Family
My grandchildren are growing up so fast…way too fast for this GiGi. Even though I live close and am able to see them several times a week as I drop off things to their mom or she comes by to visit, I am astounded by their changes. Max and Isaac, the twins, are now a little over a year old and have started standing, with Isaac taking a few tentative steps here and there. Max is more quiet, watching the world, and steamroller Isaac, move around him. He looks like he is always contemplating something or someone, and seems to be the “thinker” of the two. Although he is the first born of the twins, he is more sedate, content to watch the world…and his brother…go by. Isaac on the other hand is a rip and tear kind of kid. He is busy, moving, inquisitive, and very dexterous. He is the one who finds the bugs on the floor, the strings on the furniture, that piece of paper that missed the trash can. Nothing gets by him at all. He does have his moments of sitting and playing quietly, but they usually don’t last very long as he loses interest quickly.
Lorelai is still the reigning princess of the home, the big sister and mother substitute. She is always watching, taking care of her brothers, reading to them, giving them toys, calling Mommy if Isaac tries to chew up a foreign object or Max falls over behind the desk chair trying to get to the computer cords. Then there are those days when she reverts a tiny bit, will crawl into your lap and ask to be rocked. I’ve seen a lot more of this in my visits over the last few weeks. As her brothers are getting more mobile, they are requiring more from the adults in the family, including GiGi. I imagine she is making her silent statement now that SHE was the first grandchild and SHE is still here.
I have found through my own life experiences and outcomes, as in my grandchildren, many can be raised in the same household and same environment with the same opportunities and educational avenues, and still be so diverse in the way they respond to life in general. We choose to live our life out in one of three places…a cage, a coop or a cradle.
There are those who choose to live their lives confined. Much of the time, they live imprisoned by how they were raised or by whom. If they are told they are stupid or fat or unworthy when they are a kid, often they grow up thinking that is their true self. They never achieve, never break free of the chain someone placed on them and never allow themselves to say “ I am a decent and good person, and I have a great life that is worthy of being surrounded by other great people and things.” When someone comes along that is wonderful, they will shut the other person out right from the beginning because they think they are not good enough for them. This person only allows others in their lives that uphold the truth they believe about themselves and that is usually the old words of “you are no good.” This person lives their entire life in a cage, not so much to keep themselves in, but to keep others out. They never go beyond the words of their past to find that they have something good to offer others, and they are in reality a person that can be respected and acknowledged and affirmed. Those who reside in cages end up living alone with the one person they respect and love the least, and that is themselves.
Then there are those who are living in a kind of partial prison. They may have been told the same thing as the caged person, and raised much the same way and experienced many of the same things, but they know they can leave their confinement any time and often do. They listen to enough good things about themselves to realize they have something to give in this life, and the giving starts with themselves. They involve themselves in projects and big dreams, events and epiphanies their whole life through. But these are also the ones who end up as addicts of all kinds and people pleasers. They will spend time, money, relationships and most of their life hopping in and out of that little box they have placed themselves in. Every day is a new day…today I am succumbing to my voice of the past, and I will live a “no good” life, I don’t deserve grace, or mercy, or love or any other good thing offered to me. Just close my door and leave me alone, I will sleep, and drink, and eat, and squander my life in this pit I have created for myself because I don’t have what it takes to change it, or me. Then this same person reads a good book, or hears a great sermon, or has a wonderful person enter their life, and they let the door open just a crack, walk out gingerly into the expanse of their life and realize it can be different and wonderful. But alas, because they are a person who is conflicted inside, and listening to both voices saying opposite things about who they are, they will get frightened or uncomfortable and turn and crawl back into that partial prison because it is safe and familiar. These are the coop dwellers…those who want to live outside in the freedom, but cannot get past the comfort of their chains.
Then there are the cradle folks. One of the definitions of the word cradle is “small low bed for an infant.” It is the one we most often see and hear about, but there are others. A cradle is the term for the support underneath a ship that is being repaired. It is also the word used for a place of origin like “cradle of civilization”. An apparatus called a cradle protects an injured limb. A boxlike item that is used by gold diggers to wash away dirt and leave the gold is also called a cradle.
It is interesting…all these things are the starting point of something, someone, or some great work, but not expected to be the end result. It is simply how it began and a place to begin nurture, growth, and stabilization. There are moments in each life where we come to a crossroads of decision, and we have to choose which way to turn with the rest of our life. We choose an adult path of nurturing, growth or stabilization for ourselves, or we choose the opposite child’s path. The crossroads come for all of us, and it is the time to leave the cradle and be a big boy or girl…and this choice decides how the rest of life is supposed to be played out.
When life gets hard or changes come and we am not prepared for them, it is easy to be a Max and just sit and watch it all happen, and never really participate outside of the little “cage” we have drawn around us. Or we might respond like an Isaac and bounce from one thing to another, in and out, all about, and try and find what it is out there that will make us happy and content, but never staying in one place very long.
But I have decided to live my life as a cradle person and self-nurture, grow and stabilize without the aid of anyone or any outside extra source…just me and God. Just like Lorelai crawls back in my lap, I need to go to a safe, comforting place, and crawl into it when I am having a bad day or need a little extra nurturing. That’s when instead of choosing to go back to a cage or coop of old heartaches, addictions, and unhappiness, I can cradle my needs with a good book, a quiet devotional time, a trip to the beach, a cup of coffee with a friend, or a walk on a star-dusted evening. And the best part is when someone or something comes along that enhances those wonderful things already in me, it will just be a friendly and comforting hand rocking my cradle, not the cradle itself.
Today is my 53rd birthday. I remember thinking not so many years ago when I was a young kid that anything over 40 was old, and anything over 50 was pretty near dead. I have since changed my perception.
Looking forward to growing up, it seems life passes at a snail’s pace. From birth to about 4, you are learning about yourself and investigating the tiny environment of your own parent-controlled world. Dad is many times that shadowy figure that goes to work, whatever the heck that is, and comes home to grumpily read the paper before dinner, eat and retire to the recliner for a night of viewing TV you can’t participate in. Mom’s lap is soft and safe, and any boo-boo gets fixed by simply climbing up and cuddling as she wipes tears, coos, and pats your cheek. Siblings start out ok, but somehow they turn into those grabbing little annoyances you wished would run off and join the Foreign Legion.
