family
Today marks the third day of confirmation hearings for a new Supreme Court judge. Many in the public have had no contact or very little with the nominee and her positions, although she has operated within the legal field for years, and distinguished herself among her colleagues. She has finally come to a place to “get noticed” at the highest level in her chosen field by the recommendation of others. This has come when she already has a full life, it will not make or break her and her own path personally. Confirmation will only allow her to be a factor in the lives of others. Most Americans know who she is without knowing her in a deep way at all. As per the past confirmation hearings, there has been a very public discourse which included heated questioning, haggling over minute or unfounded issues, and often glaring disregard for the real matter at hand…a choice of a justice as viewed though a lens of better or worse.
It is politics after all.
But this method of determining of who people say they are, as opposed to who they really are, is vital in the justice confirmation process, and will result in the right choice. Why? Each nominee has been scrutinized through all types of means to get a clear picture. We could lob a few easy questions or allow the legislature or President to just assign our judges, but what would we really end up with in the end? Would this give us the unwavering confidence in those chosen to make good legal decisions on our behalf as a people? Likely not, it would be a superficial relationship at best, a constant exercise of keeping our fingers crossed, hoping we haven’t made a grave error in the choosing.
I have been thinking lately about how this corresponds to all life relationships, whether marriage, friendship, business or otherwise. A new someone enters our life almost daily unless we are a social hermit. During the covid crisis, this has been the case for many, the “hermitizing” I mean. I have even wondered if the pandemic and enforced necessity to stay at home more was merely a divine interruption, encouraging more self reflective opportunities for each of us. It would be interesting to take a survey to see how many of us have used our quiet time to reflect on past choices, relationships, and pursuits, and our part in the success or seeming failure of them.
I have been fortunate to reconnect with not one, but two friends from my high school and college years recently. With the college friend, I have had some conversations that are fun and silly, exclusively lighthearted, but will really provide no lasting depth to our current relationship. I have enjoyed each exchange, true. But I haven’t had to commit much to thought afterwards when we talk, and I have come to realize even in college, when we were very close and knew all about each other (or so I believed at the time), our friendship was very myopic /nearsighted. It only dealt with things that were instantly at hand and then quickly gone. We never really delved into who the other was, so I guess that is why when we each ceased to be there for the other (that friend moved away during college), it really left no deep impact on me one way or other over time. I married early, set forth on that portion of my life, and that friend went off into the sunset for 40 plus years.
In contrast, the high school friend I remembered, but didn’t know well at that time. We shared some classes, teachers, but never really were in the same circle of influence as far as peers…or so we thought. When we started talking recently, we have found more and more people we were each friends with during that period of time, albeit separately, but our own paths never really entwined in a distinctive friendship then. Our conversations have become very different than mine with the first friend. Although both started out the same, lighthearted and simple… the second friend and I have strayed into a bit deeper conversations, some that have caused me to think, and challenged me somewhat. Also in contrast, those conversations are more likely to come to mind during the day than the ones with the college friend.
It’s funny. I can’t really tell you what the college friend have talked about because it has lacked imagination in its nearsightedness and was more a rehashing of what was, and not what is or will be, and is the same friendship it was 40 years ago in all likelihood…here today, gone tomorrow, no harm and no foul. We were nearsighted then, we are nearsighted now. I am okay with that, and unchanged by the truth of it. It is what it is.
The high school friend’s conversations? More hyperopic /farsighted, kind of like our interaction during school days. The mutual friends and experiences then are acting as lenses to see each other in a different way now, and is giving me a different perspective on so many things over the last 40 years including these two people. I think back to how many friends I had both in lower grades of school and through my high school years, dated a lot, was involved in a lot of organizations and so forth…but rarely were any brought very close at all by choice. Even today I have very few people that I am close to or let into my circle, but my general public would think otherwise. I seem to be the person who is friends with everyone, “socially butterflying” here and there, but in reality not close to most in a lasting way.
