Grumpy’s Girls
By · CommentsMy dad is Grumpy. He’s not grumpy as in the adjective—well, okay, he is that too, but that’s not the point. The capital “G” is because he is Grumpy, the proper noun. (Yes, like one of the seven dwarves only taller, more handsome, and quite handy.)
Back when my parents’ first grandchild, my niece Samantha, was born, my mother declared that she was far too young to be a grandma, so she wanted to be called Nonnie. We then set about trying to decide what my dad should be called. We think it was my mom who teased and suggested, “How about Grumpy?” You’d have to know my dad to understand that the name fit but in a completely endearing way. So it stuck. He’s been Grumpy ever since.
Since his fatherhood, he’s been surrounded by girls. He and my mom had three girls, and then each of his girls had a girl (with one grandson thrown in for good measure). And he adores them all. And all his girls adore him.
Yep, the kids love their Grumpy. No one is scared off by his swearing rants, his calling everyone “knothead” or his repeated head shaking and proclamations that there’s “not one normal one in the bunch.” Like I do, they see his heart. He’d probably argue with you, but my dad’s a good man. And he’s a great Grumpy.
The kind of Grumpy who lets his granddaughter play in his work truck and takes her on tractor rides
The kind of Grumpy who builds his granddaughter a swing set just because she loves to “fwing”
The kind of Grumpy who teaches his granddaughters how to fish and how to shoot a bow and arrow
The kind of Grumpy who doesn’t sit or stand still well (hence the lack of better photos for this post). The kind of Grumpy who has just a veneer of grump, but not enough to hide the kindness of his soul and the hint of pride in his eyes when he’s with his girls.
Life List Revisited
By · CommentsWhen I finally got back on the writing wagon by blogging again, I started with this post about my life list of sorts. I can’t keep track and don’t know if life lists are still in or are just cliché by now, but I still like the idea and wanted to revisit, and dammit, it’s my blog, so I’m doing what makes me happy.
Anyway, I mentioned how I was trying to come up with a “50 before 50″ list. Well, scratch that. My sister was right. I found myself stretching and searching to get to the number 50 and it just wasn’t working for me. I want it to be a meaningful list, and if I just throw padding in there, it becomes less so.
I wanted my list to be neat and tidy. I wanted to take all my dreams and goals and work through them and whittle them down so they fit nicely on a piece of paper numbered one through fifty. I wanted each one to be just as important and meaningful to me as the next. I wanted each to be perfectly attainable under my control. I wanted cute little boxes that I could check off with pride as I reached each new goal.
You see my problem, right?
Life is messy. How can a life list not be?
As a teacher, I was always a huge proponent of writing as a means of self-discovery. Working on this list has been no exception. It has helped me discover what is important for me to do or accomplish, and this is what I’ve discovered:
What’s important to me can and will change. Of course my family and friends will always ALWAYS be important to me. But my goals and my to-do list will inevitably change as my world changes. There will be things that I discover I want to accomplish and do that I never even thought about before today.
I don’t want to be stuck to a static list. But I do want a list. I want a list for all of the good reasons that lists exists in the first place—for a sense of commitment and resolve. I want a list that reminds me of what I think is important today, and one that can grow and change with me tomorrow. So here I am starting. Here is my life list…as it is today:
- Move back to New Jersey
- Go to a blogging conference
- Keep up with writing my personal blog on a regular basis (I can kind of cross this one off but I’d like to post more often and more regularly, so I’ll keep it open!)
- Find and get a job that really makes me happy
- Get paid for writing something
- Go to Greece flying first class
- Buy the house of my dreams
- Host a Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving at the house of my dreams
- Make a will or living trust
- Learn how to use my Cricut and make a scrapbook
- Go to the Hollywood Bowl with Kimberlee
- Have a rockin’ bikini body for just one day on the beach
- Consolidate my pension plans
- Learn enough about investing money to make some money and have a decent retirement
- Join or start a book club
- Learn Adobe Photoshop
- Become proficient in all Microsoft Office applications
- Become proficient in ASL
- Go the Oprah show or somehow see Oprah
- Learn yoga
- Go to Italy and see, among other things, the Coliseum
- Go to St. Louis
- Go to Chicago
- Get a “boudoir photo” taken of me
- Learn Spanish
I’m going to make this list a separate page of my website here because I need that reminder. I don’t want it (or my dreams) to get lost in the archives. For something like this, it’s kind of hard to have a deadline, so I am simply going to make sure that I do something toward at least one of these goals each and every day. I’ll cross things off the list as I accomplish them, add new things, maybe even just take some off. So you can check in on it now and again if you’re so inclined. Just don’t be surprised if things change!