Then you are 5. Still prone to temper tantrums, crying jags over being sent to bed earlier than you want, and avoidance of baths are somewhat of a mainstay of your everyday life. You have begun to learn the world doesn’t revolve around you, sharing is not an option, and other kids are first a friend, then can get kind of stinky if something goes awry during playtime at their house. You turn 6, 8, 10 and begin to huddle up with gossipy friends and they enlighten you to the reality that one day you get to be the decision maker for your own life, and suddenly you can hardly wait to “get out of this house and away from THOSE people”. Teenage years and rebellion, even to a small degree, are indicative of raging hormones mixed with individualism that raises its monstrous head and flings all your decent upbringing to the curb. Some kids sneak out at night, others form bad habits that stay with them a lifetime, then a golden few seem to escape this stretch of black holes and go through those years unscathed and are deemed the “good kids”.
High school rolls by, acne starts out as your biggest concern, then gets trumped by wearing the wrong kind of make up or dress and finding yourself an outcast with no invite to prom or months without a date because you are not thought popular. Somehow you limp through and the day you walk the graduation aisle, you become, at least chronologically, an adult and capable of making your own decisions for your own life. You are at that place you dreamed of. You have left home, you no longer have school to attend, the friends that abandoned you or made you feel creepy have gone off to college, and it is you…just you…in charge of your next step. And you start thinking you want your mama’s lap back…
Each age and phase of life comes with its own adjectives, adverbs, twists and turns but they all have one thing in common…they are marks of the passage of time.
Passing time…what does that really mean? Today I have thought about several moments and segments of my life and there are frankly many I wish I could forget. I made poor choices, hurt people, left myself open to devaluation of personal principles and became some kind of two-headed monster for a while. It’s a wonder I didn’t lose the total respect of my family during that period of time. I lost so much respect for myself. Consequences of those poor choices caused me a lot of anguish and heartbreak and the passage of time to move through that and toward a clean and free life was slow and unyielding for many years. I wanted to break away from those situations and those people, but I was stuck in that time of my life and unable to claw my way out until one day I stepped back from my own life and took a look at the time passing. I realized it wasn’t my choice IF it would pass; that was inevitable. But it was my choice HOW it would pass.
Two steps forward, one back was the dance for several years after this revelation, but eventually I started making progress. I began to look for places and people, like mama’s lap, that were safe and protecting. Either something or someone was nurturing me or it/they were not…plain and simple. I decided to pass the time, and pass my life, in a manner that would build me up and inspire those around me.
I am not always perfect, not do I have pipe dreams that I will be perfect this side of heaven. My body aches and my eyes are growing dim. I don’t hear as well as I used to and gaps in memory are becoming more frequent. But I ain’t dead yet.
In this autumn part of my journey, rather than standing idly by watching the passage of time, I want to time my passage. This day, this moment… I choose to go to a wide field full of dandelions in my mind. I reach down, pluck one from the center, squeeze my eyes tightly shut and make a hundred wishes…one for every seed attached to the dandelion’s bloom. I blow gently and watch as those seeds of promise take flight and carry with them all the dark moments of the past and faltering steps of the present. Funny thing is, there are a hundred wishes, but each one is the same…don’t waste my time, by letting it waste me.
Today is a very special day. My twin grandbabies, Max and Isaac celebrated their first birthday yesterday and today we are having a luau party with all the trimmings! I can hardly believe it’s been a year since their birth…
In the fall of 2011 my daughter, Samantha, was working for my cleaning company as Operations Manager. She had held several positions since starting the company with me in 2002 but this latest position was in hopes of me retiring and she and her husband, Tracy, taking over the company. Several conversations, much praying and many months of consideration had brought us all to the same choice of direction. I was excited to think God had blessed my company financially and I could leave that “legacy” to someone who had the same vision in many ways that I did and would carry on a family business with respect and integrity. Lorelai had started preschool, which we had not originally wanted to do, but she seemed to be enjoying it and adjusting very well. The original plan was for Samantha to stay home with her and home school as I had done with her, but the talk about taking over the family business had trumped that by the end of summer .
Then one day, Samantha came to work and knowing my daughter, I could see something was on her mind. We worked through the morning hours, and then I went into her office across the hall. “You seem to have something on your mind…wanna talk about it?” My daughter with a hesitant grin said “Wellll…I think I may be pregnant.” For a moment, my excitement overcame reality of what this meant to my future and theirs. I was going to be a GiGi again, and was overwhelmed with gratefulness. My kids had experienced a miscarriage earlier in the spring, before the business talks had even started, so this was an answer to prayer in so many ways. As Samantha talked on, I had a feeling begin to creep over me that I couldn’t quite put a name to. I was excited, but at the same time so disappointed and kind of like the wind had been knocked out of me. My company had just weathered the storm of a tremendous turnover of both customers and staffing and this move to retire and let my kids take over was a glimmer of hope in the midst of the turmoil’s aftermath. In the blink of an eye, on the heels of a few words, my whole future was changing in almost every area.
My daughter went to the doctor soon after and I accompanied her. Medicine is so advanced these days. When I went to find out whether I was carrying a baby over 30 years ago, it was just becoming vogue to know the gender. Nowadays you can find out a lot sooner, you have an ultrasound immediately, and you know so much more than whether you are pregnant or not. That day is vivid in my memory…
We sat and waited on the ultrasound tech to come in. A perky little girl entered the room and quickly she scooted the wand around Samantha’s tummy for several minutes as my daughter and I watched the screen. I was looking at it and saying to myself “Something doesn’t look right here.” Samantha never indicated she saw anything out of the ordinary, but I was seeing two big black spots. Now it had been a while since we had viewed Lorelai’s ultrasound like this but I didn’t remember hers looking this way. The tech said “Well, are you ready for an answer?” This whipped my attention back to the reason we were there and that was to find out if I was indeed going to be a grandmother again! Samantha nodded and we watched as the tech circled the black hole to the left and said “ This… is Baby A”, and circling the hole to the right she remarked “ And this…is Baby B”. Sam laughed a little, looked at me and back to the tech and said, pretty calmly I thought, “Really?” The tech nodded then said she’d be right back, she needed to get more supplies for the second ultrasound. When the door closed, Samantha and I both jerked our heads around to look at each other with big “O” shaped mouths. I cannot describe the giddiness and goofy giggling that went on between us for several minutes before the tech returned. Suddenly, my retirement, selling the company to my kids, the questions of when would I lose my operations manager and what was I going to do now seemed to fade into the background. Nothing mattered but the reality that I was going to be a grandmother again, Lorelai was going to be a big sister, Samantha and Tracy were going to be parents again, and God had blessed us with not one, but two babies to soothe the heartbreak and loss we had all experienced in the spring.