In reflecting on both these friendships, I wish I had applied a “better or worse” lens back in school and college in making all my friendships. I regret I didn’t utilize more of even shallow friends to help clear my vision to see situations more clearly before they came to fruition. I think it may have even affected some of my latter decisions in life if I had developed a better discernment muscle then with a “confirmation hearing” of sorts on each relationship right at the beginning. I may have asked more piercing questions, watched others longer, reflected on my own inadequacies more deeply and honestly instead of focusing on the here and now when looking for just and good companions on my life path.
But then again, in not applying a ”better or worse” lens then and instead using past experience as the lens now I will see everything much more clearly. I love living my days now with an ability to simply look at things and people up close, and also far away, but with no more crossed fingers at my sides. Clarity delayed is still beneficial, even if the better must come after the worse. Perspective and time gives us a real and unadulterated look at ourselves in communion with what may be around the bend in the road. And it is often truly eye-opening…

The old saying is “God has a sense of humor”. If you ask me, He also has quite a sense of timing when dealing with His children.
Today is February 4th.
On this day 20 years ago, a relationship was invited into my life that proved to be life-changing…not in a good way. It almost proved my undoing for the next 5 years. But looking back on it today, I realized I found out a lot about myself through all that period of time. Ultimately it made me into the person I am today, who is pretty content because she learned what she didn’t want as much as what she did want. This was my moment “for a reason”.
On this day in 2005, I had my first date with my future husband. We are still friends, albeit as he says “on different journeys”. This has been my moment “for a season”.
On this date in 2011, I officially began the Got Junk In Our Trunk estate company where I helped countless people change their own lives with a skill God gave me years ago, that I didn’t even really know I possessed.I continue in a different way matching people up with cool finds, loving my job, planning to do this as long as I feel physically and mentally able. It gives me a creative outlet for writing, which is a first love for me. This has been my moment “for a lifetime”.
Today is February 4th…I am staying in, working on my lifetime stuff, enjoying the birds and reflecting on why I am who I am today, why I am where I am, why I am not where I want to be. Maybe I will look back in 10 years and think “On this date in 2020, XXX took place and changed my life.”

Hopefully it will be something good.


I am very much a Type A personality, so I really don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I kind of resolve all during my waking hours.
That said I do make plans, have wishes, hopes based on what transpired or didn’t transpire in my life over the last 365 days (next year I have an extra day to consider).
2019 saw a difference in my family with the birth of grandchild # 4, Marjorie. We are finishing up her first year on January 4th and all the “getting used to her” is pretty much a given. I hope 2020 to spend more time one on one with her so she will remember me when I am gone. I may or may not see her grow up and marry and have children and reach her own family state , so now is a more important time to spend with her than it was with the others I think at the same age.
2019 saw me downsize my estate business, then pretty much close up shop on it. It was and is a good feeling and one of the things I determined to do in 2019. 2020 I want to move forward with the online selling, but not
necessarily gear up volume as much as be pickier with my purchases, redeem my work time with more focusing, set myself some work hours that “cut off”. I want to make more money, but work smarter this year!
2019 I sold my home of almost 27 years and moved into a totally different home, city and lifestyle. The last few months of 2019 saw my time fly away, and my body groan with the physical necessities that moving entails. In 2020 I want to ease back into the master plan….more Rhonda time in my little bungalow, time to read, reflect, write and do things that have been on the back burner for years. 2020 will see me saying “no” more often than in the past to good things because I want only to say “yes” to the great things. That may be difficult. I love to go and do and see and experience. But I have really noticed since moving and settling in a new home, I crave the time to just feed the birds, sit outside, take walks, investigate things. You cannot do that if you are #1 not home, and #2 not engaged in your own life at home. I plan to allow myself to get diverted less often, and focus more on my simple pleasures. I may lose playmates here and there, but I guess that will have to be ok. I have found that like my own company.
I want to choose more wisely how I spend my minutes and with whom… for those become hours, then days, then years. It doesn’t mean I don’t love others, I just need more white space in my life so I can love better, and that most likely involves me not “attending” every event, or filling in every calendar page, or scheduling time off.
I want to find my place to plug in at church, meet new people, do new things…but only if they fit the master plan. That’s only fair to us both.