A Girl and Her Nonnie
By · CommentsI’ll admit that I was worried when I first moved back East that my parents were getting just a bit too old to really play the grandparent role. I once again cursed the older parent card life handed me and harbored a secret jealousy of my nieces and nephew who got my mom and dad in their younger years. But being here changed all that. Since moving in with my parents, my little Muffin really wants very little to do with me. It’s all about Nonnie. My mom. The Nonnie who adores her. The Nonnie she adores. I try to muster up some jealousy, but I just can’t. Because really, who can blame this little girl for wanting this woman?
The woman who gets dirty with her in the garden
The woman who put her first paint brush in her hand
The woman who takes her blueberry picking and lets her steal her shoes
The woman who plays with her in the pool
And, of couse, the woman who always, always, ALWAYS gives her ice cream
Yeah, she’s handling the grandparent role just fine. (So is my dad– his post to follow.) My mom looked at me one day and said, “That little girl, she has my heart.” I smiled and wondered if she knew just how much she had Charlie’s heart. Or how much they both have mine.
BlogHer 2010: The Good, The Bad, and the Untweeted
By · CommentsYes, I know I need to tweet. My friends keep telling me. Everybody’s doing it, you know. I do have a Twitter account but don’t really use it. I have more to learn about it, but, then again, I can say that about almost everything in life. But if I came away from BlogHer with anything, it’s that I need to tweet. Okay, so let me shuffle my priority list one more time and move “Download TweetDeck and figure out the whole @ and # thing” to the top. I’m sure my daughter won’t mind if I put that ahead of the whole potty training venture.
At BlogHer, multitasking is not only acceptable, but expected. Did I mention the tweeting? I sat in every session with people with laptops or iPads open on Facebook, and iPhones tweeting away. Got to admit, I’m not really sure how I feel about this. At least it’s quiet and not as annoying as talking in the movies.
Anyway, now that I’ve had a day or so to process, here’s the upshot of my two days at my very first BlogHer:
THE GOOD
I got out of my comfort zone and actually met people. Score one for Miss Usual Wallflower. Almost all the folks I ran into (including the rock stars—more on that later) were really very friendly. I was not alone in my “newbie” or “flying solo” status, although there were still certainly moments of feeling out of place (did I mention the tweeting?). It got kind of exhausting starting up and having similar conversations with new people that mostly began with “Hi. So are you a blogger?”
It was not like high school. Well, unless your high school experience included girls going out of their way to make each other feel comfortable and their responses to “May I sit here?” during lunch were along the lines of “Of course. Please, sit!” Yuh-huh. Thought so. Which brings me back to the rock stars of the blogging world—they do not all hang together. Of course some do, and they do so because they are friends, so duh. Are these people not allowed to make and have friends just because it makes some feel uncomfortable (read: jealous)? Please.
Anyway, harder than forcing myself to mingle and meet people, was gathering the courage to talk to the rock star bloggers I follow. I think I passed Catherine of Her Bad Mother and Liz of Mom-101 three times before I worked up the nerve to introduce myself and declare my fandom in the most unstalker-like way I could muster. But I’m so glad I did, because you know what? They were nice and appreciative and, not surprisingly, very cool.
The rest of my personal rock star list that I said hello to included Megan of Velveteen Mind, Susan of Friday Playdate (those two were super nice!), Chris of Notes From the Trenches, and Kelly from Mocha Momma. The only one on my regular blog roll that I did not meet was Lindsay from Suburban Turmoil. I did not see her once. I am sure I would have had I made it to the CheeseburgHer party like I was supposed to, but after two days of BlogHer craziness I had used up all of my bypass-social-fears-and-go-directly-to-uncomfortable-zone passes. Plus, I am a wimp, and I was tired.
My favorite part of the BlogHer conference by far was the Voices of the Year presentation in which honored blog posts were read by the authors. There were funny ones, snarky ones, sad ones, and inspirational ones. All humbling ones. Just amazing.
The food was great, the session panelists were helpful, the swag was fun, and those folks at BlogHer really do try and think of everything. Except T-shirts. Which brings me to…
THE BAD
Yes, it’s silly, but I really wanted a BlogHer T-shirt. I was even willing to pay money for one. But there were none to be had. I don’t know why. Hmmph. I’ll have to send BlogHer an earful about that.
