Rhonda
This week our country elected a new President after a long, arduous, and sometimes stressful campaign. No two candidates could have been more opposite than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and it showed in almost every facet of their campaign cycles from the speeches they made, the debates they hammered through, and their supporters and surrogates’ TV and radio appearances. Media, and social media in particular is so immediate it was hard to escape the backlash of craziness and crassness from both sides of the issues.
I for one am glad it is over. I feel like I have been dragged through a knothole and left abandoned for dead in many ways.
As this week has progressed, I thought back to the big yard sale I had over the weekend prior to election day. The weather was beautiful, I had tons of folks with deep pockets and got a lot sold that had been sitting in my storage since closing my shop in July. I got pretty good profits on most things, but there were certain things I kind of cringed at when the customer walked down the driveway and I looked down at the small amount of money in my hand from the sale. For a moment I may even have felt taken advantage of, but the ultimate goal? Clear out more of my storage, make a bit of money to pay the house note, move on. And I was able to do just that by compromising on a few items here and there in interest of my “common good”. Each individual sale doesn’t always go my way, but the end result is always beneficial.
My favorite customer of the day came late into the afternoon. Striding quickly up the driveway with a grin, I could tell the elderly lady with a tight topknot bun on her head loved yard sales. “I hope you didn’t sell all the good stuff yet!!” she said as she rummaged through the bits and pieces of junk on one of the tables. She was dressed in a cotton skirt, pullover top and had on tennis shoes. I looked down and could tell those battered shoes had seen some days and action. I was a bit surprised not to see the usual orthopedic ones that most women her age seemed to migrate toward in their latter years for balance and security in walking.
We chatted about this and that for a few minutes as she continued to look and she told me in a chain of conversation that she had just turned 88. I was shocked. Her skin looked like that of a 60 year old, hands were young, she seemed spry and lively. “Well, I wouldn’t be telling anybody” I exclaimed and she laughed. “People ask me all the time, especially my friends, how to stay young looking and feeling. I tell them things they don’t want to hear probably”. Then she proceeds to give me her top two pieces of advice. “ Get at least 8 hours sleep a night (I groaned a little), and eat three meals a day, no matter what.” She said we need both kinds of fuel to get through anything our life might throw at us, and she said rest was a big thing that most people don’t allow themselves. “When I eat, I always go in the house, sit down and take my time and eat something so it gives my body an extra rest break to regroup for the balance of my day. Even if it is only a mustard sandwich, I make sure to eat something.”. I started chuckling till I could see she was serious, then I asked her about mustard sandwiches…did she really eat those?
“I have been eating them since I was a young child, we didn’t always have what we wanted, but we always had food. Many times we didn’t have enough money to get meat to put on the sandwich, but we always had money for mustard. I knew if we ran out of mustard, we were finally really poor and I would be afraid. But that never happened.”
I watched enchanted as she finished her shopping, smiled a big ole smile that made her eyes squint and crinkle, and she wished me a great day. “I am off to a few more before all the treasure is gone.” And she practically skipped and ran down my steep driveway to her car. I couldn’t have done that myself at my age much less by her age. Maybe she had something there…
And that is kind of where we are in our blessed America right now. In this presidential choice, some got meat for their sandwich, and some ended up with just mustard. But no one now or in the future will be going hungry. We need to stop a moment and sit down together. We expect…no we deserve…a president who is president of ALL the people. And he deserves a people who are ALL his people, even when they disagree.
It is time to eat a bit, regroup and then go back to our work. When I see the protests, the flaming speech from both sides, the nastiness that continues I think I need to just follow her advice. Maybe I will make a ton of mustard sandwiches, go to the protestors and pundits and naysayers and hand them out…and it probably wouldn’t hurt to throw in a little leftover Halloween candy to sweeten the meal just a little. Mustard sandwiches are definitely an acquired taste.
Anyone who has known me long or well, knows I am a list maker. I have been making lists since I was a child. Lists of chores to do, list of chores accomplished, list of supplies I needed for a craft, lists of birthday and Christmas gifts to purchase, places I wanted to go on vacation, places I had been. Yes, I am a list maker.
Even my lists have sub-lists. Weird, I know. But I carry a student planner with me. In it there is a general calendar for each month, and on several pages following each calendar there is a note section for each day. I place my “bigger events list” on the calendar there. Estate sales are listed, appointments, lunch with a friend (rare), birthdays and the like. In the note section are things about each “bigger event” I need to know or remember. Phone numbers corresponding with the event, times of the estate sale and a list of last minute things “to do” there are all listed in the appropriate day, and um…I even have the days divided with a vertical line as to the time of day each thing is to be accomplished or occur.
