I wanted to explain what my title, Driving Blindly means~

When I sat nothing came to mind. It was after I began reading other posts and reflecting on my own life that it came to me. Pretty much we are all driving blindly in this life. We take turns unknowing where we may end up. It's not until we reach the end of those roads that we either get out of the car and angrily kick the tires, or do a U-turn and start over. We are not given a map with specific directions to carry out our journeys, but we are given many chances to experience different routes. It's really up to us how many times we want to go through these travels, or even if our motors are even up for another travel. I've gone down many rough roads, just to discover that many of the times the things that await on the other side of those rough roads were well worth the drive!

There are so many lessons in life we will never fully understand. Even if we do understand a small portion of these lessons we tend to question the answers we have discovered. It's not the discovery of the answer we should be happy about, it's the journey that brought you there! I've learned that it's easier to patch a hole in the road than to try to drive through it........but occasionally, I still get lost and am like many others....just driving blindly.

Why can't we have those neat little "bulk" self serve stations for Shampoo, Conditioner, and Body Soaps? Wouldn't that be a great step to taking out the extra plastic being dumped into the landfills each year? I mean there should be some reporting companies could run to determine which one of their products sell the most, provide the self serve stations for these items, and encourage shoppers to bring in their bottles for use over and over again!

Here's a tip...... Women tend to always use more conditioner than shampoo, especially in Colorado thanks to the dry climate! I use the extra shampoo that is no longer paired to a conditioner in my hand washing soap dispensers~ It's softer on your skin, and smells great!

:-) Just another thought~

I am not that old but I do remember not so long ago, a time where Neighborhood really meant Neighborhood. Your friend next door or down the street, his parents weren't just his parents, they were yours. Which meant if you got into trouble there, you got the same smack as you would have at home. And in some cases, if mom and dad found out that you misbehaved you got it again. Your elder neighbors were your adopted grandparents. And the little old lady, she made you cookies and you spent the evenings when Mom and Dad when out with her. Regardless if she smelled like "old people". I don't even remember a time telling my parents that the olderly folks "smelled", I might have ended up looking for a new nose or picking mine off the floor when mom slapped it off. I know what you're thinking here, and NO I wasn't abused. I just learned right from wrong, and I learned RESPECT!
We used to have community picnics, play dates, and sleep overs. Yeah, some of the kids still do that today, but usually after the parents do an online background check of the other kids parents. Kids don't play "army" or build forts anymore. Well at least not outside. With a computer, or with a video game maybe. I remember my best friend, Demetri and Ben we would play "army" and "discover"~ HOLD UP! Wait a minute, not that kind of "discover", I was five you freaks! We had this field across the street from our houses. Undeveloped farm land. We would take our mothers gardening shovels and head over to that field where we would dig and find all kinds of things. We dug one day and the three of us found broken pieces of what looked like a map. We were all excited and spent well until the evenings digging for the rest of the map. We really thought it was connected to a treasure. We spent a whole summer digging up that field, and never did find all the pieces. And it was when we were all in high school that we were told by Demetri's father he had been the one who had buried the pieces to some old map in that field. We all had a great laugh and it still remains to be one of my greatest memories.
The older I got the more I became a responsible member of the community. I began babysitting the younger children, and mowing the elders lawns. And I wasn't allowed to charge or accept money for it. I simply just did it because it was the right thing to do. Now, you ask the neighbor to watch your kids, and a twenty doesn't even cover it. And there's no guarantee they are even watching your kids. With all the cell phones and computers and video games, how can they be bothered by a couple of kids. And I've learned not to tell the young mother next door that if she ever needs someone to watch her little one to head to the store, I would be more than happy to do it. Yeah, you get looked at like your some kind of freak.  Offer to help the little old lady carry her groceries into her apartment and she nicely tells you she can do it herself. Not because she can, but because she's scared you have other intentions. I am not saying all community is lost. In some rural areas it's still alive and breathing, but in the city people are paying to be a community. It's called HOA.
My greatest dream is to have a home in a neighborhood for my kids to grow up and have some of the same memories that I have. The riding your bike thinking you're a "CHIPS" officer and your buddy on the other bike attempting an escape from the bank. The two of you riding like mad down the street laughing and not having a care in the world except who gets to be the bad guy tomorrow? My husband and I have driven through neighborhoods looking for homes, and you know what I don't see? Kids riding bikes playing cops and robbers, I don't see kids in the parks or fields planning out the perfect spot for a fort or clubhouse. Instead of a neighborhood kid mowing the lawn of his neighbor, I see the "landscaping" truck parked in front and two men doing the work and charging the homeowner twice the amount. I've only driven through two neighborhoods of the many dozen where a community garden even exists. Growing up, I remember a community garden that was taken care of by all the neighbors. And in the end, we all had a picnic with the fruits of our labors. I think a very valuable lesson was learned growing up in my neighborhood. I learned to respect my neighbors, and call them friends. I learned that when someone was hurt or sick that helping them was because I wanted to, not because I had to.
 I learned you get more than just equity in a house when you live and share in a neighborhood, you end up with life long friends, and best of all memories.