I Found the Fountain of Youth

I am still reading AJ Jacob’s The Know it All (I had to take a break to get my book club reading done).





Yesterday, I came by an interesting passage in his book regarding the passage of time:

“The Britiannica has an explanation for this: elderly people find time shorter because they notice long accustomed changes less frequently.”

Like me, he was boggled by this phrasing, but surmised as I did that as we get older we opt out on already known information: Sunrises come daily so we don’t tend to notice them anymore; weeks pass in and out without real notice because we are used to the pattern.

I think we also speed up time by planning it away . . . instead of focusing on today we are looking forward to an event in the future – payday, a trip, a holiday.

As time really is relative how do we give ourselves more time on earth? How do we find the Fountain of Youth that has historically sought after? Slow down, be thoughtful, notice small changes around you. As you live on this micro level, I believe you will find that time slows in your life.

Personally, I have firsthand experience with this concept. When the kids were in school and we were running, running, running life took on a warp speed that became truly frightening. Instead of seeing what was around me, I was focused on what I needed to do next to get through the day. One specific day, as I was racing to volunteer in their school, I was caught in traffic between work and the school. That day I literally felt my heart pounding through my chest. And then I stopped, I took a breath, I looked around at the cars stopped beside me on the highway. The clock slowed. My heart returned to its regular beat. I decided to change our life. The following year, we took the kids out of school and began homeschooling. This change alone made a drastic difference in our perception in time. I also made a conscious choice to begin noticing stars, leaves, clouds, the way the sun climbs in the sky and how that changes from day to day.

We don’t really need more time in our lives; we need to recognize the time that exists.

Making Christmas Cards

I am a glutton for punishment. I have always loved making my own Christmas cards and have only backed out of it a couple years when life was way too crazy. This year I started very early. I was inspired by our trip to the Eric Carle museum. Almost a month ago, DS used his techniques to create a scene which I brought to Staples for copies. As color copies can be expensive, I had the picture shrunk to a quarter page. I bought card stock, envelopes, seals. And I've been working on an assembly line ever since putting everything together.

I was smart enough last year to finally put a spreadsheet together with names and addresses of the people we send and receive cards from. Somehow this list seems to grow every year which is tough on the making side (I've learned to simplify the cards significantly), but I love the receiving side. It is great to catch up with all of our old friends. One of my favorite received Christmas card has been coming about June and comes from dear friends with four children. She says she tries to get it done on time but somehow it never happens. I don't mind because it gives me extra time to read all about the yearly escapades in her included newsletter.

Well, that having been said, I better get back to the assembly line. If I could figure out how to make my web cam, I would embed a picture . . .our digital camera has died, the scanner says that it has a paper jam . . . Oh, Santa, please be kind.

Shopdroppping

Shopdropping - have you heard of such a thing?

It is defined according to shopdropping.net as "SHOPDROP: To covertly place merchandise on display in a store. A form of "culture jamming" s. reverse shoplift, droplift."

I first heard of it on a tv show which spoke of it in context of people buying an item at a Walmart / Target type store. After taking the item home, they create a homemade imitation of the original, swap tags, and covertly return the item to the store's shelves. Consumers instead of buying the $9.99 mass market item are buying a hand-made one of a kind item, often worth far more than what the buyer intended to buy. However shopdropping may also mean changing labels on existing merchandise or adding pamflets or other politically or religiously motivated items to merchadise already in the store.

Often, no one knows of the shopdroppers activities and the only one that takes glee in the activity is the shopdropper themselves.

When looking up information about shopdropping, I actually came by seminars about the idea. Although, I think that it is fairly comical . . .I'm thinking that some people have way too much time.

Low / No Cost Christmas Gifts

This is not an article about how to make gifts using leftover household items. Nor is it instructions on how to spend hours and hours making items. It is simply a reminder to redeem your credit card points.

For many people, this Christmas is going to be a tight one. Many of us are trying how not to let our children know just how tight it really is. Thus, shopping with these already gathered points can help. Today, I bought quite a list of items and spent not one penny. Even better, one of the cards that I redeemed from isn’t even our charges that we are redeeming, but instead since my husband is a salesman, it is the card he charges his reimbursable expenses on.