And now we are almost two years from that moment and I cannot imagine my life any differently than it is today. The babies are growing up well and strong and happy. Lorelai stayed in preschool through the birth last May and finished out her pre-K year but is now home and working the original plan of homeschooling. She is the ultimate Big Sister teaching the babies all the important things like how to pirouette, the proper way to wear a tiara and wings, and making them grin when she dances through their scattered toys all over the living room. Tracy has a great job that is allowing Samantha to stay home which is a blessing because child care would be so high for three children, especially since two are babies.
And me, well…I am doing pretty alright myself. I pushed through some hardships personally and professionally and am working in an estate business I not only make a living from, as was the case with the cleaning company, but I am also exploring new things and living a passion, something few people do in their lifetime.
More every day I realize that I often choose the Thing One in my life. I pick the easy thing, the thing causing the least issues, the thing that makes me money for the house note, or lets me buy shoes for the feet and food for the table. Because all the basics are pretty much taken care of, I never even think about pursuing the Thing Two in my life. I don’t think I am very different than most folks out there either. Most of the time we don’t even know Thing Two exists until Thing One starts to look a little shaky or not quite right. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a Life Path Ultrasound? You could lie on a table, swirl a wand around and around and then the read out would show you the possibilities in your future…the Thing One and Thing Two. How many of us would choose a different thing if we only knew there was one?
I can say only in my own circumstances, I am fortunate enough to know there is more than one “thing” I can or should do. I can keep or sell my cleaning company, I can pursue the estate business full time, I can open a store or not, sell online or just hold estate sales for others. I have journalism and coaching experience so I can use one or the other or BOTH to forge my future. I can work for the dollar, or I can pursue my passions and make money doing it. I have choices, I can go left or right, up or down, stand still or start running with an idea…it is all up to me when and how. I don’t look at the ultrasound picture as just two black holes of uncertainty. I know both those holes hold LIFE, it’s just a matter of which I want…or better yet…maybe I will choose Thing One and Thing Two. I love my life, I love that I have choices…and I can tell you, through all of the past troubles and bumps in the road I’ve decided for sure at this stage of my journey, I don’t wanna miss a Thing.
The last few weeks have been very busy for me. The estate side of my company has had three huge events since the middle of February. And although I really need to have the next estate event “in the pipeline” right now, frankly I am in need of a little break. My main helper, Kay, and I have busily tagged, bagged and sold so many items over the last few months I haven’t been able to get out and do much buying myself for my own inventory. And a true junker has to have that fix…we need to get out and visit with our friends we see at all the yard sales, pop into our favorite haunts and honey holes and put down some change for those little treasures and trinkets that turn up in the most unexpected places. The real junker lives for the journey, not the purchase itself….the art of finding junk is the very best part of what we do. Selling junk we find, for the thrift business owner, is just a stepping stone, not the whole path.
This last weekend I didn’t have any family events, no estate sales to conduct, nothing to keep me from my “fix”. I mapped out my list and headed to two subdivision sales and several small individual sales about 7 a.m. The whole back end of the Montero was full to the gills when I returned home, and I felt like I finally breathed for the first time in several weeks. New inventory was just a small part of the lift in my spirits…it was about getting bits and pieces of things I could sell or recycle into new projects. I felt a purpose in my future….I could already see where I was going with everything that was in my car. It gave me my next stepping stones in the thrift business and a much-needed refreshing in my being.
For me, the whole idea of thrifting is multifaceted. It is about recycling, living a “green” life, preserving the pieces and whispers of the past, along with a myriad of other wonderful things. Sometimes items I purchase are made into new items to sell. Many times I add a little of this, slap on a dab of that, and I have a new eclectic piece of wall art, or a table made from a portion of old farm equipment. It’s exciting and just a bit awesome to end up with an old thing made into something totally new with just a little time and effort.
As a Christian, the thrift mentality takes on whole new meaning. It’s my calling to be resourceful and a good steward of the finances and material possessions God has given me. When I was in my early twenties, I had virtually no money to spend on anything but the cast offs and yard sale finds when starting my home and ultimately beginning a family. But I took those cast off finds, and I molded and made them into something “new”…and my friends and family thought it was amazing when they saw my child looking like Saks Fifth Avenue and my home decorated with stunning items that were purchased at garage sales and flea markets. And I began to shift in my mindset…no longer was I sad that I was unable to purchase new items like all my friends. I was able to purchase BETTER items than my friends, for less money, and the “thrift” lifestyle became BETTER than the old life of purchasing too little for too much.
I recently read something that said exactly how I see thrifting in my own life. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the author’s name on this piece, but it is very humbling for the Christian to read:
“There’s something about the idea of recycling that speaks to me as a Christian. That’s the underlying theme of the whole strip. It’s not just about recycling clothes, it’s about giving people a second chance, too. The thrift store takes cast-off goods that are about to be thrown onto the trash heap. They’re rescued, cleaned up and made useful again. And that’s what being a Christian is all about, how a person can be redeemed, made new again, through God.”
Along with the estate company I currently own, I have been the proud owner of a cleaning company for the last 11 years. I have learned much about people, idiosyncracies, wants, desires, and needs while getting them cleaned up. But in the last two years, I have felt a move toward a different calling and through a chain of events opened the estate side of the company. Although I do make only part of my income in this section of the company, as time goes on, this is where I feel the most reward and the most comfort personally. Slowly, I have been coming to the realization that maybe this is my next stepping stone in the path the Lord has for me. In looking at the path the Lord takes each Christian down in his life walk with Him, it’s an interesting parallel. He finds the sinner, He saves him, He cleans him up, He makes him useful again, and the sinner saved by grace becomes a part of something “new”. Maybe it is time, in my own life, for something “new”…
As a cleaning company owner, I have been “cleaning them up” for years, but this has only been one stepping stone for me in my own path. Maybe, just maybe, it is time for the next step, my “second chance”…maybe it’s time to rescue, recycle, and make something brand new out of my own life. I learned a long time ago, when you see a path appear, take it…it might lead to something BETTER.
One doesn’t have to hang with me for very long these days until they know I am a junkin’ junkie. Yep, I am the crazy lady that rubbernecks when she sees a lime green sign on the corner of an intersection, slams on brakes at the sight of a pile of hastily thrown together boxes and oddities waiting by the road for the garbage men, or wakes the rooster up before dawn gathering change and a few dollar bills from the recesses of the stoneware cookie jar of “mad money”. I admit it, I am addicted, and I do love it.