I kind of regret that I bypassed the opportunity to have my photo taken with celebrities such as Mrs. Potato Head, Dora, Elmo, and the Jimmy Dean sun (thanks to sponsors galore!). I also felt too weird about asking to have my photo taken with each of my rock star bloggers, so I really didn’t take any pictures. Just before I left, I asked some nice woman to take a snapshot of me because I felt that should have at least one BlogHer photo. You can’t tell in this photo, but my dress was super cute.
On a more serious note, I guess I must preface this with the fact that, yes, I am a teacher, so I look at any presentation with a critical eye. That having been said, the speakers and panelists for most of the sessions did not do much to help the visual learners. We got tons of great advice about websites to visit or folks to check out on (yes, you guessed it) Twitter, but, gee, it would have helped if I could have actually seen the url or the Twitter handle written down. The session on good blog design would have been infinitely more helpful if the presenters had actually shown examples of good and bad design choices. I’m used to PowerPoints and handouts. Instead, we got “I’ll tweet the information” and “All the sessions will be liveblogged.” Yes, I know. I am so two-thousand-God-I-don’t-even-know-how-long-ago.
All of the sessions were run by panels and mostly in a Q & A format, which, quite frankly, started to get on my nerves. It worked well for some of the writing track sessions, but not for everything. As a newbie, I wanted more in the way of prepared info and direct instruction with, let’s say, some clearer objectives. Again, that’s just the teacher in me.
I did cry a couple of times. Once, I got a bit teary when I was feeling overwhelmed and technologically illiterate in a session about getting hired and social media, but I pulled myself together before anyone noticed (I think). The second time I was outside the hotel when I called my hubby to check in. I was missing my Muffin fiercely; I had left for the conference really early in the morning, so I didn’t want to kiss her goodbye and risk waking her up. When I called home, Greg put Charlie on the phone, and for the very first time, she was able to have a (sort of) phone conversation with me. It mostly consisted of her one or two word responses to questions like “Are you being a good girl for Daddy?” but then she said, “I love you, Mommy” and I lost it just a little. Luckily, I had this photo as my desktop screensaver to keep me smiling:
So other than that, I really don’t have too much bad to say. Oh, the zipper on my luggage broke as I was packing to come home. That sucked. But I can’t really blame the folks at BlogHer for that one, now can I?
Even though I did not make any lifelong friends or meet my blogging soul mate, I did meet and hang with some cool folks like Silver, who was nice enough to recognize I needed a social rescue during the Friday night gala. Thanks to her, I got to dance. And even though each of the three pairs of shoes I brought was new and never previously worn (and hence could have easily resulted in disaster), my feet and I survived just fine.
I am very glad I went. I learned a lot, mostly that I simply need to figure out where I want to go with this here blog and my writing goals. That will take a little more time to process, but at least I am better armed with some tools to help me reach those goals. You know, once I figure out what they are.
And finally…
THE UNTWEETED
Pretty much everything I just wrote. Because, well, did you read my first paragraph?
BlogHer 2010: Soooo Out of My Comfort Zone!
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I don’t know if you’ve seen this button on my sidebar over there. I put it up shortly after I registered for the BlogHer 2010 conference. Yep, BlogHer 2010 officially began today! And I am going! In a few short hours I’ll be on the bus to the city to join about two thousand other bloggers. With my new laptop bag and business cards in hand, I’ll be trying to act all nonchalant, like I totally belong and know exactly what I’m doing and where I’m going. Inside, of course, I’ll be convinced that everyone else has figured out I’m a fraud and are really looking at me and thinking like Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny—“Oh, yeah, you blend.”
The past few weeks I’ve been prancing around saying things like, “Oh, I’m going to my blogging conference! I’m soooo excited.” I thought it would be educational and a great experience for me as a relatively new blogger. I was also excited (and not just a little bit nervous) about the prospect of meeting some of my favorite bloggers in person. Now, I’m going all by my lonesome and won’t know anyone there (well, except for the aforementioned bloggers I read but don’t really know), so my excitement has been tempered with a certain amount of social anxiety.
I’m not good at meeting people. I’m not a schmoozer. I don’t have a commanding presence. I am not what one would call charismatic. I have no great accomplishments or interesting tidbits to break into conversations with. Now that’s not to say I’m a complete and total social freak. I am a confident girl and can make small talk (sort of) and mind my manners. But to foster actual relationships, well, it takes me time. Most of the people who have taken the time to get to know me, I’m pretty sure are happy that they did. I think that says something. But that doesn’t help when I’ve only got two days at a conference
I’m going to try, though. I’m going waaaay out of my comfort zone here by flying solo at this shindig. It’s important, I think, for people to do that—that is, get out of their comfort zones once in a while. I was happy to take any help I could get in this venture, so I read a lot and have tried to mentally prepare myself. My friend Lisa sends me links all the time to some pretty good stuff (thanks, Lisa!), so I read some advice on how to mingle and such. I also continued reading my favorite bloggers, who naturally had something to say about this event.
