I really hate Arizona...

You know, as if it's not bad enough to have boring weather and the endless heat in the summer; the monotonous gravel pit landscape; the endless tile roofs; the crazy political three ring circus...now we have 18,000 idiots who are petitioning to secede Arizona from the Union!

People, it will NEVER be 1950 again!  Our world has changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes not, but like it or not it is never going back to the way it was.  Which was wonderful if you were white, middle class, and Christian, but not so great if you were anyone else!  And I suspect that the ones that want it to be 1950 again are...white, middle class, and Christian and grew up in that era.  They were certainly the dominant group in the Romney supporters in the recent election.

This might sound ironic coming from someone who loves vintage stuff, but I wouldn't want to actually LIVE in 1950.  There are elements of it, sure.  I wish we were still truly patriotic.  I wish we dressed more nicely, and behaved in a more civilized fashion in public places.  I wish porn and its ilk were still something you could hardly find, not splashed all over the newstands.  I wish we still had the bulk of our manufacturing jobs in this country, not overseas.  I wish our careers didn't get in the way of raising our children properly.

But given all that, I don't wish that women still had few choices besides motherhood and housewifery.  I don't wish that people of color were segregated and despised.  I don't wish gays and lesbians had to hide their true selves and not marry the people they love.  I don't wish people of other faiths were considered strange and dangerous.    And  I don't wish the internet away! 

Those issues in the second group are hugely important and can't just be swept back into the cupboard.  We've just come too far.  And rightfully so!  You can't have the small minority of white men running the world.  Even if you want it that way.  I so wish you didn't...

So, what's going to happen with these secessionists?  Probably the same thing that always happens - we'll be the laughingstock of the country for awhile, fodder for every satiric news talk show, and then it'll die down and something ELSE crazy will come up. 

Facebook

Reading Facebook often scares the bejeezus out of me.  I get insight into people that I never had before, and frankly, some of it is disgusting.  Someone I worked with at church thinks the movie "2016" is full of truth and that helping the poor is opening the door to communism.  Others insist that all people on welfare are just slackers.  When did we become such an ugly nation of mean, greedy people?  So, yes, I'm on my soapbox again today.  I was so upset by smarmy Mitt Moneybags in the debate last night that this is what came out.

A Day in the Life of a Poor Kid

You get your little sister up, because your mom has already left for one of the three jobs she works because your dad left after your sister was born because he didn’t want the responsibility of a family. Your mom had to leave school at 16 because her dad died and she had to help keep the family together, but that means she never makes much money. There’s only a little dry cereal left, so you give it to your sister and take her to the neighbor who will walk her to school. You walk a mile to the bus stop because funding cuts took away the school bus. On the city bus, the other kids make fun of you because you smell. You smell because the laundry is three blocks away, and also there was no money for it this week because your sister got a bad ear infection and had to go to the doctor. The bus gets stuck in traffic, so you’re too late to school for the free breakfast, so you are hungry, and you’re tired because one of the neighbors deci...

ded to start firing a gun and your mom made you and your sister sleep on the floor in case bullet came through the wall. Lunch will be your only real meal of the day, but it’s so embarrassing to have to show the free lunch card. Your mom keeps saying that they’re going to cut the lunch program, and you wonder what you’ll do then. After school, you work at a grocery store to try and help the family, but part of your earnings have to go to pay the neighbor who watches your sister. Your boss gives you some fruit and vegetables that he was going to throw out, so that is dinner because your mom doesn’t get paid until tomorrow. Because you worked after school, you have to stay up late to get your homework done, which is hard because the neighbor is yelling again, and you’re hungry, and you’re tired. You don’t have a computer, so you’ll have to get up extra early the next morning to get to school to use the old one in the library, because your teacher insists that you can’t turn in handwritten work. You wonder if you’ll ever be able to go to college. You wonder if your life will always be this hard.

 

Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven.  The Bible also says, "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land." 

 

Christians...need to act like Christ.

Remembering Halloween Costumes

I was running around packing and cleaning to get ready to fly back to Indiana to see my dad and other mother, and to Cape Cod to see my mom, and when I went to dump a load of laundry in the machine I discovered a bag from JoAnn sitting on top.  When I looked in, I groaned.  Why?  Because there, sitting in the bag, forgotten, were the makings for a 40's style hat that I had promised Elder Progeny I would make for her this week so I could mail it to her before I left.  Ugh. 