I don’t really know when that persistent little bug bit me. But I do know I have loved hunting vintage items since I was very young, and eclectic decorating pieces, dusty reading materials and absorbing collections of these items have comforted me the better part of my 50 plus years. My collections have been varied and interesting over the years, and they have also matured in content as I matured. But my most cherished collections began when I was but a young child.
I was growing up in Whitehaven, a suburb of Memphis, Tn, and we had a McCrory’s 5 and 10 that was within biking distance of my home. In those days kids could actually ride their bikes to the little shopping strip and walk from store to store in safety and without parental guidance. Our allowance of 50 cents a week was saved up for two or maybe three weeks at most, then my sister and I would either hitch a ride with Mom on a Saturday or we would be allowed to ride our bikes to the shopping center after we got a bit older. What fantastic independence we felt! Money in our pocket, our own wheels, and no adults…come to think of it, maybe those things were the real allure. The McCrory’s was by far our favorite store and the place we laid down the most pocket change each week. But we always saved it for the very last stop.
I had a pattern when I shopped. There was a whole lot of walking, peering into windows, watching people, and going from one end of the plaza to the other before spending the first penny. We’d start out at the Mannie and Karls’, the most boring store to kids since it was all ladies and men’s apparel and shoes, hats and gloves…not really much appeal there. At the other end was a Baskin Robbins and boy, that was one amazing place. Imagine, 31 flavors of ice cream. When it first opened, my friends and I all discussed the impossibility of there truly being that many flavors of the soft creamy stuff, but we also pledged to try them all just to be sure. In between the boring and the amazing was a myriad of shops and so much to see, and every visit it seemed new and different to me. There was a bowling alley smelling of popcorn and sweaty feet, and the loud crash of the balls could be heard streetside on a clear day. The Fred’s Dollar Store, Dreifus Jewelers and many odd shops I can’t quite recall were sandwiched between the barber shop and the Buster Brown shoe store. One of the stops on our itinerary was to gawk at mystical fortune-telling gypsy machine with the red-glowing eyes. I had dreams about that thing from time to time and would even waken crying from fear. But it was so mysterious and unearthly my eyes remained glued as it swallowed my quarter, groaning and jerking as it leaned downward over a chipped crystal ball and told you what your life would be, well at least till the next visit and your subsequent quarter was dropped. Then of course there was the goose that laid the eggs, not a real goose mind you, nor real eggs, but a mechanical goose much like the fortune teller only less unnerving. We all hoped to get the golden egg…and for the life of me now, I cannot remember why. We just, well, all wanted a golden egg, so I guess that was enough to keep us trying.
Around the corner past the ice cream place was a wig and dress shop. I loved to look in the wood paned windows and study the mannequins. We’d spend inordinate amounts of time trying to stand very still just outside the front door of the shop and see if we could fool the strolling people into believing we were mannequins too. I can’t remember thinking we were ever wildly successful, but it was still fun to try.
When all the places were visited, and all the first round of oohs and aahs were over, it was time to hit McCrory’s. Armed with the piggy bank money my sister, Lori, and I would go and meander in the store for hours. We lingered in the candy aisle, and gently touched the faces of all the dolls and fingered their delicate clothing. There were cap guns and hula hoops, jacks, slinkies and wheelie toys. My mom and dad were not fond of the trip when Lori introduced our household to the klicker klacker balls. Held together with thick cords were two brightly colored iridescent hard plastic balls. While you pumped your arm up and down the balls would strike each other with a loud “KLICK” then down with an equally ferocious “KLACK” ……repeatedly. Yeah, they didn’t last too long. She went outside her usual buying zone that day. Most of the time sis ended up with a fistful of candy that was long gone by the time we reached our front porch again. But not me, even when I was that young, I wanted something more stable, more valuable, more lasting and even something that would grow in meaning to me. And that one store in the tiny strip plaza is where my true collecting began.
McCrory’s was where I started my first collections of dolls and Trixie Belden books. Each time I went in I would go back and forth and up and down the case with all the dolls and finally settle on the one who deserved to go home with me. Some had beautiful hair and printed dresses, some were Barbies or Cassie Dolls. But the one doll I remember for some reason had no real identification or name. She was a beautiful little blue-eyed doll with porcelain-like skin, long platinum blonde hair tied into pigtails with pink ribbons, and she wore a bright pink raincoat set that ended at the top of snow white boots. I had that doll for most of my growing up. Maybe it was was my favorite because she was so opposite me and my own looks. I was just shy of chubby and for sure freckled, with long auburn hair and big brown eyes. I thought that doll was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen when I first laid eyes on her.
Trixie Belden was an escape for me. I was a voracious reader and so the independent little curly top was fascinating to me as a pre-teen. Solving mysteries, cooking her own food while her mom was at a bridge game and her dad was working, and the fact of her having a BOYFRIEND…well, she was who I wanted to be when I grew up. I just knew I would own a private eye agency one day with a swimming pool out back and my pick of young men trying to win my hand.
And to think, all those things that struck my fancy and turned my head then are the same things I gravitate toward today. When I go on my picking trips, I do buy some things that are good sellers that I know I can turn over for a profit quickly. I have enough business sense to know I can’t buy just the junk I like, I have to buy the junk other folks like, too or I won’t be in business very long. But the pieces I am wooed by time and time again remind me of those good times as a child. I find myself wanting to go back there, and there is almost a voice I hear in the recesses of my mind saying “If you choose me, you will remember what it was like then.” Funny how when I really take a deeper look at it, those things were just a prop in my childhood. There were some hard moments growing up…we all have them and some are more difficult to get through than others…but I can see where I chose certain things to embrace so the loud voices of the hardship would melt away. I would replace the uneasy moments with peace when I would hold a blue-eyed little doll, or immerse myself in a new adventure with my favorite character. Those things became substitutes that gave me belonging, and many times provided something to share or talk about with my friends or even my family. But sadly, I can see where I knew more about the props than I did about my own story that was being written at the same time.
In the junk business, I have a variety of items that I have sold or rented to local playhouses for their theatrical productions here and there over the last year or so. This makeshift “prop shop” was kind of an offshoot of me just buying things I loved, then people coming to my sales that were involved with the local theater and they purchased those items that fit their particular script. Using them would move their story line along because the props gave the story strength visually. Recently, a young friend took a position as a performing arts teacher. She had been following my junking business and approached me about providing some props for her productions in the future. In the talking, she sent me a site that lists the props that are suggested in a variety of plays and it was so interesting to me. As I flipped through page after page of the site, many items that were on the lists of oft performed plays were either already in my stockpile waiting to be sold or rented out, or were items I had gravitated toward in the past and were already sold and out of my inventory. If I had not sold anything in the last year, I would have had enough of the “right” items to open my own full prop shop with the exception of a handful of things that I had not run across in my experience junking as yet. All those years of looking much, buying little but purchasing the “right” things had trained me to know what would become vintage and useful to me later.