BlogHer is a BIG deal in the blogging world, so naturally, as the conference approached, blog posts started appearing here and there about things like what to wear and what to expect. I was grateful to have a bit of heads up on this new adventure, so on I read. On one hand, I did find the posts very helpful in my quest to get a little more “comfortable.” On the other hand, I’ve got to admit that a part of me was maybe, just maybe, a bit overwhelmed. It went something like this:
What I read: Don’t obsess about what to wear. Be comfortable. Make an effort.
What I thought: Um, well, I wasn’t worried about that. Should I be? Crap. What am I going to wear?
What I read: Don’t get upset if you’re not invited to the private parties.
What I thought: There are private parties?
What I read: If someone doesn’t talk to you, don’t think it’s because they are “popular” and you are not. I’m tired of hearing how it’s clique-y and like high school.
What I thought: Oh God. I am 43 years old. Really, if I have to worry one more time in my life about being in the “in” crowd, I’m just gonna hurl myself off a bridge. They have those in New York City, you know.
The only conferences I have been to in the past have been English teacher ones, and I’ve always gone with a group of friends where we’ve done things like play “Spot the Teacher” in the hotel as we look for wooden apple necklaces and pins with books on them and shin-length skirts. Okay, that’s mean. But also true.
Now I’m going to this blogging conference where I just won’t be in Kansas anymore. People are hip and cool and geeky, and hip and cool because they’re geeky. They’re going to be tweeting from their iPhones and talking search engine optimization, and I’m just going to try not to stand there with drool coming out of my mouth. I’m just not geeky enough to be hip, and not hip enough to be cool, and, oh my.
But again, I’m going to try.
Confession: the”what to wear” blog posts did send me on a bit of a shopping spree (that I could ill afford as an unemployed girl, but that’s another story), but I was delighted to discover that I could make use of things previously unworn or unused in my closet (like the requisite little black dress with tags still on, and a cute little dressy purse). I did spring for some new shoes, a new pair of jeans, some jewelry, and the aforementioned laptop bag. We just won’t mention that most of those items I got at Kohls and Marshalls (LOVE those stores!). As they say on the East Coast, have a look see (and you can click on any of the photos to enlarge):
So my wardrobe is set, but I’m not so sure about my nerves. I’m still excited. Uncomfortable, yes, but still excited. Wish me luck! (Oh, and if you happen to be a blogger and read this at the conference, PLEASE come talk to me!)
Somewhere in the POD
By · Comments“Kel, where are our passports and birth certificates?”
“In the POD.”
We both sigh heavily at what has now become the new cliché in our lives—in the POD.
Yes, in Franklin, New Jersey, there sits a 16x8x8 container with most of the contents of our lives. Yes, still.
I don’t know who came up with this idea (not the packing up OUR lives part—I take sole blame responsibility for that one—just the whole moveable container idea), but I must admit it is sheer brilliance. It worked perfectly for our situation. We were moving across country to a place where our living situation would be temporary, so most of our stuff needed to stay in storage once we got there.
So the kind folks at the PODS company dropped off a container in the driveway of our rental house in Burbank…
…picked it up three weeks later after it had been packed with every last item we could force in with a crow bar and some duct tape, and then transported it across country to their storage facility in New Jersey where it still sits…
Now, as you can see in the photos, PODS stands for Personal On Demand Storage, which means, of course, that we can have access to our container when we need to. We knew that we would need to get to some stuff once we got here, so Greg and I thought we were being smart about packing this thing. I got all anal and even numbered and catalogued boxes so that I could know where to find things. I learned from past moves that simply labeling a box “kitchen” doesn’t really help when there are seventeen of them and all you really want to know is where’s the *&%$# coffee pot.
Anyway, our plan was simple: pack the things we won’t need way in the back and put the things we will need right away in the front where it’s easy to get to. Then, when we and our container arrive in New Jersey, we will open our POD, easily retrieve the items we need, close up the POD and not think about it again until we find our own new home to which we can have the POD delivered. We can then unload all of our belongings where they will be put in the proper spot in our happy world of “a place for everything and everything in its place.”
You’re laughing now, aren’t you? I don’t blame you.