So, I sat down at the sewing machine and started.  And what happened was this - I had fun.  I realized that I really miss those days before Halloween, when I would be frantically trying to finish not one but two costumes by the day of the class party (except in the year when I made American Girl doll costumes to MATCH the girls' costumes AND made a Holly Golightly costume for our babysitter.  Nuts.  Majorly mental.  I was also working almost full time and volunteering for everything under the sun.  Those days are LONG gone....)  But I enjoyed those days - loved the whole process from picking out the costume pattern on through the end.

In fact, it's only because of those costumes of yore that I had buckram around instead of having to go buy it today in the midst of crazy packing!  How many people do YOU know who have buckram in their house?!  (For those of you who don't know, buckram is heavy open weave cotton that has been stiffened with starch.  It's used for lining, to help things keep their shape.)

Anyway, here's the (almost) finished product.  EP still needs to put on a frill of netting and the elastic strap to hold it on. 

 

Our babysitter as Holly Golightly...

 

Maybe my niece will let me make a costume for her daughter next year!

Throwing stones...

AOL this a.m. had a story about Victoria Jackson and a comment that she made about homosexuality.  Do you remember her?  That cute little blond that used to be on Saturday Night Live?  Well, she's not so cute anymore, having become a vocal shill for the Tea Party.  She was making a comment that you hear from the far right all the time, about homosexuality being a sin. 

I did a little research on Miss Victoria, and then went to her Facebook page and posted a comment along the lines of this:  You say the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin.  The Bible ALSO says that divorce is a sin, yet you are divorced.  Can you explain the difference?

Instead of having the guts to defend her position (not surprising, because it's pretty indefensible!) she deleted the post within about a minute and a half.

Seems to me that there's another quote...something about not throwing stones unless you are spotless of sin yourself.  Now, where does that come from?  It'll come to me in a minute....

Summer's end...at least by the calendar!

My new Farberware pan - $2 at Salvation Army!



Peaches and sweet corn

 

 

 

Summer.  When I was growing up in Ohio, summer seemed to last forever.  I don't ever remember being hot, except once in a while at night, and then I would take a wet washcloth to bed with me and wave it in front of the fan to get it colder.  We would play outside all afternoon and come, running, at dinner, bright red, and gulp down as many glasses of ice cold milk as we could get away with.  (Usually it was two, then Mom would tell me I had to make the third one last as it was all I would get.)  Then, out we went again, until the fireflies began to light up the darkness, and my dad's whistle would sound.  My dad could whistle so loud we could hear it across all three streets that made up our little development that had been carved out of someone's farmland.  He would whistle, and we knew we had better get up to the house, or we were in big trouble.  We'd finish up in the bathtub, and then, if we were lucky, we could watch t.v. in our pajamas until bedtime. 

 

Here in Arizona, summer really DOES last forever.  It hit 100 degrees on April 12 this year, and it's likely to keep hitting - and breaking - the 100 mark until at least October.  Yet in my mind, it's the end of summer.  We're eating the last of the sweet corn and peaches, and soon the apples will appear, courtesy of cooler places. 

 

For dinner tonight, we had hamburgers cooked in my new (old) Farberware pan.  I found it at a Salvation Army in Massachusetts this summer for $2.   I am slowly replacing all of my "modern" pans with good old cast aluminum pans.  They are hard to find in good condition, though, and cost a fortune, usually.  I've gotten lucky three times, though.  I have a wonderful old Dutch oven I got from a woman in Mansfield, Ohio, of all places (we used to live there!) for $5 plus shipping on eBay.  She got it from her mother-in-law when she got married in 1953 and her MIL got it for HER wedding in the 30's.  It cooks like a dream, with consistent heat, and can hold even the biggest pot roast.  I could even do a turkey in it! 

 

My other find was a big sauce pan.  It was $1.99 at one of my favorite thrift shops in Petoskey, Michigan, which is near our cottage on Walloon Lake.  Now I need to find some lids!

 

I love cooking with and serving on my vintage stuff.  I feel a wonderful connection  to the women of the past. 

 

Have you read Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg?  It's set just after WWII, and follows a family in a town in Missouri through the present.  It's wonderful, but sad, because you see how the town changes - and not for the better.  If I were a millionaire, I would buy up property and give out loans and help people build back the downtowns of yesteryear.  Small businesses, family businesses, those are the building blocks of a wonderful community. 