Our lives are really just a big production on this earth. We are here for a few acts, some of us more than others…then the curtain will fall, the audience reaction will come, and it will be time to leave the theater. When it comes right down to it, the believability of any story, any play, or any musical lies with the actors, yes. But the support of that story is found in the type of props they can rely on to get their story across to their audience.
I wonder if we took a steady, quiet look at our own lives, would they be so cluttered with props that we can’t see the actual story? How many things would we find that are not even really a part of the production of our life, in other words useless, ineffective props? The props we do need for our story …are they in good repair, clean and make us look good and usher us easily into the character we are meant to be ? Or are they tattered and worn, pulling us down and making a shabby mess of life?
Props are necessary in the telling of any story, but they are not the story itself. Time to buckle down, take a good long look at the list of props that are and are not part of the play I have been cast in, then spend a little time getting my prop shop back into order. It just wouldn’t do for the King of Siam to wear a cowboy hat, or Dorothy to be seen easing on down the yellow brick road on a unicycle, now would it?
All over the world today, people celebrated an annual event. Some call it Fat Tuesday, others by a name indicative to their own culture or language, but many aspects are the same in all lands. It is the day before the launch of the Lenten season and full of joy, merriment, and in many cases a bit of untethered self-indulgence. My 4 year old granddaughter, Lorelai, had arrived yesterday to spend the night, so this morning we had our breakfast at IHOP, one of her favorite places. That was just one piece of a day of coincidences, I realized, as I tucked her in tonight and she closed her eyes in peaceful sleep.
When Lorelai woke up this morning, she did as always and took off her pj’s and slipped into some dress up clothes. She is at the age where, although she is very confident of who she is, it is always a bonus to her visit if she can dress up like Cinderella or Belle, which is usually her choice. But not today…when she came out of her room, she was wearing a hat I had placed in the clothes bin a few visits back that she had looked at but never played with as yet. It is tall and fluffy and pink, and just a little grand for every day attire. She asked me to zip her dress, and I also realized she had on one she had never worn…again, very odd. Then she ran back into her room and returned with a mardis gras mask on. I laughed at her and said she could wear it to breakfast when she pleaded with the look that GiGi’s cannot resist. So off we went…
It was lunch time and our food order was taken quickly so we had time to just hang out together and she colored while I checked messages on my phone. One of my emails came through with a “Happy Fat Tuesday” message, and only then did I realize what day it was. I looked up and sitting across from me was a brightly masked child that had no idea she had dressed up for a celebration day. But there she was, outfitted to the nines and ready for the holiday I had not even been aware was happening.
While I was musing over this coincidence, the waitress brought back our meal. Lorelai, as usual, had ordered the create-a-face pancake. I almost invariably would look at the menu, then order a favored patty melt, but for some reason I decided to order pancakes as well today. The face of her pancake was made out of fruit and yogurt and she pretty much decorates it the same way every time. But today she decorated it, then kind of looked sad. “What’s wrong, don’t you like your pancake?” I asked. “Yes, I like it, but I REALLY wanted to have a mask for my pancake too so it could be a party and I don’t have anything to make a mask.” So we took blueberry and strawberry syrup, made a “mask” and I was struck again by another coincidence when I picked up my phone to finish the earlier email. A traditional meal on Fat Tuesday is…you guessed it…pancakes.
Interestingly enough, there was no one who commented on their own initiative to my grandchild about her feathery mask, or bright, colorful clothing, or made mention of the holiday. No one…not the waitress, the hostess, others in the restaurant as we passed by as we were shown to our booth, those we sat around, or the nice young man who brought us our food…no one made a single mention of the out-of-the-ordinary costume or the tiny tot wearing it. But Lorelai did something that brought attention to herself in a quiet way.
There were several people sitting all around us, many were women. As we were eating, she tugged on my sleeve after a few minutes and whispered in my ear ” GiGi, that lady is beautiful”. I looked over and I saw a rather plain, hard-faced woman in muted clothing sitting across from us. There was nothing drawing in her appearance, no smile or features unusual enough to catch anyone’s attention, in particular a child. “Can I tell her she is beautiful?” The woman was with a male companion, so of course I didn’t want to disturb them. Besides, it would maybe seem a little odd to someone so I said ” Well we may in a minute, go ahead and eat ok?” I was hoping to distract her, and started talking to her about what we were going to do the rest of the day and where we would go. She listened and ate, but I would catch her watching the couple closely. When it appeared they were finishing up, had paid their waitress and were gathering their things to leave, Lorelai looked at me almost in distress “GiGi, they are going home, I need to tell her she is beautiful, she needs to know I want to say that.” I could see tears brimming up in her big eyes, so rather than cause a scene one way, I decided a small scene another way was much preferred. The man stepped past our table, then the woman came along and I said “Excuse me, ma’am, she wants to tell you something.” The woman looked up, confused, and then glanced in the direction of her companion and back at us and said ” Yes?” Lorelai, in her pink hat and feathery fluff looked up and smiled brightly and said “You are beautiful!” Instantly, the woman’s face softened, and she looked down at the child and said “Oh” clasping her hand to her heart. “Oh, you are beautiful too, you sweet little thing.” She flashed a sparsely toothed-smile back at us and I saw tears in her eyes when she turned to me and said “That just made my whole day!” A few more pleasantries were exchanged, then I looked back at Lorelai. A self-satisfied grin was on her face, and her whole countenance was beaming as she said “I told you GiGi, she is beautiful!”
After our meal, as we wound through the restaurant, we went past a withered old woman eating alone, Lorelai said ” Hey, you are beautiful!” The lady reared back her head, let out a laugh that rat-a-tatted like a machine gun, and patted the child’s shoulder as she went by, saying raspily “Sweetheart you are fancy as a peacock and beautiful too!” Every chance she got, on her way to the door, she told someone they were beautiful, or she liked their shoes, or your hair is pretty…it was so comical considering her get-up but so much a magical moment suspended in time, and a life lesson I would never forget.
Fat Tuesday is traditionally the day of rich food, uninhibited behavior, bead showered parades, fun times and frolic. Fat Tuesday is followed by Ash Wednesday, a day of giving up something that you participated in, perhaps the day before. But what if the best parts of those two days were somehow blended together in our every day lives?