Lastly, I want to put away the last remnants of the past that have held my mind in bondage and free myself up to be ok with the Lord, ok with my fellow man, ok with myself. I am over “it” whatever “it” is or was, I am on to new things. No more ruminating over things that were not great at the time, but gave me good checkpoints for the future I want to live.
As I move into my 60th year (dang that is a long time to live, eh?) and celebrate that birthday, I want to do so gracefully and choose now to do so in “quietness and trust, gaining strength”, as it says in Isaiah 30:15.
My word for 2020 as my page turns? Calmness.


It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, and to tell the truth, it feels a bit odd, but good. The last couple of years I took a break from much of my life, and added to it in other ways. So much has changed it would take volumes to update any who followed me in the past.
So I will just choose to go forward, and let the reader figure “life went on”.
Today was set up to flow like many other days. I had a scheduled estate sale starting at noon (I liquidate estates now part-time and am an online reseller more full time), but one of my sister church campuses is located around the corner from that estate site, so I had chosen to attend there, then head to work for the day. I sat in the center of a long set of adjoining chairs near the back. It is usually where I sit, for no reason really, just because I don’t know many at this campus, save the one friend I have sat with a time or two. I usually attend a different campus, have many friends there, so there is no time I sit alone really. For the longest, I perched there, waiting for service to start. My friend was not in attendance today so I assumed I would be sitting alone pretty much. But close to service time a couple slid into the seats at the end of the row and were the only ones near. The service began, then a young man sat at the opposite end of the row from the couple and was holding a brown bag. New visitors get those bags to welcome them, so I knew this was his first visit to our church, and this campus.
The church service went on, preaching ended, then the worship leaders drew us into song once again at the end, which is not the usual pattern of worship… but for whatever reason, they had flipped the service around. As the songs went on, and those went to the altar to pray, others sang, I could see the man at the end of the row sit down, then slowly bend over with hunched shoulders…and he just sat with his head down…sighing, clasping and unclasping his hands.
I went over, placed a hand on the back of his shoulder. He didn’t look up, he just sat looking down, and then I heard him as he began to cry softly. I just stayed there, hand on his shoulder and prayed for him, as he dealt in his personal moment with God.
Once the song was ending, I went quietly back to my seat, waited for the prayer to end the service, then reached to get my belongings. I hadn’t planned to say a word, I didn’t want to cause any embarrassment or discomfort to him. He gathered his brown bag, then walked over with tears still in his eyes and a big smile. “Thank you so much, I needed that. ” Then came a big ole bear hug. I just smiled, didn’t say a word and turned to leave. I had experienced a “sudden opportunity”.
After leaving church I scurried to the estate site. My friend had back issues and wasn’t going to be able to help much with the estate sale as she has on other occasions. The rain was coming down, day was drizzly and dreary, and we had not a single customer. But we chatted, talked about nonsense, solved the world’s ills, and decided what would become of the craziness we find our lives enveloping at the present. Anyone who knows me is aware I rarely sit and do nothing. I am always moving, working or making things, repairing objects, helping with the grandlittles who now live with me, washing dishes (I am old school and like to do them by hand) or various other things that leave little room for Rhonda moments. I was sad my friend had back ills, but that became another “sudden opportunity” that I may not have made a place for. By the time I left, I wanted to believe she felt a bit better. I had taken a real day of rest, and we had caught up on each others’ lives in a totally unplanned but divinely orchestrated way.
On the drive home I stopped in at a local store to pick up a few bargains. Many were in plastic totes outside the store and marked “clearance’. Being a reseller I rarely pass by a clearance pile, it begs me to find those little treasures I can turn into cash. I had my phone in hand looking up some things on Ebay so I would know if they were of any value and the front doors of the store opened. A man walked swiftly by me, got in his car and as he was starting it up, the cashier ran out the front waving his arms. “It didn’t go through, sir, SIR…it didn’t go through!” As the car turned around, and sped away, the cashier slumped his shoulders in exasperation thinking the man had gotten away with the merchandise on his watch. I quickly raised my phone, aimed it at the license plate and snapped several photos as the car zoomed out into traffic and away. The cashier said “wow…you are fast!” I gave him the info he needed, and proceeded to shop the inside the store….and realized that was a third “sudden opportunity” I had embraced today.
