Preserving Our Past For The Future

Repurposing

10941003_10153030026559407_8047608953381568968_nToday 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.

h-armstrong-roberts-boys-shooting-marbles

Tomorrow marks a very important day. It is the long-awaited retail shop opening for my estate company. It is almost surreal that it is finally here after all the months, moving, money and monumental hurdles we have passed. But…it is here. The first day of what I hope to be my greatest adventure yet.

The journey has been full of many firsts. From placing first deposits on utilities, to making first assessments of what we wanted to see happen, to moving in the first truckloads of items. We experienced our first “oh great” when the bathroom ceiling caved in under the overflow of a strained water heater. We experienced our first sale to someone who came by to just take a quick peek at the store as we were moving in. There was the first full staff work day of shelving and sorting and laughing over several voices being heard from the depths of the piles every so often saying “oooh I want to buy this!” We went through our first challenge of rezoning so we could even have a storefront in the area we had chosen to make our estate home. We were never so excited as when the unanimous vote came through from the Planning Commission and the Mayor and Aldermen…and we knew we were really on our way.

This week was full of firsts in other ways too. My 6 year old granddaughter lost her first tooth and it was on the very day she started first grade. It is so funny to see her gappy little smile and hear the softest lisp when she talks or sings the songs she is learning in theater class. Her mom was a bit teary when she told me “This is the first time I will have my first child lose a tooth…ever.” I hadn’t really thought about that till she voiced it, but that is true. This is the only time the first of my grandchildren will lose the very first grandchild tooth. Ok, enough of that…misty here for a moment myself.

I thought a bit today about how that little ole tooth got loose enough to be the first tooth lost….what it had to go through, how it all came about. Lorelai has been growing teeth since the womb, even though we didn’t all see them. Enamel was forming, along with nerves and all the gooey little stuff that teeth are made of was there all along just waiting to “become”. She had to drink only milk for a very long time, then the teeth started to cut the surface and push out into the world of her mouth. Soft food was added bit by bit, then table food cut into microscopic pieces so she could chew with her tiny little tooth buds. Once the baby teeth were fully developed she could tackle anything and everything she wanted to eat.

Then…one day the tooth started feeling funny and not quite right. It kind of ached and hurt a bit. When she would chew it would zing her and zap her gums. She began to chew on one side trying to avoid using the tooth so it would feel like it used to and not hurt anymore. But eventually this wasn’t working because the tooth was loosening its grip in her gum. Her mom told her about the Tooth Fairy, how it all worked and in exchange for a tooth she would get MONEY. It made her change her whole outlook. That tooth suddenly had to go!

The next several weeks were spent wiggling it, touching her tongue to it every chance she got, pushing it and prodding it till one night this past week it finally gave way and popped right out. But it wasn’t because she was pushing and prodding and wiggling it. It was because, unknown to Lorelai, a new better tooth had formed and was making its way into her gum. It pushed its way to the surface and encouraged that baby tooth to leave.

And that is where I have been in this journey to today. Looking from the outside in, it appears I am doing something “suddenly” to most folks who know me. I hadn’t ever conducted an estate sale, but three years ago I found myself doing just that. I have never opened a storefront, but tomorrow…well, I am doing that. I haven’t decorated or staged a shop to sell vintage and antique items, and now I am. It would easily look like this business just popped up. But it didn’t.

I spent many years loving the old junk. I loved having it in my home, learning about it, buying pieces at yard sales because I couldn’t afford new stuff. People complimented me on clothing my family wore, or furniture and decor in my home, and I smiled knowing where it came from. I also learned a lot about the things I had in my home and educated myself on what a good buy was, and that is aiding me today. I spent much time three years working at my church as the back drop prop person for the church cantatas and children’s programs. I also spent two summers doing nothing but making bulletin boards for my church and the preschool where I was a teacher’s aide. So I became very adept at making something out of nothing and frugal backgrounds and staging are second nature to me.

As an employee of a local Christian Bookstore, I learned merchandising and how to set up booths and displays. When my family had a craft business many moons ago, I did the same there and spent much time putting up and tearing down displays quickly and effectively and making sure our booth stood out among the others, but was never the same any two shows. I also did professional organizing for several years and helped others get their purged items ready for sale, priced and even aided in the sales from time to time.

The most recent venture was a cleaning company where I did my own books, had a full staff, dealt with employee and customer issues daily, balanced spending against profit, did a business plan, and virtually anything that was done in that company went through me first. And all these things…from bulletin boards to business plans…were “firsts” for me then, but represented a wiggly tooth now.

All those places in my life, all those activities and moments had their day, then they were gone. It took them leaving and my life that I have now pushing through to the surface for me to know that they were all just bits of the puzzle, not the completed puzzle itself.

I could be wrong, this may not be the final thing I do. I may have yet another “tooth” under the surface and this business is only a means to an end. Time will tell. But I do know that life is not so much about the destination as it is about the journey. I also know sometimes you have to let things get pretty wiggly and scary for a while, move around a bit, and maybe even eventually fall completely away before the new growth can take up its rightful place.

But until I know differently, I will move forward…first one step, then another…till I reach that destination and I will not question the process. And with my personality, trust me…that will truly be a first.

feet

 

 

 

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.

 stones