We go through our typical days…we work, we eat, we drink, and sleep…we do whatever we think it our mission of the moment and a piece in the puzzle we call LIFE. How many times are we in the very midst of an opportunity to celebrate that life and fail to do so because we are either afraid we will make a spectacle of ourselves, or someone will call the white coats on us, or maybe even worse we think we have no special life to really celebrate and embrace? All live the life they choose, no matter what it is. Some choose to live their life in a way that is meager and poor, that leaves them wanting more and never quite having the contentment and fullness and beauty they are promised by their Creator. They may even give up their own life’s potentially glorious future by giving into the demands of others, rather than setting a good course of peace and joy and living their own life instead of letting another’s life live them. They have a daily photograph that looks much like the woman Lorelai felt compelled to lift up…plain, joyless, hard and crushed underneath some intangible hand of fate or failed expectations. I say let’s live a combo Fat Tuesday and Lenten life…give up the nonsense, judgment, and martyrdom and instead live rich, full of celebration and merriment, spread lots of love and, well…. just put away the plain and be downright “beautiful”.
For the past several years, I have been fortunate enough to get a little R and R at the beach in the fall. It is my favorite place to let my hair down, kick back and reflect, and I always come away refreshed and revived for the upcoming year. A huge stack of books used to accompany me, but since receiving a gift of a Kindle, I am able to take thousands of books I have loaded onto the device with me and drop it into my beach bag along with the sunscreen and towel. Ah, the miracles of technology!
After Labor Day last year, the time had come to pack it all up and head for the coast. I was so excited! I love everything about the beach and the lure and love was always a constant. I have been fortunate enough to go each fall for the last several years, in fact to the same Gulf Shores condo and always knew what to expect. There would come a certain place in the road down south where I would begin to see the palm trees waving hello to me. I would pass the boiled peanut vendor, then a favorite little stop for gas and refreshment. I had so many things that I had come to depend upon. I knew how the brisk tang of the salt air would fill my nostrils one I got to a certain point in the highway. I knew where all the great thrift stores were….I could already feel the shifting sand under my feet as I made my way to the blinding white shore for the first time after arrival. I knew when the warm sun would finally be over the outdoor pool long enough to take the first dip of the day without freezing. I even often saw the same people from year to year that vacationed during my same 10 days and we were able to have a “family reunion” of sorts. It was all exactly as it was the year before and I loved it.
A couple of days after arriving at the coast I received a call from my son-in-law. He was cutting my yard for me while I was gone and when he had gone around back to mow, he noticed a large rotting tree that had fallen on the back fence during the storm the night before. After a call and visit to the neighbors, he assured them that the tree and fence would be fixed upon my return to town. But it is now January, and through a series of false starts and setbacks with insurance and contractors, the fence is still down and hasn’t been repaired.
My home is situated at the back of a nice neighborhood. My back yard overlooks the east side of a home on 4 acres. Over the course of the last 18 years I have lived here, I have seen several changes in both owners and lay of the land. The original owners had a small T-ball field built in the middle of their meadow and on Saturdays I could sit high on my deck and watch the little ones tumble and play. It was an every day occurrence to see all manner of wildlife in the field on any misty morning. Opossums, deer, and the occasional bobcat were all matter of course. We even caught sight of a small panther once! When I first moved into my home, there was a barbed wire fence stretched across the back and the view was uninhibited. The land beyond the home behind me had a pond and that family raised peacocks and peahens. It was not unusual for the occasional rebel to meander across both patches of land, come through the barbed wire and blast us a wake up scream at all hours of the day.
But over the years, owners and situations changed, outbuildings were built by one home owner along with a wooden fence, and I could no longer view the entire meadow behind me anymore. It was kind of melancholy, but the fence afforded some privacy to both myself and the neighbors, so it was deemed appropriate at the time.
But, I noticed something as the years went by…
As time went on, I noticed less and less wildlife walking through the meadow, and the squirrels, birds, and deer seemed to be more scarce since the building of the fence. I had thought it was due to the fact that the woods behind me were getting cleared out and some building had taken place there several years back and so the wildlife had probably migrated to another area that was less populated. I never gave it much thought till this last week. Several times I had walked to the window, or out onto the deck and see a different kind of bird that were on my feeders, or the squirrels eating the corn I had put out for them on the spinning tree feeder. I always try to keep those full, but when I am gone a lot, as I am, I don’t always see the actual animals, just the evidence that they were there from time to time.
Last week, other than a bit of computer work and eating soup, I pretty much was in bed sick. I am rarely sick, almost never, so this is not a place that is comfortable for me. I like being busy, and many of my days see me going out for first one thing then another for both my businesses, working on the computer in my home office at the front of the house, filing, etc. Whatever this crud was, it pretty much grounded me all week and I slept away most of the first part of the week, and ventured out onto the deck for fresh air only after four days. On Thursday, I was thinking back to two weeks before when I was standing by the kitchen window after opening the blinds and caught sight of a deer in the middle of the meadow behind me. I was so surprised…it had been well over a year since I had seen one, and I stood and watched it till it was gone from view. What had been common many years ago had become a rare sighting over time, so any moment I was lucky enough to catch one I just stopped everything and watched it as it walked around, ate, and finally moved into the woods again.
Suddenly during my daydreaming, I caught some movement by my fence at the corner and saw a tiny fawn step out and begin to walk timidly along the fence line…or what should have been the fence line…at the back of my yard. It walked all along, stopping to eat, to lift its ears and listen, then walk some more, always keeping to the same path. After a few minutes, it disappeared back into the woods, and I threw on a jacket and went to the back of the lot to see if I could see it again. Peering over the fallen fence, I never did catch another glimpse. But I did see something…I saw a well worn path in the grass and places where the green was worn down to the dirt. It went all along the old fence line, then off into the woods…
I wondered how many times the deer had been there all along, walking the fence line and I couldn’t see it because the fence was in the way? Did I see something just now that had been there all along only because I was home…and aware…and the fence was no longer blocking my view? How much beauty and quietness of nature had I missed over the years thinking it was no longer available to me?
So many parallels to my own professional and personal life are found in the story of my deer. I am at a crossroads in my life path and in the center of decisions that will affect the last part of my life. I want the decisions to be good and wholesome, something that will care for me but also allow me to care for others in ways that mean something.