The fourth came in a more usual way, without fanfare or fuss. I sent a text to my friend I had missed at church, simply letting him know he was missed. I had started to contact him a couple of times during the day but figured he was busy, and he was. He had several things going awry during his day, frustrating issues with his phone among other things. I couldn’t have messaged him earlier if I had wanted to. He had been dealing with so much today, and had not been home long from the sounds of his return text. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and I think that “sudden opportunity” to chat and laugh together a moment or two made him feel a bit better at the end of a pretty crummy day.
You know…I wonder, here at the end of my own day, how many times I have given up the chance to be that “sudden opportunity” in someone’s life because I was rushing around, not paying attention, self-involved or too tangled up in my own problems to see others that may need a friendly touch, a kind word, a moment of shared laughter. In the case of one friend, a handful of texting moments may have given him a bit of ease in his troubled spirit right before his sleep. A few hours with my girlfriend made her forget her back troubles and we were able to visit uninterrupted since no customers inserted themselves into our day. One moment of clear thinking and observation captured a thief. And three minutes with a nameless man may have helped him approach God in confidence because he knew he was not alone. As someone who schedules every waking moment, stepping back may give me a quietness of spirit, a rest in my walk with the Lord…and maybe many more special opportunities to be a bit more “sudden” in my life path.
I was a cleaning company owner for the better part of 20 years before I sold it in 2013. The company was born out of a need to eat and pay bills after my divorce. That particular profession was chosen because frankly it was about all I knew how to do and do well.
I was raised in a home by a working mom that was very organized and clean. My Dad, for a guy, was very neat and clean as well because he too was raised by a neatnik mom. In my grandmother’s day, the woman pretty much stayed home, the dad went to work, the children played outside but had chores to complete daily, and the family functioned like a well-oiled machine. In both my childhood home and grandmother’s home, we often had drop in company. Neither female scurried around to straighten when that happened, or apologized for the “look of the home” because it was always kept neat and orderly…not perfect mind you…but acceptable for entertaining a surprise guest. That is, till someone stopped doing their “job”.
When the woman was down sick, went on strike and quit cleaning and cooking or otherwise refused her daily responsibilities, the household didn’t know quite how to cope and it started following suit, leaving trails and messes behind, partially finished projects, dishes and the like in rooms never meant to be eaten in. This household flailing around was a reaction to the chaos created when one person couldn’t or wouldn’t do their part and the other people in the home were forced to live by the other person’s lifestyle rules rather than the standard of the home that was to be for the benefit of all. Sometimes it happened when another person ignored their responsibilities in favor of other activities in a “why bother” choice of a self-serving lifestyle. And sadly the whole house suffered until the one began doing their part once again.
I took up the gauntlet of housekeeping after my third year of marriage when my daughter was born. But the first two years of marriage, I lived in a “why bother” state. I had come from a strict home where things were clean and orderly and the newfound freedom of schedule and purpose kind of got away from me. My husband had been raised by a German mom who was neat and orderly too, so my standard of lifestyle, or lack of it, was a constant irritation to him, although he really didn’t say a lot. Rings in the toilet became common, wrinkled clothes that were clean but not folded and put away, dishes left in huge piles had to be moved to make dinner (I was quite the cook and had near gourmet-type dinners almost every night), dust would be puffy on the furniture and wreak havoc on our sinuses…and still I didn’t bother with those things because I was busy elsewhere. I had other things I thought were more important like being outside, playing in the pool with my newborn daughter, visiting friends and family, reading romance novels, and so forth. Nothing was inherently wrong with those things, but they should have been done after my home was put into decent order. I felt out of whack personally for the first two years and couldn’t figure out why. Once I saw a photo of my baby in the middle of the kitchen table surrounded by unopened mail, dishes, books, etc., I suddenly realized I had been doing the good things when I could be doing the great things. I knew that day I didn’t want my baby to grow up in a home that was a constant mess. I wanted her to have friends over and not be embarrassed at the condition of our home. And come they did, we became the place kids liked to come visit because we were clean and orderly AND fun! And that made us all feel special.