The packing started out just fine. All was going according to plan. In went the boxes of Christmas decorations, the “good” dishes, Greg’s DVD library and my giraffe collection. That part was easy. All the stuff we wouldn’t need was in nice packable, stackable cardboard boxes and plastic bins. For the first few days we smiled proudly and patted ourselves on the back for our marvelous plan.
But sometime after the POD had been about a third filled, things started to take a turn for the worse. Now we found ourselves needing to fit in things like patio furniture, oversized ride-on toys, a slanted writer’s desk, and a paper rack, to name a few—stuff that had the nerve to be shapes other than rectangular. Completely uncooperative this stuff was, and our packing somehow turned from building a pretty neat wall of boxes to a giant, life-size game of Tetras. “You know, Hon, if we turn the desk on its side, we might fit these two benches there.”
Yep, who cared about where to put things; we just wanted to know how. Our new modus operandi became stuff-it-wherever-you-can-as-long-as-it-fits. Bedding was shoved in between table legs and soft-sided bags of clothing filled the spaces up top. The finished product looked nothing like the organizational masterpiece I had envisioned. It’s now just a sad and dangerous jumble of life’s clutter that kind of makes you want duck and cover. Just take a peek:
Oh, I should mention that this is our POD as it looks today, with the following already removed: crib with mattress, changing table, queen mattress and box spring, glider and ottoman, a jewelry armoire, Charlie’s outdoor slide, several boxes of clothes and other odd items. So if I told you the first time we tried to open it, the door was jammed shut and it took Greg and my father prying open the top and my father jumping in from off the top of his truck into the top of the of the POD to get it open, you’d believe me, right?
Yes, our first trip there was an event of gymnastic proportions for all involved. We thought we got everything we needed, but it wasn’t long before the phrase “In the POD” became a stock answer to a question of something’s whereabouts.
As we headed off to the beach—Now where is my cute Paul Frank beach bag? Damn, it’s in the POD.
As I prepared for an interview—Where are the copies of my teaching credentials and my portfolio… Oh, in the POD.
We’d then have to weigh just how badly we needed [fill in the blank] to see if it was worth a trip to the POD. And keep in mind that such a trip would involve making sure someone was around to watch Muffin and that the weather would be cooperative (not good to unpack stuff with rain clouds threatening overhead!). Also, we’d have to make sure we’d have, and the time and sweat equity to pull out (and later return) all the odd items up front in order to look for and get at the stuff we needed. Why, sure, I have my nice catalogued list of boxes, so I know that what I need is in box #42. Now if only I knew exactly where in the POD box #42 was, we’d be fine.
So far we have made about four or five visits to our POD. I don’t know how many more trips we have left in us. At this point, I think we’ve gotten almost everything we could possibly need that we can. That is, everything we can without moving the three dressers full of books or without risking being crushed by an avalanche of precariously placed boxes of kitchen utensils and office supplies. Needless to say, we’re learning to live without some of our things.
It’s truly something one can only deal with by laughing. But even my sense of humor is beginning to wane. Or maybe it’s just somewhere in the POD.
The Lions Down the Street
By · CommentsMy sister lives up the road from Space Farms, a small local zoo. She says she hears the lions roaring at dinnertime. I was with my niece and nephew yesterday, and they hadn’t been to the zoo in a while. Izzy, my niece, really wanted to go. I was a bit reluctant, because, to be honest, I just think the place is overpriced for what it is. Most of it consists of wildlife you can hit with your car around here, and any sense of landscape design seems to be non-existent. It’s pretty much like, Oh look, some goats and deer behind some chicken wire fencing. Woo hoo! But they do host Goliath, the largest bear ever held in captivity. Okay, never mind that he’s the star of their taxidermy exhibit, being as he died in 1991, but whatever. A twelve-foot high stuffed bear is still impressive. Those claws are looong.
But I digress.
The zoo does have a few good animals—a black panther and some cute lemurs and monkeys. It’s also a way to get kids out of the house on a nice afternoon, so why not? Off we went.
I didn’t even intend to bring a camera because I’ve made many zoo trips in my life, and guess what—you come back with pictures of animals. I realized after going through old boxes of photos that picking up a random photo of a monkey cage didn’t come to mean much. I would ask my husband, “Was this the Philadelphia Zoo or that one in Washington, DC?” In the end, the best answer was, “Does it really matter?” If I want a photo of a monkey or a cute little prairie dog, there are plenty of places I can find one. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am an animal lover. Truly. But photos are best when they capture moments, and, even with loved ones in the picture, zoo photos just don’t seem to cut it for me.