Then there is the daily yellow pad list. I have a legal pad, yellow and lined, on a clipboard that goes with me everywhere pretty much, in addition to the aforementioned lists. I have each page vertically sectioned off into three days, date at the top of each section and day of week listed (in case I forget what day it is), and underneath this section are some things that occur on the other lists, but mostly it is daily junk that needs to be done so the other lists can get marked off. “Wash clothes” appears on a certain day so I will have clean clothes to wear on the three solid days working at the estate that are listed in the planner. “Make groomer appointment” appears on a Friday, since they are usually pretty packed, because the following Wednesday I want to drop him off around the corner from my standing breakfast-with-a-friend location and well, it will be convenient that way and I won’t have to make a special trip with the furry friend when I am going to be near there anyway.
You get the picture. And before I go on much further, yes, I have a smartphone and could put all my lists on that one calendar in one place, but it kinda freaks me out, so let’s just not go there, shall we?
I was driving around this morning, with the most current list running through my brain. Today is my “day off”, well on paper it is supposed to be, but of course, according to the list, there is much to accomplish today, so it becomes a faux day off.
I am three weeks in on my semi-retirement, and I am like all other retirees and working moms going back home. I am wondering how I had time to work at all before cutting the schedule.
So today, I am thinking more about why my time is not functioning in my favor. Is it because I am not organized? No, probably too organized. Is it because I am lazy? Sheesh, no. It is because I am using a lot of time making lists, for one….but I am leaving a very important factor out of the list. That factor is me.
I have caught myself steering off to do something at home or in a work-related way because it appears to be “urgent” instead of doing the truly important things. Some of those are reading for enjoyment, and some might be creating a new piece to sell in the booth and studying up on some cool techniques that I don’t seem to find time for because I am fighting “the list” of urgent stuff.
I am scared, but I am about to trim down a list…like to nothing, none, non-existent. Ditching a friend couldn’t be worse. But the list has been ditching me.
No more sacrificing the important on the altar of the urgent. That just got moved to the top of the list.
It’s been quite a while since I wrote my last blog post, almost a year in fact. Writing didn’t happen for a lot of reasons, and none were because nothing was happening that was interesting enough to chronicle. Mostly LIFE happened.
As I had written about in previous blog posts, my kids and grandkids moved in with me in June of 2015. Lots of moving around things, crowding and stuffing into corners and crevices took place between June and a few months later when they actually sold their home. Then MORE items had to come to the house, some landed in an office area of my shop that was just being used for my storage and thus became their storage to save them money. Stuff more stuff, move out some of my stuff to the shop to sell, decisions made about what to keep for the “one day” house we might have together, decisions to sadly let go of some things I loved, but had no real use for anymore. I haven’t even been in the two small attics since the big move, but I am told there is a lot more stuff and a lot less space than last June. I am afraid to venture up as yet.
Disruption for all of us became a way of life.
The kids had to sleep in one bedroom…a seven year old prissy girl had to bunk down with twin 3 year old messy, wild boys. A canopy and privacy curtains was moved to the top of the Christmas “want” list by the prissy girl, and with good reason. The big kids had to go to a small room and use every amount of space there and in the guest bath just for essentials for the 5 people in their family. My dining room that was rarely used became a daily used playroom with shelves on every wall, toys scattered, dress up clothes in our old hope chests (now toy boxes) and a baby gate was installed across the door leading from playroom to kitchen so the little boogers couldn’t escape at will. In the beginning, I had a time opening the metal contraption, and I silently cussed that gate. A lot.
Me, being one person, I began the daunting task of the move to the “smaller” parts of the home. My room became my room AND office. The regular fridge was given to the kids and I moved my items to the extra 1942 Hotpoint fridge in the laundry room that formerly held sodas and the Thanksgiving overflow each year. It is in the freezer space of the laundry room, opens to the left toward the washer and dryer, and it is a trapeze act to get into it around the clothes, cleaning supplies and dog kennel, but I have learned to manage pretty well…most days. My pantry items, being much more sparse than the rest of the family, went to two shelves while the family stuffed theirs into the rest of the shelves and floor space there, and in the laundry room on top of cabinets and inside cabinets next to light bulbs and flea meds. The “his and her” closets in my bathroom became storage for the decor I just couldn’t part with, yet. One closet is also a craft/paint/record keeping/gift wrap/Christmas gift storage area and it is bulging. I actually have some clothes and shoes in the other one, luggage, a chest of drawers that converted to store record keeping and so forth that cannot get shredded for 7 years, pool items, extra toiletries, and more future Christmas and birthday gifts.