Many years later, when I owned my cleaning company, I remembered those early years of wifedom while training a new cleaning tech. She had interviewed well, was neat and well groomed personally and spoke well in conversation. This was usually a pretty good indicator of how the tech would conduct themselves in a client’s home. As I took her out for her first week of training I began to see that she was capable of being an excellent cleaning tech. She was very detailed, good with the clients, fast and efficient. I made a permanent hire of her and she went out on teams for a while, then was released to do solo cleaning, as all my techs were when they were fully trained. I knew she would make a lot of money for my company because she was good at detail and fast.
A few weeks after this tech had been on her own, the route manager came back after checking jobs, which was part of her duties of the day. She reported on this particular tech. The home was very clean, the client seemed happy with the person assigned to clean her home and said the tech was pleasant. But the more the route manager talked with the client she could see that there was something missing in her overall customer experience. The manager hadn’t been able to nail it down in the talk with the client because the client didn’t really elaborate in specifics on what was missing that day, she could only say “I just didn’t feel the same about my service today, I don’t know why.”
I decided that the next job check on this tech would be conducted by me. I went to the home while the tech was still cleaning and checked behind her completed work. She was finishing a bathroom, and it was left sparkling. As she turned to walk out I asked “Are you finished?” Her answer was yes, so I entered and looked around a bit myself. There were no cleaning flaws, everything was near perfect. But something was nagging at me. I finally realized what it was and called her back in.
“You forgot to fold the toilet paper in a hospitality fold and the towels into the swan shape. You have been shown these things, correct?” I knew she had because I had been her first trainer. “Yes ma’am, you showed me, but none of my other trainers included this. I didn’t think it was part of the cleaning, it was just an extra if we wanted to do it for the client.” I instructed that it was to be done on each cleaning unless the client requests it to be dropped for any reason. She looked a little confused and said she would certainly do it but then she said “May I ask a question?” I said yes and she asked “Why do we bother to do the things like folding paper and towels if that slows us down and you want us to focus on the cleaning and speed?” It was an honest question and I could tell she wanted to know my reason. I told her other cleaning companies did what we do. They made bathrooms sparkle, they vacuumed all the way to the edges of the room, they picked up things and dusted the furniture instead of around items. Other companies gave the customer what they asked for, but not what they didn’t ask for. We gave them the other things because they needed to feel special, but didn’t know they needed that kind of treatment. But even more, we did it because it made us feel special about our work and each home we cleaned and each client we interacted with during our work day. “We do it for them, but more for us” I said. I could tell she “got it” when she said “ You know, I can see how doing those things would make me feel differently about my client and also myself, I would kind of feel like a personal cleaner for them and they would feel like I had gone the extra mile. I may even start doing stuff like that at my own house, and I live alone!” We both laughed and I knew I had made a convert. She had grasped the concept of good vs. great. As a result, her tips went up almost immediately. That smart tech became one of my most requested cleaners, all because she did the expected for them, then did the unexpected for herself.
Our world in the last couple of decades has changed quite a lot. People have gone inward, many think only of themselves and what’s in it for them when they go to their job or conduct their daily routines. You only have to watch the old TV programs to know how far we have sunk into our selfishness. The men on Leave it to Beaver or The Dick Van Dyke Show are the kind of men I was raised by and around. They opened doors, lighted cigarettes for women, held their coats for them, helped with the dishes, tucked children in, read them stories, administered discipline and on and on, even after a full day at the office or factory. The women were the kind of homemakers I was raised around. Dinner was on the table at 6, the home was neat and orderly, children had done homework and played outside till dark. Yes, even if the woman happened to also have a full time job outside the home, as my mom did.
In our current world we have more conveniences, and much less “time”, or so it would seem. But I think it is much deeper than that. The current generation often has the “why bother” attitude about so many things they deem as secondary in importance. We tend to assign too much value to “good” things that don’t contribute to our personal well being and that of our families. We substitute fun activities, elaborate meals, busyness and frolic in place of “great” things like caring for others and their needs. When we are too busy with one, the other tends to suffer. And sadly we are teaching the upcoming generation that it doesn’t matter to practice hospitality, homemaking, responsibility, or any number of the golden traits that they can only learn from us…the ones who remember.