My favorite and most vivid zoo memory was watching polar bears at the Philadelphia Zoo. The exhibit was designed so that visitors could see the bears both above and below water, and it was one of those rare times when they were active and swimming. To see these beautiful, massive creatures lumber onto rocks and then dive into the water with a grace that defied their enormity was truly magnificent.
Even if I had a video or a picture, it would not have done the memory justice. Some moments are better saved in our minds to be brought out and savored when we’re in need of a quiet smile or a shared laugh.
But, again, I digress.
Anyway, it just so happened I had our point-and-shoot in the diaper bag, so I snapped a few photos trying to capture those “moments” and not just the animals and doing a fairly lousy job of it.
Then we got to the lion’s cage, and I was sort of glad I had the camera. Now, I know zoo animals get fed, of course, but when it’s feeding time for the lions, I had always imagined the zookeepers throwing the big guys a few steaks, or maybe a side of beef. You know, something you’d see in the grocery store. I never imagined watching feeding time for the lion would look like, well, this:
I mean, do you see the blood? Do you see the hoof? Now, I am really not squeamish about these kinds of things. I know it’s the circle of life and all. Hell, I grew up with a hunter dad who often had his latest kill hanging in the garage. I just thought it was pretty darn wild (and the pun here was just a happy accident).
I relayed the story to my sister when we got home, and she explained to me that the zoo actually has a contract with the county to pick up road kill to feed to some of the zoo animals (which, when you think about it, actually makes perfect sense).
But I quietly wondered if such a scene could scar certain onlookers. I was secretly relieved that my toddler was too busy trying to get to the swings on the playground down the hill to really take in the scene. I just imagined the conversation going something like, “Wha’ happen, Mommy? Ly-lon have boo boo?”
“No honey, that’s not a boo boo. That’s just dinner.”
Yep, a photo of my little girl with tear-filled saucer eyes in front of this lion’s cage? Now that would have been a moment.
The Garage Sale
By · CommentsI should have known the garage sale was doomed. Maybe my first clue should have been how we kept having to postpone due to (among other things) missing the deadline for the classified ad in the local paper. If not that, then definitely when my mother assured me there was no need for a bank run for change; the $5 in singles in her wallet and the coins in her piggy bank were plenty.
But let me start from the beginning.
I didn’t want to do it. I had just come off of not one, but two garage sales within a month of each other back in California before our big move back East. I sold stuff on eBay. I sold stuff on Craigslist. I sold stuff at two kids consignment sales. My husband made two trips to Good Will. We made out pretty well, but I was tired! So when my mother said, “I’m waiting until you come home to have my garage sale,” let’s just say I was less than enthusiastic about sorting through yet more junk.
“But, Mom, I’m so done with garage sales,” I pleaded. To which she simply responded, “Too bad!”
Okay, she did help me with one of my sales when she visited in California, she took us into her home when we moved back East, and she IS my mother, so, yes, we were having a garage sale.
If you’re thinking, Garage Sale? Ugh! I can’t be bothered, then trust me, you’re among the majority—the saner majority, I should add. Greg and I would typically have one once a year to keep the clutter under control. Yes, I know garage sales are a pain, but I didn’t mind it so much. It forced me to purge and clean, and, by the end of the day, we were pounds lighter and about $100 richer (or more if it was a good day) for a nice dinner out or a new outfit. One Saturday a year I could live with.
Now, we’re not the type to go to garage sales. Sure, we may stop by one on the odd chance that something catches our attention, but the die-hard garage salers are a breed all their own—showing up an hour before the sale starts (or, in one case, the day before!) and haggling over a quarter. Seriously. But these are also the folks that will give us money for our crap things we no longer want, so I’ll curb my snark here.
Anywho, we learned a lot over the years about garage sales, and the past few years we had it down to a science. I would make the Friday bank run for just enough singles and quarters. I got really good at making colorful eye-catching signs and knew where to post them. I advertised in two different papers. I had tables and items by category. I priced things to move. The morning of, we were up early enough for the effin’ crazy enthusiastic early birds with our travel mugs of coffee in hand. Hell, if we were going to put in the time and effort to have a sale and kill a weekend, it was going to be worth it.
But those were OUR garage sales. In California. In an area where actual people live. This one? This was my mother’s garage sale at my mother’s house – where we are forty minutes from everywhere. It went something like this:
FRIDAY
Greg, Mom, and I spend the day (about 11 AM to 6 PM) dragging the mountain of junk garage sale items from the garage on to the deck where we wash, we clean, we sort, we price.