Under my bed there are totes with more stuff that is mildly essential. It is weird to see those under there. I have never been one to have anything under the bed except maybe a sawed off bat to hit an intruder in the head if they choose my house to visit unannounced. I guess it is a throwback to my cleaning lady days not to store under the bed. One of my pet peeves as a cleaner was to find everybody’s junk under their bed when I was expected to vacuum there for them. It was an extra job to move all that and clean. Now it is just a matter of look under the bed, dust over the top and shrug and move on.
The garage was suddenly full of stuff like gardening items, lawn care things as usual. But it is also full of shelves with extra family toiletries, towels and tissue, napkins, canned food, toys for outside, and other items that have no room in the house.
And now, in the midst of all this “fullness”, I have closed my retail shop and more stuff has come home.
At the end of last year, about the time of my last blog post in November of 2015, I began to go through a time of self-reflection and some days were pretty intense. At first, I thought maybe there were just too many changes at home too quickly and I was reacting to those by getting the runaways. You know what those are, right? You just want to run away from your life, stay in bed, or go somewhere and tell everyone to leave you alone. That’s kind of where I found myself last year, but I knew that was not my usual modus operandi. I felt like my granddaughter. I wanted a bed…no, I wanted a LIFE with a canopy around it to keep the wildness and confusion out. I felt way out of my element, way out of control, way out of everything. It was time to step back a bit from it all, but frankly I didn’t know how I could.
One day I had some errands to run, and as I was driving, making stops and so forth, I was thinking. It was early December, I was picking up a few things for gifts and trying to decide what changes I wanted to make in me and my business for the upcoming year. I went to my favorite watering hole, sat for three hours in a booth alone with a pen and paper and wrote down the pros and cons of my current life. Then I wrote a new list of changes that would turn more of the cons into pros. All without exception required stepping back in some way. By day’s end I had made some big decisions for myself, and frankly I was nervous and anxious, but determined. I had my lease coming up for renewal in July of 2016, and I was seriously considering taking a partial retirement and not renewing. The nervousness and anxiety was because I didn’t know how I could do that and survive financially with many of the extra expenses that had made their way into my budget. But I knew it was what God wanted me to do. So the shop situation had to undergo immediate changes, starting the next day.
I posted ads online and said we would be closing for the last two weeks of December and reopening after the first of the year with a new format. This was a bit scary for sure since the loan to the buyers of the cleaning company I had sold had been paid off in full as of December. I had no extra income at all. So two weeks with no income was going to be interesting. With Mitzi’s help we transformed the showroom and reopened at the first of January. I started manning the shop myself, had no payroll, and saved as much profit as possible. I went to a different format of not pricing anything, dragging it out on the floor and getting it sold fast and gone quickly. Sales boomed and there were rare days that I didn’t make way over my quota of sales I had set for each day. Word got out that this was a reseller’s haven where you could buy low from me, then resell in your own booths. My shop became the go to place in town for dealers and retail customers alike. And miraculously I was making a great profit while liquidating my own stock, in anticipation of stepping back mid-summer.
Around April, sales hit an all time high and for a moment I began to rethink my plans. Should I remain in business full time? Sales were mounting each week, my Facebook followers had grown from around 500 to over 4000 and we were getting more and more out of town and online sales. I almost changed my mind, almost. But a conversation with my granddaughter one day redirected my steps.
Lorelai commonly came to the shop to work and spend time with me on Thursdays. It was a fun time for her and a time I could teach her about store ownership and responsibility and making change, and all the little nuances of being a business owner. But one particular day it was rainy and stormy, we had few customers and I was working more at the computer, so she was playing “house” in a little alcove at the shop. After a while, I went around the corner to see if she would help me with her favorite job of stocking out new items, and saw her playing contentedly with her dolls, so I watched a few moments. She had set up a makeshift kitchen, bedroom and living space and she was talking to her doll. “Mommy doesn’t have to go to work today, we get to stay home together all day long!” she exclaimed excitedly as she washed the doll’s face and brushed her hair. “We can play and work in the garden and cook food for when Daddy comes home later.” She glanced up and saw me and asked what I was doing. I told her I was just coming to see if she wanted to help pick out some things to put out on the floor. She hesitated for a minute and then said ” No, I have work to do here GiGi if that is ok. I just told Molly that I would be home today and we have a lot to do here because I have been working so much other days.” I nodded and left her playing and worked by myself that day. But I thought about that conversation many times over the few hours, and when I arrived home that day I had refocused.