My grandchildren live with me and I work a lot, so I am not home much during the day. But I try to take each opportunity I have to teach them the value of loving others through caring for them and their needs. When they clean up their rooms and make their beds I tell them I feel good when I see this, it makes me feel loved and it is a way they say “thank you for inviting us to live with you”. When one comes to my room and asks “Can I help you with anything?” I don’t shoo them away with “No, thank you for offering though”. Instead I make sure I have something, anything for them to do for me so they feel special, and I can bond with them and feel special too.
We don’t live on islands in this life. Everything we do and do not do affects another. If I walk into a store and a man is ahead of me, I step out of his way so he can open the door, rather than bolting up there and doing it myself. I give him the opportunity to say “You first” by his own choice of actions. Nine times out of ten he will almost run to open the door, smile and greet me, and you can tell it makes him feel special to do so. It is a small thing, but makes a huge impact in both people. I think it’s time for more of us to look at our surroundings, job, personal relationships and life in general and discover where we may be sacrificing the “great” for the “good”. If we choose to look through “why bother” eyeglasses each day, we may actually see and feel better ourselves if we do.
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.
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.
Scanning the yard sale ads this past week, I saw one that caught my eye. The ad read “Moving sale, everything needs to sell. Flat screen TVS. Stereo, House full of furniture, 16 ft fishing boat, Honda Civic, China cabinet, large desk filing cab, printers, laptops, washer and dryer and a brand new deep freezer and much more. ” It sounded interesting enough to make the trip out, especially the house of furniture part, so I set out the next morning to check it out. When I arrived at the home, there was a sign on the door “open at noon.” I looked at my watch, the time was normal “business hours” for a sale, 8 a.m. A little miffed, I got back in the car and drove away fussily thinking ” I may or may not make the trip back. They couldn’t even get organized enough to put a time on the sale ad and then ended up having it the middle of the darned day.”
But as the morning wore on and noon approached I saw a clear path to go again, and headed back out. It was an inside and outside sale, so I entered the home. It was not well-lit, reeked of smoke, and stank of pet urine. Being a former cleaning lady, I was used to all those smells, but didn’t know if there would really be anything of value here for my estate clients. But I was already here, so I moved further inside. A yappy little chihuahua in a doggie muscle shirt named Bruce Lee was all around my feet immediately, and a young woman with an entire set of black front teeth called out from the kitchen “Come on in and look around, we are open”. I guess she felt I warranted that information due to the obvious question mark on my face. It looked as if everything was still in progress as far as living there…cigarette butts in the ashtrays, you could tell they had been eating in the kitchen and den, nothing looked staged or set up, nothing priced or gathered together, it was just a come as you are party atmosphere. I thought to myself…strike two.
I wandered around in the kitchen, then the dining room and finally into the main room and did find a few things to ask prices on. They were planning to get things labeled, but that hadn’t happened like she wanted, so I told her I would pile it all up and she could tell me at the end. Out the front window I had seen others start to pull up so I knew there would be a flurry soon of people pulling items together and I didn’t want to miss out on anything that might actually be of interest to me.
Down the hallway all the doors leading to the bedrooms were closed and I heard a BIG dog barking. “Are there items in there too?” I asked, remembering the words of the ad. “No, I think my son (motioning to someone coming up behind me) got everything out of the back already.” As I turned I was shocked to see the young man she was talking about. He was about 15 or 16, beautiful smiling face, clean and neat teenaged style attire. “I can help you with anything ma’am, I am pricing things and will help you get it to your car, too.” This person looked totally out of character for the picture I was seeing in this home like some kind of jigsaw puzzle piece that sort of looked like it fit, but just wouldn’t quite complete the picture properly.