Should I sell my cleaning business and start another vocation? Should I seek out a position in another company and help someone along their own professional path rather than be “the man” anymore? Do I go into estate and resales full time, re-purposing furniture and spending my days with paint under my fingernails creating treasures for others? Or do I sell my home where I know all my neighbors and all the idiosyncracies of the wood and stone, opting to occupy a home with my kids and grandbabies and just be GiGi to them the rest of my natural life? Are there things I have built into my own life over the years that started out as a good fence, but became a block to my own great future? Can I no longer see the deer?
Fences can be good things. They protect, they set boundaries, they guard, they embrace. But I am of the belief every fence should have at least one peephole in it. Otherwise you may miss those golden little opportunities for change and happiness as they stroll by….and wouldn’t it be sad if they had been there all along, just waiting for your fence to come down?
Today is Tuesday, four days after our country witnessed a terrifying and history-altering event. It should have been a day like any other day, and in many ways it was. Parents woke to the manic sounds of their alarm clocks, they went in and roused their kids. They pleaded and prodded the little ones out of pj’s and into school clothes as the pint-sized people stopped to play with a special toy, or antagonize their sibling. Boys slicked down and combed their hair, girls scrubbed their faces and donned big pink or blue hairbows…they all gathered backpacks and lunch pails and notes for their teachers, and they left home and rode off to school with a parent or in a yellow schoolbus full of other wiggling little children. Just like any other day…
Then the news came…and the nation stood still… just as we did on the day the Challenger exploded, or foreign planes crashed into the Twin Towers, or John Kennedy was shot. We stood still not believing what we were hearing, not grasping or accepting the images we were seeing as our eyes, glued to the TV, began to blink back the tears until we could hold them back no longer. A 20 year old camo-adorned madman armed with guns and bullets went on a rampage, then killed himself taking with him 6 teachers and 20 innocent children, and a part of our country’s bright future.
Many of the children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary were warned before the gunman could enter their classrooms. News reports say someone, maybe the principal who was one of the victims, or perhaps another office person, flipped the switch on the intercom so the entire school could hear the commotion, the ringing and scattering gunshots, the sounds of the victims as they experienced their own terror, and they might escape the same fate by running and hiding until they could be saved. It’s frightening to think about what that sounded like to those listening…but the harsh sounds of those who fell became the sounds of salvation for those who survived.
I didn’t hear the news that day until I returned home from a long day of errands and grocery shopping. I was hosting a company Christmas party the following Monday and so I headed out early…just like any other day…to run a few places, enjoy the bustle of the holiday crowds, then return to a nice warm home and maybe take in a movie on TV or read by the fire till bedtime. I had happened on a yard sale that morning and had gotten a few nice things to resell in my estate business. Among these things was a small divided box, about the size of my palm. It was buried in a box of the old jewelry from the yard sale vendor’s mom. When I took a closer look at the box I was delighted to see it held a tiny nativity set! Each piece was smaller than a dime, and there were 15 compartments for the pieces. One of the compartments was empty, and I was a bit disappointed, but I had to have it when I found out it was only $1.00. I could see the three figures of the main manger scene were all there and I knew that was the most important element. I pushed it down into my other bags, went on to my other errands and arrived home a bit after dark.
My plans for a peaceful evening changed when I saw the news. I sat watching the events unfold and although I was crying and heavy-hearted most of the night, I couldn’t tear myself away from the reporting until sometime very early the next morning. Each child’s face, each mention of a name brought to mind my own grandchildren. I could not imagine how it would feel to wait at the firehouse…wait, and wait…hoping to see your grandchild in the next group, and the next, and the next… and know she was safe because she had been hidden…but then be told that your own small one had not made it into hiding, and she would not be coming home again. I fell into bed exhausted and had a fitful night’s sleep.
The next morning I woke up and started my day with eyes that were still red-rimmed, but I knew I had many things on the list to do. I started with the purchases of the day before and began to put them away and my eyes fell on the tiny nativity set. I decided to set it up in a special place…and as I emptied the compartments of the figures…Joseph and Mary, wise men and donkey…I finally lifted the last piece out. It was the shepherd, and I was so surprised when I saw a teeny little sheep hiding behind the shepherd there. I had not seen this before…the nativity was complete, nothing missing at all!
My granddaughter, Lorelai, is beautiful…she smiles and sunshine emanates from every part of her heart-shaped face. She is smart and quick and we talk about how easily she memorizes and learns and how she will “be somebody” someday. Max and Isaac, the twin boys, are just now developing their own distinct little personalities. But we can already see the way Max investigates and peers at everything as if he is sizing it all up with the intensity of an engineer. Isaac is a squinty-eyed little rascal that captures your heart with one look, and he is very dextrous for his age and will likely be a hands-on worker of some sort.
I was reminded when I looked at the baby sheep in my hand, even with all their possibilities and talents and abilities that may come along as they grow and mature, the only thing that really matters to me is that my grandchildren are all protected and safe. They are in a world of wolves and those who seek to harm and destroy, and just like a tiny sheep, they are vulnerable to physical or spiritual danger. I want to be someone who “flips a switch” in their lives…warning them of the things that are cruel, letting them hear the truth, even when it will be frightening and maybe even harsh at times. Because I know that their only chance of salvation is in hearing and understanding this truth. And just like the tiny little sheep…they too must be found hiding behind the Shepherd.
I have always been a detail-oriented person. Even as a child, I often arranged, then rearranged my room, toys, clothes or what have you until everything was just right. In a freaky kind of way ordering my possessions became a comfort to me. Even now, I can pretty much walk into any area of my home and put my hand right on something I am looking for…as long as I have followed my most natural instinct which is use it, clean it up, store it in its “home” for next time.
Being a detailed person I am always on a schedule, but have prided myself on seeing things people don’t usually see and noticing things that often pass others by in their rush from one place to another, one activity to another. It’s what has made me a great cleaning company owner since I can see dirt that even a customer doesn’t observe in her own home. Beyond this I can also “see” a future need she may have by perceiving the condition of her home on the day of the walk through when we meet for the first time and I view the home. One of the most difficult tasks has been to train my techs and managers to have “eyes to see”. Challenging…but there are those rare times when I have a cleaning tech who meets or even surpasses my own skills in detection. Those are the techs who have garnered a skill for a lifetime…the ability to see the invisible, and they had learned it from my detailed training. So rewarding…
Today was a day of hectic running from place to place. I had several errands and stops to make, but with a list in hand, had made very good progress on a nippy but totally beautiful day. Inside, I was feeling so good about my accomplishment. List was whittling down, the Christmas and food shopping was nearing an end, and I was ready to head to my warm and welcoming bungalow after one more quick stop at a local grocery store. Walking across the parking lot, I was overwhelmed by the loveliness of the day, and deeply breathed in the crisp air making me feel even more alert and aware of everything around me. As I drew near the store’s entrance I glimpsed one of my favorite seasonal sights…the bell-ringing Salvation Army bucket guy. Many of these men and women have fallen on hard times, some are recovering addicts, some once homeless were given a helping hand by this organization, and manning the bucket was a payback of sorts. Taking a regrettable life or circumstance and helping someone turn it into a recovered and reconciled life…what a great ministry to the lost souls and wandering outcasts.