I walked around the house after everyone had gone to bed the next night and saw all the places I had not tended to in my own home over the last few years because I had been working so much. I have always been a homebody. I was a stay-at-home mom for 21 years before going out to work after my divorce. It is hard for me to believe that myself, much less most of the people active in my life right now who know me as a focused entrepreneur and businesswoman. My home has always been a sanctuary for me, a haven, a place of rest and rejuvenation and in my walk around that night, I winced. I had let it become just another obligation that I had let slide and it was looking haggard and sad, and not much like a home. This had been my home almost 23 years. I had spent many hours painting, caring for the woodwork and trim, gardening, adding decor, changing furniture arrangements, adding this, taking away that because I loved my home and homemaking. I knew then it was time to step back into my real job as a homemaker. It was time for the real Rhonda to step forward again.
In April, I began the concerted effort of liquidating my own shop, unbeknownst to anyone but my immediate family. Huge sales were conducted, massive amounts of items were moved onto the showroom floor, items were re-discovered as I took box after box off the shelves in the back where they had sat for months since purchasing out multiple estates and storage units. I changed the shop hours and days to accommodate my relentless quest to have the shop purged, and empty by the last day of my lease, July 31st. Summer heat moved in and I began to move many items out into booths in local shops, into storage, into donation bins. Parking lot sales were held on my Sundays. I worked for 7 weeks with only two days off, most days 12-14 hours. During those months I dodged contagious shingles and staff infection running through the household, worked around both vehicles being down with major mechanical failures, and conducted two estate sales for clients, and still I worked steadily toward my goal. I took extra clothes to the shop each day, changing halfway through the day many times because I had soaked through as I plunged through the boxes and shelves in the back room and bay area and made drop offs at storage and I couldn’t stand the feel, much less the smell of the salty clothing.
And I did it…I actually did it.
The last day the shop was open was July 24, 2016. The next week the donations were picked up, the last of my items were moved to storage, the trash out crew came and removed all the garbage and items I couldn’t sell or donate. On July 30th, Mitzi came and helped me clean the building, my son in law made a trip or two with me to take a few things home, and I was done…all in time for Lorelai’s 8th birthday the next day, the last official day of my lease.
Choices don’t always make sense, that is a lesson I have learned. But if God guides, He always gives. This is the end of the first two weeks of no shop sales, but my sales have been consistent online and all my bills are paid up. Our yard sale yesterday was profitable, bills will be paid for another couple of weeks. I start another estate next week, and all is moving forward.
The one reason I hesitated in closing the shop has become a non-reason. I can make it. I just did.
Disruption once again is a way of life at home, but for a good reason. I have stepped back, not just from something, but to something. Stepping back from being “someone” that everyone knows as Help Me Rhonda or the Got Junk Lady. My identity is not wrapped up in what I do any longer, it is wrapped up in who I am and how I spend my time and with whom. I am stepping back into being a homemaker again, a mom, a grandmother. This week I start cooking for myself again, not grabbing food in between hot, salty trips to storage. Lunch with friends and swimming at Mom’s pool is working its way back into my days. I am planning creative projects again like new curtains for the kids’ room, painting pieces of yard sale furniture for my booths, writing more blogs and working on my book. I bought myself some coffee creamer and there will be coffee breaks with reading and reflecting. I think I may actually be able to take a look at Pinterest every so often, go to the library and read magazines just for funsies, or plunge into the pumpkin patch with the littles this fall. Stepping back to be myself again is the new norm.
I’m reminded of a Shania Twain song, “Dance With The One Who Brought You”
You got to dance with the one that brought you
Stay with the one that wants you
The one who’s gonna love you when all of the others go home
Don’t let the green grass fool ya
Don’t let the moon get to ya
Dance with the one that brought you and you can’t go wrong.
My life is counting on me right now, and I am definitely re-learning the two-step. Sometimes it’s time to step back, so you can truly step forward.
Today a stranger bought me a cup of coffee and it was a moment much bigger to me than that $1.00 that he spent. It was God’s answer to a prayer and reassurance of His constant presence in a very quiet way.
Several weeks I have been struggling inside with some decisions I know have to be made by year’s end concerning a handful of personal and business issues. I have always been a big believer in God’s power in situations. I have been brought through some pretty heavy moments in my life just because I know the Lord is the one and only navigator I need. He is gracious allowing me to become a part of the path- choosing for a time, even if it may not quite be the best path for myself. Sometimes I have made very good choices, other times choices that will haunt me till they lay that final lily on my chest. But in all instances I knew ultimately God had it, and I would watch things unfold, straighten out, clean up and move forward. And in almost every case it happened very quickly with my involvement in digging myself out of a hole, bootstrapping myself up, or otherwise being a very integral part of it all.
But that is not the case in my life right now.
I find myself in a frustrating moment in my life. I have usually sought guidance and many counselors when making a path decision and have most often come up with exactly what to do and when and then, well…just did IT…whatever IT may have been. But not now…I do not know the answer at all. Not even a little bit of the answer.