 

I'm rambling...anyway...enjoy the fruits and veg of summer because they'll be gone before you know it.  Pull out your grama's old dishes and set a lovely table.  You'll be surprised how great it feels!

Find the Truth

I find it appalling that a candidate for vice president would go on national t.v. and use half-truths, misdirections, and outright lies to denounce the current president and then claim that his team will not lie to the American people! In his speech at the Republican convention - that auto plant he seems to be accusing the president of closing? It closed BEFORE Obama even took office. The money he claims the president is pulling from Medicare? His plan pulls the exact same amount - and both plans pull it from providers NOT customers, i.e., US. That commission that he said Obama ignored? Ryan voted against their recommendations! The list goes on and on. Don't believe me? Go to www.factcheck.org, which is a nonpartisan fact checking website and see.

Barney Frank says,"Paul Ryan is a rigid far-right ideologue and a clever politician.  That’s a dangerous combination -- especially in an election where ultraconservative billionaires like the Koch Brothers are spending millions to ensure that their extreme right-wing agenda becomes a reality. We have to do everything we can to expose Romney and Ryan’s plans to slash the social safety net for seniors, children, and pretty much everyone else to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. Unlike some of these Tea Party Republicans, Ryan understands that much of what he wants to do is very unpopular with the American people. He’ll do everything he can to avoid the specifics of his plans to end Medicare, privatize Social Security, and give Mitt Romney a 1% tax rate."

This "trickle down" nonsense has been tried, and failed.  Reagan insisted that cutting taxes would spur private industry and ended up with the biggest deficit to date.  Only when Clinton came to office and raised taxes did the deficit go away.  We've been down this road before and we know what will happen if we do this again.   This time, though, we have such a huge deficit that we just can't risk failure, messing around with fiscal policies that have already been proven to be failures!

This campaign is crucial to our future.  It doesn't matter to me if you're a Republican or a Democrat.  Just don't rely on ANYONE to tell the truth.  Check for yourself the accusations people are making.  Only then can you make a truly informed decision. 

Reality Check

Be grateful for all you have.

Give some of what you have to others. 

Must...not...buy...more....!

I have been slowly moving away from being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.  First, because of health reasons - I was always tired and hurting and had lost all desire to spend the hours necessary for prepping for classes.  And second, because of eBay.  I just don't have what it takes to do both, and, frankly, eBay makes more money.

The problem is that I couldn't get my heart to agree to pull out of it completely.  I have loved stamping for a long, long time.  I love the company, I love the products, I love the people.  SU! has allowed me to continue as a teacher, long after my elementary classroom days were over.

Then - the miracle happened.  I got better.  I had the two Radio Frequency Ablations, which have removed a huge amount of pain along with six tiny little twigs of nerve on both sides of three vertebra.  The new medication I started, called Symponi, has brought back my energy and banished much of the tiredness...and all of a sudden the new catalog started exerting its siren song.  So much beautiful stuff!

So, this fall, I decided to just host a simple Open House, and then teach a couple of classes.  I thought that was a nice compromise.  I purchased one batch of supplies - picked only the stuff I personally love - and decreed to myself that That Was All.

The problem?  Temptation, like this card by Justin Krieger.  I love fall.  I miss fall.  I love cards that allow me to FEEL fall despite temps that are still routinely over 100 degrees.  I was NOT going to get the wonderful new Sizzix leaf die cut with matching stamp set (gingham and plaid, no less!)  And I already bought one package of the new Coredinations cardstock that can be sanded to show the contrasting color inside...and I did NOT get brown.  To make this card would cost me over $50.  I Must Resist.

I'll let you know how that goes....

Buddies

Socks (in front) and Callie have learned over the past couple of years to tolerate one another pretty nicely.  Callie especially likes to snuggle up to Socks when it's cold because Socks radiates heat like a good old fashioned stove (due to her weight and thick, fluffy fur, I suppose). Every once in awhile, Socks will get irritated with Callie, whose way of saying "hello" is to jump onto her back and bite her neck...doesn't go over well, understandably...  Callie has learned that in these situations, discretion is the better part of valor, and she prudently takes refuge under the Hepplewhite dresser because Socks is too fat to go under there and get 'er.

The point being that, despite differences and irritations, these two get along and live together.  I find it curious that, in situations of violence such as today's shooting in NYC, the inevitable comparison occurs and someone refers to someone else behaving like an "animal".  I think the far better description is to describe that person as behaving like a human.  Animals rarely kill each other for fun, or in anger.