The dialogue is strewn with comments like “Where’s the top to this?” “What IS this?” and “Oh, these shoes are cute. Maybe I’ll keep ‘em.”
Charlie is pleasantly content rummaging through boxes and pulling things apart. She does things like pour a little bit of juice into each of the Christmas coffee mugs I just washed or drag her stuffed animals around with one of the five dog leashes in the pile.
By the end of the day, we’re all exhausted and I just don’t have it in me to make signs. I figure I’ll make them early in the morning. My mother makes them instead. I wouldn’t exactly call them eye-catching.
SATURDAY
We wake early to get things started. I am expecting to see the mad rush of early birds. Um, nope. Only birds here are in the trees chirping away.
11:36 AM A car drives up and slows down. “Ooooh,” I say excitedly. “I think we have a customer!” The car drives away. The first of many drive-by false alarms.
12:22 PM Finally, our first customer. He wanders around and then says, “I see the hunting stuff. Got any knives or firearms?”
“No, sorry,” I respond backing up just slightly.
1:48 PM (around the time Greg and I would be done packing up with our garage sales) we make our first, and as it turns out, ONLY sale of the day—a phone for $2.
3:27 We realize that at some point, someone stole a necklace. Guess it was hard to keep an eye on all those customers.
The day ends with us feeling pretty defeated. On the up side, I get a lot of reading done. Apparently a second day is needed, so we clean up a bit and throw tarps over everything.
SUNDAY
Having realized the early birds are not really a concern (and the ad had the sale listed for Saturday only), we get started around 11:00 AM. Mostly, it’s a Hail Mary hoping for drive-bys. Not surprisingly, there are only a handful of people for the day.
12:00 P.M. My parents head out to hang more signs. “Don’t worry,” I quip, “We’ll handle the rush.” But we do make out better than Saturday, selling a high chair and two bracelets for a total of $7.
We call the day over around dinner time, throw tarps over everything again and plan for a Monday of dealing with the aftermath.
Total sales for three days of work for three people: $9.
Okay, so taking into account the $16 spent on the classified ad and the $18.83 spent on poster board and markers (and tic tacs), it is officially the first garage sale I have ever worked in which we actually lost money. I won’t bother factoring in the money Greg subsequently spent on boxes needed to pack everything to take to Good Will because, well, that would just be depressing.
My mom wrote on her Facebook page, “The next time I say I’m going to have a garage sale, somebody shoot me. In the foot, anyway.” Don’t worry, Mom. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot you, but your junk? Fair game for target practice.
Of Faith and My GPS
By · CommentsWhen I was a teenager and first driving on my own, there were two things that scared me—no, petrified me. One was road construction. I needed to know exactly where I was going and didn’t want to deviate from my route, so I wanted no detours along the way. That leads to my second fear, something that could put me in full-blown panic mode, and that’s getting lost.
These days, of course, those things aren’t as much of an issue for me anymore. I can follow detours and realize if I just slow down and pay a little bit of attention through road construction, it will all be just fine. I still panic a little when I’m lost but realize that eventually I’ll find my way home. I still have my moments, though.
Once, when my husband and I first moved out to California and I was apartment hunting in Santa Monica, I got lost and had to call Greg from a pay phone. (Remember those?) I told him where I was, and he started to direct me.
“Just drive west…”
Cutting him off, I shouted into the phone, “WEST? Talk to me about LEFT or RIGHT! How am I supposed to know which way WEST is?!”
To which he slowly and calmly replied,” Kelly, you’re in Santa Monica. By the beach. The ocean. That’s west.”
Um, yeah.
So I did not inherit my dad’s sense of direction. His penchant for cursing during stressful times, yes, but that’s not nearly as helpful. Thank God for MapQuest and cell phones. I could now call my husband without getting out of the car and have him direct me to familiar ground (with, by the way, the additional aid of my car’s built-in compass that actually does tell me what direction I’m traveling in).
But the Super Smart people of the world didn’t just stop with giving us cell phones and Google. Nope. They came up with the GPS, the most amazing piece of genius ever to get plugged into a cigarette lighter.
My mother asked for a GPS last Christmas, so my sisters and I chipped in and bought her one. I had never seen one in action before, but I borrowed it for the first time when I was off to a job interview. Holy wow! I swore it was invented just for me.
But here’s the thing. It has spoiled me. I want more. I want all the journeys in my life to go as smoothly as the ones I travel with a GPS.
Where is my life GPS?