As the next several minutes went by and people filed in and out, I gathered my items and pretty much kept to myself. But I couldn’t help but hear the woman tell bit by bit the reasons they were moving. Her husband had left her four days before, cleaned out the bank accounts and left her with no money, no way to make the impending rent and the landlord had caught wind of all of it and given them three days to vacate. The other people she talked to were very accommodating in response, a lot of “there, there, you will be alright” was heard…but I was watching the young man. He never disputed what was said, but I could tell as certain quiet looks came across his face, that was not the whole story. And I had a sad feeling knowing this beautiful, polite boy was going to help his needy mother sell all their belongings, pack up a few personal items in a car, and leave his friends and his life for what? Probably more of the same.
I was even sadder when I realized the father had evicted the mother out of his own life and marriage the same way the landlord was evicting her out of the home…and this young boy was suffering eviction that was not of his own making and was expected to leave everything behind and go because he was underage. This young man had experienced strikes one, two and three a long, long time ago. I had to wonder if he had possessed the power if he would have evicted himself a long time ago from all of it. Or was he was like myself and many others…unable to evict ourselves from a situation or circumstance we had become enmeshed in, blinded to the fact it was no longer serving us well.
In my life, I have been fortunate in my pursuit of interests and have learned many skills and participated in a lot of wonderfully interesting experiences. Many of those were made up of following the path of a current adrenaline-rushing passion. And the passions and pursuits have all varied greatly, which I guess if I believed in astrology, would be attributed to the stereotype of the Gemini, which I was “born under” and it actually does seem to fit. Flip-flopping from one adventure to another, chasing a big idea, dabbling in this and directing that, my life has been short spurts of gathering lines on a resume of sorts. I have been chatting with someone so many times in the past, remarking on one thing or another and how I was involved in this or that, and they will look at me in wonder, and say “Is there anything you HAVEN’T done?” It makes me chuckle a bit, and then I do seem to reflect a moment on what I have been exposed to and how much I have actually been a part of and collected in experience. And the funny thing is, I felt at home in every single situation. It wasn’t a fly into and out of plan on anything I did. I would think about it, have the opportunity to present itself, stay with it to the end of the current pursuit, then move on to my next one. I tend to be a bit visionary and also a big multi-tasker, so this is not really beyond my ken flitting from one thing to another and still maintaining composure, getting things accomplished and embracing the whole thing when it comes to learning a new job or hobby or pretty much anything I set my mind about.
I have done many things from catering to cleaning, directing choirs to writing as a freelancer. There has been crafting for money, speaking for ladies’ groups, traveling as a gospel singer, homeschooling my only child, leading a diet group, working as a teacher’s aide and the list goes on and on. And in each case it was always the same…I was always full in, always on board, always ready to conquer the thing. And many times I did get it conquered, but there were just as many times it almost conquered me because I refused to leave before I thought I was done, even if the handwriting was on the wall long before and the eviction papers had been served.
Having a bulldog mentality and personality can be very good…but at other times it can be lethal. There were certain times I hung on too long, stayed where I was past the time it was beneficial to me, or made some poor choices in my associations and decisions about how to go forward at any given time. The one thing I never did was remove myself from the situation or pursuit until I felt like I had done all and been all, and in many instances, the “pursuit” itself was finally forced to evict me when it limped to its bitter end or reached its usefulness quotient. Sad to say, that didn’t always work for me or benefit the rest of my life and the people in it. There were times I should have said goodbye to something or someone long before my own life got to a point of telling me to hit the road, so to speak, by bringing chaos and confusion into my life, introducing weird characters and situations into my daily routine, or draining me of my own unique essence until I had no other choice but to let myself get evicted by default. Like unwanted guests, I allowed myself to stay somewhere that I was no longer needed or wanted when it would have been so much better to serve myself eviction papers when the first signs of dysfunction presented itself and just move on.
Who we are today is the sum total of who we have been and what we have done all of our lives up to this point…this is a true statement. But one has to wonder…what would the beautiful boy be doing “now” if he had evicted himself “then”? I often wonder where would I be, and with whom, and doing what if I had not waited till the last minute to move on from those unfruitful places but had put something down and moved on in a more timely fashion. Today, I have a great desire to be a good landlord of my own life, but how? If the time comes that someone or something is not contributing to the rent, I have to resolve to step up, make a big ole fist, and start knocking on my own front door first. After all, it’s my job as landlord to hold me to my own lease on life.
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.