I am in a wait pattern, one position I often have difficulty maintaining. But right now, other than fleeting moments here and there of frantic “Oh my goodness what is going to become of me”, I have been at peace most of the last 6 months I have been dealing with these issues.
This week has been different. I have not been as content to wait. I haven’t felt sure of my decisions in some areas. There has been frustration and even a bit of dredged up anger here and there over old situations that are no longer in my control that have spiraled me to where I find myself personally and professionally today.
I woke this morning, a bit down and just wanting to get through the day and its requirements and get done. I did pray, I did ask God for guidance. Then almost as an after-thought I said ” And Lord, just show me I am not alone in this, give me some encouragement today because no one but YOU knows the deep things I am dealing with right now. My best cheerleader is usually me, God, and frankly, I am done cheering for myself and everyone else around me. I need somebody to take care of me for a change and genuinely care just a little about what I am going through right now. I need some warmth from someone, anyone today, because I just can’t do it for myself anymore. It would be good just to be noticed, God.”
I worked the day, closed up the shop, then started home with my granddaughter who had come to the shop with me. On a whim I decided to just stop in the gas station and get a cup of coffee, ride around a bit and clear my head before going home. I fixed my cup of coffee, went to the counter and waited my turn, while Lorelai chattered at my side. A billion things were running through my mind. So much on my plate, so many needing me, financial strains imminent in areas, and health concerns in others. I reached into my coin purse for some change to pay and the clerk said ” Thank you, have a great evening.” I looked up with money in my hand and said ” Pardon me?” He repeated his statement, then smiled, and turned back to his work. I haven’t ever had a stranger do that for me…ever. I told him honestly “Thank you for doing that, I really needed this” pointing to the coffee, but meaning the kind gesture. He nodded, said ” Yes, ma’am I could see you did.” I thanked him again and left.
I sat in the car with my granddaughter rattling on about first one silliness then another and I could feel the heat of the cup almost melting into my hand and moving up my arm, curling around my shoulders and across my face as I thought about what had just happened. I just sat and let that simple kindness care for me,put me at peace, redirect my path a bit and lift my spirits. And I felt noticed and no longer alone. I knew that I was in God’s site, within His range of hearing, but mostly within His realm of help and aid, and He used someone with skin on to remind me.
I know, even in the midst of chaotic times and days and moments that make no sense at all to my logic and reasoning, the Lord truly does have this all in His hands. He will give me what I need, when I need it, how I need it and from whatever source He chooses…not me. And I am grateful for that more today than I have been in a long, long time.
Funny how a little water and some ground up coffee beans can put the whole world into perspective again. And to think…I didn’t start drinking coffee till I turned 52. How different my life may have been if I had let Him fill my cup just a bit sooner.
Twice today, within the span of 15 minutes, I saw two references about why ships float or sink made in two very different places by two very different people.
One quote posted was this “Ships don’t sink because of the water AROUND them. Ships sink because of the water that gets IN them. Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.”
One of those “hmmm” moments followed shortly thereafter.
An old saying is “You have to sink or swim”. I am re-aligning some things in my personal and professional life particularly during the last few weeks in anticipation of some BIG changes that may/may not come by the end of this calendar year. I have found myself often anxious, fearful, hyper-motivated, tired, revved up and done…often all at the same time.
You know how it is. You look around at others and what they are doing. Then you look down at little ole you, and anxiety sets in because those two don’t match at all. You second guess, you wonder what you are doing wrong, you start pondering how to swim harder and longer, adding more to your schedule and an already crowded life.
So you add…and add again. And nothing seems to help. In fact, it seems to get worse. You start taking on water. Fast.
Epiphany happens, if you are lucky, and you realize staying afloat and positioned properly is not about swimming, it is about shifting. Shifting your mindset, shifting your focus, evaluating where you were and where you wish to go, weighing the value of people, their contributions, you and your contributions to both your life and your business…and then…you allow some people, things, beliefs to shift back into their proper perspective.
And suddenly, the ship starts to float again….and so do you.
I saw double today. No, I didn’t experience blurry vision, or see a set of twins. I saw a double rainbow. Technically I guess I saw two single rainbows…but I am not too technical most days. Let me explain…
I had gone over this afternoon to help my daughter move a desk and a few other items out of her home and into my van to make the first of many treks between our homes this week. My extended family and I are setting off on a great adventure this week. We are combining households, by choice not necessity, and they are moving in with me by my suggestion. Friday is our set moving day for the big stuff and by Saturday all my little chickens should be safe and snug under my roof.