I dug into my pocket and found a dollar to drop in, and then I realized he wasn’t ringing a bell…he was playing the guitar instead. “How cool is that” I thought. My husband, Dwight, had filled our home many times with the sweet strains of an old hymn or long ago ballad, and the sound of an acoustic guitar brings many fond memories to surface when I hear it. How lucky I was to have caught an impromptu Christmas concert today!
The money was shoved into the top of the bucket, followed by the man’s softly uttered “Merry Christmas”. I answered back a return greeting over my shoulder as the automatic doors opened, grabbed a basket and headed to find the items I needed. The one place I didn’t want to be was a busy store as the noon hour approached. As I checked out, I found myself hoping the man was still playing when I left the store so I could maybe catch a little more of the guitar sounds that would put me in a cheery mood.. As I went out of the doors, I glanced over and saw him putting his coat on. He had laid the guitar down and picked up the bell and was walking over to the bucket. I wasn’t going to stop since there was no guitar…that was what I really wanted to hear and see…but as I pushed the basket by I said ” The guitar is different and a nice touch instead of the bell.” “Yes, it is,” he said quietly.” I hadn’t intended to really stop and converse. But something in his voice stopped me and just to be polite for a moment, I held onto the basket and nodded down at the guitar ” Have you been playing long?”. He hesitated, then told me he had played for years and really loved being able to share the guitar with others, ending with ” I love the guitar.” I answered that I do too, told him in a sentence or two that my husband was a player and had a 12 string ovation…then ended the statement with ” We love guitars because they love us back and don’t demand anything from us” as I started to push past him and go to the car. He agreed and as I began to say Merry Christmas once more and head to the car I finally looked up at the man’s face for the first time….and I was quickly moved to tears but fought them back. He had turned away to speak to the next person that came up with money and I realized…I recognized this young man…but I had not noticed that till the very moment I looked into his face. As I drove home, a sadness surrounded me…I recognized him, yes…but I didn’t know him…
How many times have I rushed by someone and not “noticed”? How many times has pride made me think I have it all together, I am a shining example, my life is one to be emulated and admired…when all the time the important things and people and their needs have been overshadowed by my agenda and pitiful and paltry needs? Did I give only to look good to others, for adulation…or was my giving only offered to those who demanded nothing and gave me only adoration and love in return for any bit of attention and time I may bestow on them that “fit the schedule”? What ministry opportunities did I miss when I rigidly stuck to my plan, my schedule and my itinerary rather than taking the time to see the true details of life, and notice the unnoticeable?
Life’s quilt is made of many fabrics…snippets of time, milliseconds of conversations, and enduring patterns of moments whose pieces are sewn together with delicate, and many times self-sacrificing, threads. I think more often than not, we become the delicate threads that are placed in others’ lives to sew them back together, stitching them into the real and truly blessed life they are meant to lead, even when they may have chosen a bargain basement life for themselves instead. But just as sewing in poor light can make you blind, and sloppy stitches make a quilt that will fall apart quickly, it is important to take care of our spiritual eyes and train ourselves to really see. It is just as vital to take the time to make tiny well-placed stitches in the lives of others by the seemingly insignificant gestures we may make because we took the time to see the details in another’s life. The cry for a kindly spoken word, a handshake and quick smile, or other small gesture that will turn a life around will only be seen by those willing to give notice to the unnoticeable.
Thanksgiving season has swiftly rushed past and we are now in the throes of Christmas shopping, decorating and baking. This time of year is reserved for reflection on days past, warm memories of those people and places of long ago, and a building of hope that the next calendar will turn over and see a bright New Year. We hear ring-a-linging bells on every corner as the Salvation Army Santa greets us, we watch as first one home then another in our neighborhoods throws light on the season with their various reindeer and sleighs, snowflakes and elves dancing along the fronts of glistening abodes and slippery sidewalks. Ah, Christmas…the time we should sit back and rest and really enjoy.
But do we? Many are working more hours now than ever before as the crush of the current economy has forced more people to find second and even third jobs. Masses of layoffs, closings and cutbacks have depressed the checkbooks along with the spirits of the working class. While embracing the real reason for the season, unfortunately love and contentment is buried in an avalanche of anxiety.
As much as we would like to see this way of life change, it seemingly is with us. Once a tide has turned it is so difficult to turn it back to simpler times, simpler truths and beliefs…not impossible…just more difficult.
As I was working from home today, I thought about how fortunate I am to do so when so many have to gird their loins and go out into the cruel world each day. I noticed too, and have been keenly aware of how “rushed” I will be and have been making a concerted effort for several months to slooooow doooowwwwwn. Not easy for this type A firstborn…but nothing worth doing is easy, right?
Many years ago I taught on this very subject in a women’s Bible Study I was leading at the time. I was encouraging us all in my teaching to take the time to enjoy the life the Lord has given us by eliminating some things from our lives that were a hindrance to true contentment and enjoyment. Several of the ladies were sharing how they didn’t “have time” to go to lunch or dinner with a friend anymore, or read a book, watch a favorite TV show, or sit on their back porch and eat an apple and listen to the birds sing and watch the squirrels run up and down the trees. Some were working more than one job, had small toddlers at home, an ailing parent or any of a number of various demands on their time. I took the opportunity to teach on “minute vacations”. So many times we are such perfectionists in our lives. We don’t do something until we can do it perfectly, and it ultimately never gets done. We don’t start a fun project because we can’t carve out an entire day to work on it, and we throw up our hands and say ” I will get to it, and my own time of enjoyment later”…and later never comes. Years pass, interest lags…and we never have anything to show for our lives but work, bed, eat, sleep a little and start over again.
How would your life change if you took more “minute vacations”? Drink a cup of hot cocoa and sit on the back porch…read 1 chapter, and only 1 chapter of your book each day…write one stanza of a poem or song…read the funny papers…feed the birds…take a walk around the block…practice the art of Simpli-F-Y.
Simpli-F-Y is anything you do Simply For You.