While I’m a little more comfortable getting lost on the road these days, getting lost in my life, well, not so much. I suppose that’s where faith and God come in. Yes, I pray a lot, but who knows in what form the answer will come, if it even comes at all? Faith is so frustrating that way. I pray for answers, but how will you know the answers when and if they do come?
When you hit those proverbial crossroads in life, wouldn’t it make life for us directionally challenged folks so much easier if the Almighty could manifest himself/herself in a GPS? I need the voice that very clearly tells you where to go: “In point three miles, exit right.” And as you get closer, it reminds you, “Exit right.”
If you made a wrong turn in life, how reassuring would it be to be signaled by “Recalculating.”? (Yeah, I’d probably be hearing that one a lot).
Of course, for a GPS to get you where you want to go, you still have to have a destination to program in. What would mine be? How about the intersection of career fulfillment and familial bliss? Is that even on the map? Can you get there from here? I’d like to think so. The only trouble is, I have no idea what the travel time is going to be.
Sneakin’ My Jesus
By · CommentsHi. My name is Kelly and I am a Christian. There, I said it.
Folks who know me might be thinking, Okay, Kelly, we know that. Not really sure where you’re going with this…Maybe I don’t either.
My last few posts have alluded to my struggle with the journey right now. I’m in such a strange place. So what is one to do when struggling with the journey? Me, I turn to therapy. And I turn to God. I’m not sure which helps me more, but the truth is they both do. I need God in my life, more now than ever. And I don’t want to feel weird about saying that.
You see, I used a lot of verbs in those posts describing what I’ve been doing during this time of struggle—waiting, getting, looking, hoping—but there was one I left out: praying. I’ve been doing a lot of that too.
I think a lot about God and my faith, but I don’t talk about it much. Truth be told, there are only a handful of people I really feel comfortable discussing the topic of faith and religion with. And I find that sad. Oh, sure, I make general, generic statements like “God brought my daughter to me” but I kind of leave those statements of faith out there lingering for just a bit until they fade off into the distance and we move on to other more palatable thoughts and topics. Mostly, I’m a closet Christian.
Before we moved, a good friend of mine sent me an email in which she wrote this:
Oh and I swear I am not becoming a crazy holy roller but my new found friend from church is trying to turn me on to Joel Osteen – he has some pretty good messages. This came about because we always lament about how we don’t always get much out of church, the homily, etc… how it would be nice to get a “hopeful” message that you can really bring into your real life.
My first thought when I read that was how sad it was that she felt she had to start off with a quasi-apology or an attempt to qualify the statement. But maybe even sadder was the fact that I totally got why she did that and would have couched such a statement in a similar way. Because who wants a friend who is a crazy holy roller, right? No one needs that buzz kill. Or do they?
While I can say that I find it sad that that there are only a handful of religious people in my life (whatever may qualify as “religious”), I also have to admit that there’s a big part of me that likes it that way. When I’m happy and hopeful and faithful, I can quietly thank God and praise God in my own way, and no one needs to know. Or when I’m angry with God, or questioning my faith, or just plain lazy because making my faith a priority is just too inconvenient, well, I can table my Christianity for the time being and there is no one to call me on it. No one knows if I pray or don’t. No one cares if I go to church or not. No one is measuring my spiritual barometer—Am I Christian enough today? One way or another, there’s no one to judge.
To be honest, organized religion and group prayer have always kind of creeped me out a little. And I never liked anyone forcing religion on me as if it were something to sell. Maybe that’s why I am the way I am—sneakin’ my Jesus. I am not embarrassed by my faith. Not at all. I’m just quiet about it. I don’t feel the need to shout my faith from the rooftops or quote scripture (not that I could even if I wanted). But I am a faithful person. And a grateful person. I try to live my life with Christian values and a kind and generous spirit.
I have long conversations with God when I am alone in my car, the same way people (myself included) sing along with favorite songs when they think no one is listening or watching. I go to bed every night and thank God for the blessings in my life and ask for strength as I try to wrestle away the worry of the day. I get to church from time to time, and I miss it when it’s been too long. (I always feel better when I go regularly.)
Most of the time my spiritual ways suit me fine. But there are times I need more. Times there are nagging feelings that I am not doing enough. Times when, if my faith is being tested, well, then I’m not doing very well. Times I think just living out Christian values and being a good person may not be enough. This, my friends, is one of those times. I need God in my life, and even though He IS in my life, I need to let Him and religion be a bigger, more visible part of my life. Maybe this post is a small start. Maybe that’s where I’m going with this.