I arrived and the little ones were in jammies, and so was Mom. The littles were playing on the chalkboard and maybe fussing a little more than playing and Mom and I were trying to talk above the roar of “Don’t draw there Isaac, NO MAX that is my spot, I DREW A BIIIIIG LION GIGI” and so forth. Chalkboards are great, but do usually require a bit fewer users and a bit more space for true creativity.
Samantha and I did manage to struggle out the desk and get it into the van, along with several booster seats which will be stored till next year and the twins are big enough to use them.
As I was loading the van with the first group of drawers and booster seats, a soft rain began to fall and I hurried along a bit. When I turned around to head up and get the desk off the driveway before the wood got too soaked I stopped. I saw the most beautiful rainbow. I have loved rainbows since I was a small child. I stood and watched and the rain trickled down my face and onto my shirt and dripped off the bill of my cap….and still I stood and looked. I saw Samantha come out with two of the desk drawers and said “Hey, come here there’s a rainbow!” Samantha rushed in to get the kids to come see. None of the three, even Lorelai who is almost seven, had ever seen a rainbow before. They chattered and talked about it, Isaac calling it a hair bow, Lorelai talked about how beautiful the colors were, and Max just laughed at the rain getting everyone wet. I thought about how I had seen hundreds probably in my lifetime, but this is the first one they had seen and I got to see them see their “first”. How special to share that with my babies. A “first time” only comes once, for anything.
And that’s kind of what this week is about, too. It will be a “first time” for all of us to live together and become a new family dynamic. Samantha and I have of course lived together, but never as grown women really. She left home when she was an adult, but not married and certainly had no children at the time. She was a single child going out into an adult world as a single lady for the first time. And at that time I actually became a single lady in a home by myself for the first time. When I married the first time, I went straight from my parents’ home to married life, so that was a first for me while it was also a first for my daughter. That seems like a lifetime ago. I guess in many ways it is a lifetime ago.
It is still a bit weird and surreal thinking about what this week will be. I have been single for a few years now and on my own and have reached my pattern of days. I get up when I want or need, I do stuff during the day, I come home, I do or do not do stuff and then, well, I go to bed and do it again tomorrow. And pretty much always in that order. I never fear running into anyone when I am at home. I always find what I need in the fridge because no one has eaten it or moved it or thrown it out because
they thought it needed to “go”. I wear the clothing I want that is not to impress anyone but for sheer comfort. I take a second hot bath in the middle of the night if the arthritis is acting up and never fear I will wake anyone or disturb the household. I am Rhonda Planet: Population One. But that is about to change dramatically.
And my children and grandkids are about to experience some real firsts. My granddaughter has spent the night with me, but she has never lived with me. My twin grandsons have never spent the night with me much less slept outside of their own bed at home as yet and they will do that first at my mother’s home while we are moving for two days and then my house, which will become their house. My son in law has not lived with me before so that will be new to him. My daughter has not lived with me as an adult mother or wife. And me? I have not lived with any of them, or anyone for quite a while, so this will be a big first for me, too. A year ago I couldn’t have predicted we would even be entertaining the thought of combining our lives this way.
It’s funny. My daughter and son-in-law haven’t said it has happened and maybe it hasn’t. But in my case I have had numerous people who have said “Oh wow, you sure you wanna do that? I moved all my crew in and I am telling you don’t do it.” And any and all variations of that same sentiment have rolled in the last several weeks from well-meaning friends and acquaintances. I have had a handful that know me and my kids and they assure me it will be an adjustment but we will be fine. I have chosen to take the high road on that one and say it will be a blessing to be together. I chose to look at it like that rainbow today…a unexpected chance to stop, reflect, see some things again, see other things as a “first” through the little ones eyes, and gather all of it in before it quickly disappears, as rainbows do.
I pulled the van out of the neighborhood and started on my way home, running a couple of errands before I arrived in the driveway. As I turned onto my street I was surprised and a little misty-eyed as I saw another rainbow. No, it wasn’t the same one; that one had disappeared long before. It was a new one, it looked the same but it was in a different place in the sky and at a different time. And it was over my house this time, where the other one was over my daughter’s home. I have never seen two rainbows in one day like that, and I have to think it was God’s way of reminding me that He has it all under control. He blessed them THERE and he will bless us HERE. Sometimes real clarity comes in seeing double.
Today is Easter and I am looking out the window of my home office watching cars pull in and out of the cove across the street. Families are gathering for church and dinner, kids are opening their baskets of goodies, the weather has a nip in the air for afternoon egg hunts. If the cars were older, the clothing was more vintage, the hairdos were bit more formal and tailored, this could be 50 years ago…nothing much has changed since I was a child. The traditions and trappings have remained intact over the years, but I have certainly come through many changes.
