months old in this photo

Okay, so it’s from a February 1911 Ladies Home Journal, but still, it sounds so intriguing.

At first glance, I assumed that this fireproof house was 90% asbestos content, but upon reading the full article, I saw that I was wrong. It’s made of poured concrete and has lots of hollow tile, plaster (applied over metal lath), ceramic tile and block. Even the floors are poured concrete. Ater all that concrete is dried, the wooden forms are removed.

Very interesting idea for a house, and it’s nice-looking, too but good luck hanging up any pictures on the walls. Small price to pay for a fireproof house - I suppose.

A picture of the Fireproof House (from 1911 LHJ)

Back in the day, Ladies’ Home Journal was (get ready), a magazine devoted to improving the lot of women who wanted to be homeowners, or women who had achieved that high goal of homeownership.  Today, the magazine is heavy on diet tips and light on home related topics, but it wasn’t always that way.

This 1911 issue of LHJ devoted an entire section to fixing up old houses. The photos (and their captions) tell the whole story. One caption reads, “The foundation and timbers [of these old houses] are often better than are found in the houses built today.”

For the two images below, the caption reads:

It seems almost impossible to realize that the hospitable-looking house on the bottom (see second house below) was once the gloomy, desolate house on the top (see first house below), and the changes which transformed it were not great. First of all, the dull color of the old house and the overgrown condition of the ground in front of it are most forbidding. A comparison of the two pictures shows how much a little careful planting and fresh paint will do toward changing the whole atmosphere of the house. More rooms were added at the rear and a gambrel roof was built and into this were let two good-sized dormer windows. A large porch, which was extended into a porte-chochere was built, and the latter forms a nice balance to the right wing of the house.

Here's the "before" photo

And here's the "after" photo

More photos are below!

Take a moment and read the caption - and remember - this is from 1911!

Another photo pair from the 1911 Ladies' Home Journal

In 2002, I walked out of the house I’d spent seven years restoring. My marriage had ended and I knew the old house needed lots more work and I knew that as a fledgling writer, I didn’t have the financial wherewithal or the emotional energy or the time required to work on the old house. My soon-to-be ex-husband, on the other hand, was strong, competent, capable and had the skills to build and/or repair anything with nothing more on hand than a leatherman, a speedometer cable and a couple wagon wheels. And maybe some duct tape, too.

In 1995, my (then) husband and I had moved into the fixer-upper in Alton, Illinios. The purchase price was a mere $50,000.  The house wasn’t in the best of shape, but we knew that going in. As the years passed, we installed new ductwork, new central air, new furnace, some new plumbing and repaired the box gutters, and replaced the massive, 14/12 roof.

In addition, I painstakingly removed thousands of gallons of beige paint from ornate newel posts, staircase baulstrades, quarter-sawn oak fireplaces and more. As anyone who’s stripped paint knows, this is a laborious process that involves meticulous work, mind-numbing detail and very sharp dental picks.

The house consumed thousands of hours of my life. The research alone consumed too many hours to count. I pored over countless magazines and books, reading, reseaching and learning the best way to restore old wooden shutters and how to mix lime mortar for the 100-year-old limestone foundation and what color of paints were most appropriate for a home built in 1904.

It was a labor of love and an enormous undertaking. I even wrote and sold a few articles about the projects. Read a snippet here:

And then in 2002, the marriage ended and I moved out of the house and into a crummy singles’ apartment. Yes, it was hard to see a 24-year-old marriage die. It was hard to leave the family home. It was excruciating to have my sweet daughter only 50% of the time. But there was another loss that no books on divorce ever talk about: Walking away from my semi-finished pièce de résistance. It was to be the crowning jewel of my old house projects. For so many years, it had been my raison d’être and now it was gone.

I still remember working on that house for hours and hours and asking myself, “Is this really a productive use of time? Is this a worthy way to spend a life?” And then I’d reassure myself by saying, “Yes, this is your legacy. This is your gift to the neighborhood, to the community and to the city. This house will endure long after you’ve left this earth.”

Turns out I was wrong.

Two years after the marriage ended, my ex-husband lost the house to foreclosure. And then last month, a well-meaning friend called to report that the bank had gutted the house. Every *&^% thing I did was erased. Those 100-year-old louvered shutters -  replete with vintage hardware that I’d been painstakingly restored - were tossed right in the dumpster and replaced with some shiny new vinyl shutters. That beautiful wood with its deep rich grain - covered again in some nice latex beige paint. The quarter-sawn oak fireplace mantel is - after a brief respite - again covered in crappy beige paint.  And all those old vintage photos that I discovered after much legwork, the photos that showed the house in 1906, with smiling families standing in the foreground, well all those crummy old photos were pitched, too. It’s all gone.

I tried to interrupt my friend as she told me this.

“Please stop,” I told my friend.

I don’t think she heard me.

“Please, I’m serious. I don’t want to hear anymore. This is heart-breaking. Really heart-breaking.”

And finally, after all the horses and the cows and a couple pigs had escaped the barn, she finally shut the doors.

I look at the house I own today - a lovely 1924 Center Hallway Colonial - and my passion for a pure and faithful restoration has ebbed a bit. What will happen to this house when I’m gone, I wonder.

I wish my friend had kept this news to herself.  I would have been far happier not knowing.