So I encourage you all, before you set your alarm for 3 am on Friday and march out into the cold to save $25.00, look at “free money” that you may already have available to you. (Plus, who knows with this credit crunch – these points may not last too long either . . . why not use them while they are still good.)

What happened to Thanksgving?

We are usually planning a huge Thanksgiving dinner at this point, but this year nada, nothing. . . we are having a Thanksgiving of four. I think part of it is because I waited so long to plan, not knowing where the house was going to be. So this year is going to be a quiet Thanksgiving which may not be all bad. Sometimes the holidays get so crazy that you are more exhausted after the holiday than before. (Please don’t feel badly for us. We have nothing on Thanksgiving, but we had two Thanksgivings this past weekend and have a big dinner next Saturday for my son’s birthday.)

Of course, I got to say that I’d rather be enjoying my holiday in Italy with my pastor.

Getting a Designer's Opinion

You now have one of the country's best designers on call. Lisa Davenport has started a blog about design and is looking for design questions to answer. Lisa's Home Gallery is here in Connecticut, but she has been published in national decorating books.

Lisa can design the most luxurious home (like the one above) or give you simple hints on how to make your dollar stretch and make the greatest impact in a space. When you check out her new blog, you will see that she not only a decorator but truly a designer with architectural ideas as well as the typical color and pattern type questions.

To her credit, Lisa has used this talent to help many non-profits, it fact during her missions trips to Kentucky, she redesigned the plan for the houses that were being build so that their were better use of materials and therefore less waste and lower costs.

Congratulations, Lisa. Keep up the great work.

The Unraveling of a Woman

I orignally wrote this as an article for my local paper. People still mention it, so I thought you may enjoy it:

I thought once that this look would be good on me. I had seen others wear it well and I thought I too could pull the look off. First I donned a career, then marriage. I added motherhood on twice for good measure and then of course a bit of volunteerism. It felt a little snug as I added each layer, but I received many compliments on how well I wore it all. Then one day as I raced from work to help in the kids’ class at school, I found myself with my heart pounding and a desire to drive over all the cars that seemed to purposely block my path. I noticed the smallest thread sticking out. No one else probably even noticed it as I walked down the hall that day, but I did and it started to eat at me and so as I ran from here to there: making dinner, doing the bills, leading the troop, I started to pick at the thread. It started to get longer and longer.

Eventually the hem came out and I actually completely forgot to go to a meeting and stayed home wrapping presents instead. When I realized what I had done, I felt guilty because I knew people would think that something horrible had happened to me because I would never be so irresponsible to miss a meeting. How could I tell them that it was glorious to be home, eating at the family dinner table, putting the kids to bed on time, and wrapping presents as I listened to Christmas music? That is about when the whole seam split right open. I tried very hard to sew it up. I limited the kids to two activities each, stopped chairing committees, and tried to find some me time. But even that didn’t stop the unraveling of my wardrobe, two activities times two kids plus a husband’s schedule and mine: that left one night home, if I was lucky. It seemed as if home was not a place to hang your hat, but simply a place to go change it for the next show. I felt that each time I left the house people where pulling at the few strings I had left – Couldn’t you bake for the bake sale? We really need someone like you to run the program? You would be magnificent trainer? I thought if it all didn’t stop soon I would be standing naked in the street.

It was about then though that I noticed others with strings hanging loose, a few were still trying to tuck them in; a few were trying to hide the thread bare clothes. Others barely had anything left at all – a collar, a cuff, a waistband with strings hanging out everywhere. It seemed a lot of other moms did wear this style and I even noticed a few dads too. Everyone wore a painted on smile and if you asked them how they were, “fine” would be the response as they would tug their coat with a pocket falling off tightly around themselves.

So I have started to wonder if naked is all that bad. Did you ever notice that babies are naked? And they are happy that way! So, I have started to try to strip myself of these many layers. I have started to learn the word “no” and “I need help”. I have started to leave layers behind and learn to be comfortable in just my skin. I would appreciate it if you see me with my few threads still hanging on that you ask me how I am and I promise I won’t say just “fine” and perhaps we can just sit down and have tea, just you and I and neither of us will have to run here or there and we can just be glad to have time to be with each other and be free. (Ok, truth is I can maybe give you five minutes before I run off . . . the clothes aren’t that easy to strip off).