In the business I am in there are so many wonderful twists and turns, fun things and memory-creating moments. I love seeing people come in and find some of the beloved childhood items that were in their homes growing up. A lamp reminds a young person of their grandmother’s home, musty with peeling flocked wallpaper and braided rugs over the scuffed hardwood floors. A man picks up a bag of marbles and his eyes fix on them as he remembers many days spent kneeling in the dust and dirt, hovering over a circled string on the ground, trying to shoot best to win that prized aggie. I watch as an old woman picks up an antique handkerchief and holds it softly to her nostrils and breathes in, hoping to smell the light scent of lavender that had pervaded her own mother’s lace and trims when she was but a tiny girl.
My favorite customers are those who wander in, find treasures like these, and give them new life through a repurpose or redesign. Most often it happens with a piece of furniture, but I have witnessed the birth of an entirely new heirloom from old door hardware, wooden windows, a scrap of fabric tablecloth or a wooden barrel or box. All of these have come through countless hands, been in more than one home oftentimes, and now landed in a place where others can purchase them and give them a new purpose and a new life.
As a small child of 7, I met Jesus on a hot August day the last service of a tent revival in my church. I was just a little kid, but I knew there was something more to the life I was living, and so did the Lord. He knew I needed a makeover and I am so grateful He was willing to give me a new life. Many years and much water has gone under the bridge and my life has not always been what He intended it to be. But with great patience and a steady hand, He continued to sand off the edges, add a bit of color here and there, and spent hours and days and years waxing a beautiful patina into my life as I plundered through the milestones of my journey. And somehow, He is still working….and I am still grateful.
I think about my own ultimate repurpose when I see others take pieces and bring a new glorious life to them. I am humbled and continue to see the beauty possible in this old piece of worn out furniture I call my life. And I look forward to see the purposing again of my life in this, the latter half. There is always something amazing in making the old new again.
Some days I find myself in a funk. Many times I can determine what placed me there, other times not so much. More often than not, the heaviness and big black cloud overhead is caused by my choices during the current day, or even a series of choices from the week leading up to the yucky day. It takes some real time, effort and skill to grow a beautiful mass of feeling sorry for yourself.
Bad feelings are bred in many ways. It is found in how we talk to others. It is found in what we spend our time on. It is plopped down in the middle of who we embed ourselves in the company of on a routine basis. If we spend our time procrastinating, steeped in idle gossip, or giving into Debbie Downer head talk, then it is no wonder our days go from ok to “meh” in about 3.2 seconds.
I was reminded of this recently when a cable repairman came to my home. I was not in the best of moods but this older man was pleasant enough and kept up a friendly chatter although I was really not in the mood to establish a conversation with him. I just wanted my cable fixed. I had been having the same issues for many months, had been dealing with modem problems, resorted to using the hotspot on my phone just to get my work done at all, and I had finally just bit the bullet and resorted to calling the cable company out to repair it. I had gotten to the point when I sat down at my computer, no matter the time of day, I was already feeling a rising anxiety thinking I may or may not be able to complete the online work I needed to do in the session because I would lose connection halfway through so many times. I had been the same old route over and over…I knew the most common scenario by heart. Start and stop…start and stop…
My repairman was of Hispanic nationality, and had a very thick accent, so I found myself having to listen a bit more intently to understand him when he was explaining what the problem was with my internet. All I knew was I had a deep frustration over the modem clicking on and off eleventy-million times a day. But he was going through the whole gamut of what the problem was, why I was experiencing the issues, how he planned to repair it and what the final result would be.
I was wondering why he was even taking the time to explain all of it to me when he said ” You know…this cable company…they have new rules. They take us through the big hoops. They have us come out again and again. It fixes no problem.” He shook his head and then said “I been doing this cable company 10 years. I know what fix it, they not know how to go in straight line.” I must have looked confused for a moment because then he said ” I tell my wife ‘it make no good sense. They do this (reaching over his head with his right hand to touch his left ear) to fix when they could easy do this (reaching with his left hand to touch his left ear).’ ”
I laughed so hard when he said that. And you know, later after he fixed everything and left I had thought “Yeah, that’s just what I’ve been doing for months. Just creating chaos and hardship for myself.” By not calling right away I had spent months working in frustration and anxiety when I could have had it fixed, as it is now, and running like a champ.
