Happy 4th of July~

Thank you fabulous Flickr friends and Flickr toys

Flickr Magic
for allowing me to use everything to create this mosaic.
I love pink
I love you~
Blessings have a safe weekend~

Me in my bathing suit as a young lady
on the beach in Ipperwash Ontario
My friend and her family took me on my first vacation
away from my family and home.
I was so home sick I had to go home early~

The Giving Tree
One of my favorite all time books~

The Bathing Suit

When I was a child in the 1960s the bathing suit for the mature figure was
boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built
to hold back and uplift and they did a good job

Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a
figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice-she can either go up front to the maternity
department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a
hippopotamus who escaped from Disney's Fantasia or she can wander around
every run of the mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what
amounts to a designer range of florescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice
and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.

The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the
stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe,
by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus
that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from
shark attacks as any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately
suffer whiplash. I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder
strap in place, I gasped in horror - my body part had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one body part cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find
the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib..

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature
woman is meant to wear her body parts spread across her chest like a speed bump.
I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a
full view assessment.

The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of
me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top,
bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing
undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the
prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, 'Oh, there
you are,' she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wa sn't so sure and asked what else s h e had to show me.
I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape,
and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a
serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came
out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough
day..

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in
mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would
have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit...a two-piece affair with a shorts style
bottom and a loose blouse-type top.

It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My
ridiculous search had a s u ccessfu l outcome, I figured.
When I got home, I found a label which read --
'Material might become transparent in water.'

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year
and I'm there too .. I'll be the one in cut off jeans and a t-shirt!

Special prayers to my dear friend Victoria and her husband
and all in need of special blessings~
Have a safe and wonderful 4th of July
thnank you for all those fighting for our freedom and all those that gave their lives doing so.
We never forget~