I began to think about how many ways I frustrate myself. I listen to others fuss and complain about people they work for instead of just changing the subject quickly. I entertain idle gossip about another business owner or friend instead of stepping in or stepping up and shutting down the conversation in lieu of something more uplifting. I let paperwork pile up and then sigh when I see the stacks of unfinished business on my desk on a day when I could have been outside in the garden or spending time with my grandchildren. Rather than stopping a gossiping offender, I let others’ conversations go on hoping they will just monitor themselves and quit on their own. I become the dumping ground for them, then they walk away and I feel like a garbage can because I have heard too much, and it raised my level of stress internally, and they didn’t even realize what that conversation had done to both me and our own relationship. Rather than taking an hour daily to work on paperwork, I think I will eventually get to it, and shove it to the side waiting for a block of time that never comes.
It’s time to change that. No more creating chaos by doing or not doing something the simplest way. I am bound and determined to find my path of least resistance that I have waiting for me out there! Most of the time, the path to my inner peace is the the one closest to me and speaks to me, I just need to lend it my ear.
Do you ever have the days you feel like you are hitting a rock wall? I do. Sometimes it is weeks, months or even years of it. I have a problem, an issue, a long time “thing” that bugs me or controls me or worries me. It makes me fret, moan and groan and become otherwise hyper-focused on it. I spend money, waste time, flap my jaws and talk about it, purchase books, magazines, and sit in webinars about it, cry into my beer (or diet coke) with friends and try to solve it…but when all is said and done, I seem to never really get anywhere in taking care of the problem or the root issue.
My health, in particular my weight, was one (and only one) of these kinds of issues for me. I’d get to the point of really dedicating myself to it. This was the scenario….I’d back way up from the rock wall issue of my weight, look at it hard, steady my focus on it. My adrenaline would run high. I’d hunker down determined to tackle it, the ball would get snapped, and I’d take off and fly down my field…only to hit the rock wall with my shoulder and fall back flat. As I lay there dazed and wondering why the latest thing I tried didn’t work, I’d let my failure to succeed become my failure to even try anymore.
But one day, I had a simple epiphany, if you will. I realized the rock wall was really me. I started to envision myself not running, but walking at first. Then as I got closer to the rock wall, I’d jog, start to sprint, and then by the time I’d hit the wall I’d be running full force. I was expending all my energy before on the front end of the running and by the time I actually reached the wall, I was hitting it with the least amount of force I had left in me instead of the other way around. So I decided to do little things, not great huge sweeping things like cleaning the pantry out of all the bad food. I’d just give up one favorite item at a time and replace it with a new one. That was a start, it was walking it out and not trying to run before I could walk easily. Once I got started, I could see it coming easier and I increased my speed, I started losing weight very consistently, and found I loved the way I felt because it wasn’t exhausting me mentally or physically to do so.
I also changed the way I viewed the wall (me). I started to see myself after I busted through the impending wall, rather than my running and approaching it. There is something magical that happens inside when you do this and see yourself through your problem rather than just approaching it. You see success instead of experiencing the moments of “will I be able to do this?” And you say “Yes, I CAN” a whole lot more.
I never really connected why this time has been so much easier for me to lose and stay focused than the millions of times before until I saw this picture of my grandson Isaac from the park the other day. My daughter said he went through the rock hole, came out the other side and said “tada!”. The hole was already there, he knew he could do it, he went through easily, and tada was how he felt. He didn’t wonder if he could make it, he just DID IT because he saw himself through it already. In the past I had seen myself in every way, but never already through the rock wall. This time…I saw the hole in the rock and I saw myself coming through the other side. And I love living my new tada life! 🙂
They: Did you hear so and so is doing xxx at their shop/in their estate company now? (at one time you could insert “cleaning company” for the words shop/estate company since I owned a cleaning company for many years)
Me: Oh? That’s interesting.
They: It’s amazing how much business/customers/inventory they are doing/servicing/selling.
Me: That’s great, they do a lot of business, I have heard that about them/seen that.
They: Have you thought about changing and doing a/b/c too? If it works for them it will work for you, don’t you think you should do that too?
Me: I will look into that.
I had the following article hit my inbox today….and it speaks to me. This is so the way I have always tried to run my companies. I have always said my best competition is myself, period. I don’t look around too much to see what others are doing and trying to mimic their choices and attain their results. I am interested, yes. I am educating myself on different ways of doing things, yes. But to become them? No…I can’t be different if I am the same. That is a pretty simple concept….one that other business owners often fail to embrace and be ok with and thrive on. That’s why I will listen when others tell me this and that company is doing such and thus, but I don’t let it deter me from my steady course. I have a path, I stick to it till I know I should veer off because MY business tells me to do so. What happens most often if you (I) run after those competitive rabbits is this…you spend your money and time chasing THEIR ideals and dreams, and not your own. Sometimes the best plan is just to stay the course, and nod your head a lot and smile. And a well-timed, “hmmm, interesting” doesn’t hurt either.