And now the eternal argument will rage - gun control or gun freedom?  I say, who cares?  The real point is, "How do we stop people from getting to this point?"  And that leads me right back to the cats.  Tolerance.  We are all so ANGRY these days.  I was in JoAnn the other day and there was one cashier and one manager who had stepped over from Returns to open another register.  It was a Sunday evening near closing and there were two of us in line, waiting while a third woman checked out.  An expensively dressed, impeccably coiffed Ahwatukee Lady Who Lunches came in and approached the Returns desk, surveyed the situation, and immediately started tapping her foot and showing signs of irritation.  Mind you, by this point, the manager was getting ready to call one of us over and the third lady was done, so if the two of us had checked out uninterrupted it would have been the work of maybe three minutes.  However, the Expensive Person was by this point about to boil, so the manager left the register and went to wait on her.  Of course, I eavesdropped, figuring it must be a Very Important Matter...and was shocked to find that she had some mundane questions about products.  No return, no disappointing purchase.  She was just That Much More Important than the rest of us.

Bad behavior begets more bad behavior.  People who are pushed get to the point where they start pushing back.  All the laws in the world won't help change human behavior.  That has to come from within.  So, the next time you start getting irritated because something isn't going your way, STOP.  Think.  Change.

I will, too.

Don't Blink

 

The moral?  Don't blink.  It goes by SO fast....

Potty Training

When our girls got old enough to handle their own toileting needs, I thought I was done with wiping butts for good...or at least until grandchildren.  Ha!  The more-than-life-size beast in the picture above is Younger Progeny's cat, Socks.  Socks came to us as a starved, five month old pound kitten.  She commenced eating upon arrival...and hasn't stopped since.  She quickly ballooned up to 20 pounds, and the vet gave us a stern talking-to, but we haven't been able to budge her weight since then because she is EXTREMELY smart about getting to food.  We can't just cut back, because the other two cats are on the skinny side.  Cats are designed to eat many small meals throughout the day, so you can't just try and feed twice a day.  Cats are not dogs.  They will not snarf up a meal and then be fine for the rest of the day.  Trust me on this...I've tried.  You haven't lived until you've had a hungry cat denied her lovely fishy pieces of crunchy goodness.

We tried putting the food up on the kitchen bar, because she's too fat to jump up there.  However, she's very smart, and she's learned to use anything - and I do mean anything - to assist her climb.  There is a table near the bar where I work on my eBay stuff, and for awhile we routinely heard the crashing of objects as Socks used this table as a launch pad...and because of her enormous weight and Newton's Law, she would slide right across the bar and onto the floor on the other side, bringing down everything in her path.  Then we got smart, and figured out ways to block her from using the table.  However, someone (usually me) always forgets, and someone (always me) has to sweep up cat food and, occasionally, broken bowl bits (contrary to popular belief, Corelle WILL break if it falls enough times!).

Lest you think I've wandered from my original thought, let me point out that cats don't use toilet paper.  They Clean Themselves.  Enough said.  However, this particular cat can no longer do that because she is too fat to reach the relevant area. And since YP is away at college most of the time, guess who gets the job?  Naturally.

You haven't lived until you have watched me pull a baby wipe and call to Socks, "Let's get you clean!  Come on, Socksie, let's get you clean!"  She wanders up, Assumes The Position, and I get the inestimable pleasure of wiping her butt clean.  The things I do for my children...  She allows this for two reasons.  One, we give her treats.  Two, she really does hate not being clean.  She always "helps" me by grooming her arm while I work, that being the only place she can reach at the time.

And I thought I'd be bored in "retirement".

Earn a Million $ a Year Staying Home: The Value of Motherhood

On another soapbox today; however, I promise not to be so judgemental...a friend who reads my blog (may be just about the only one, besides my family!) pointed out gently that there are better ways to create change than yelling at people.  She's right.  In my own defense, sometimes the unfairness of the world gets to me and makes me want to scream, and what is a blog except a place where one can scream in public and not get arrested?!

BS (Beloved Spouse, and there's a story behind that which I'll tell you someday) and I had a dust up last night about the money - just about the only thing we ever fight about - and this morning I was grumping around, getting his breakfast, ironing his shirt, and making his lunch...okay, before someone yells at me for being a 50's housewife, I'll just add that he is handicapped, and long ago I made the choice that I would do these things because I wanted to....and fuming and entertaining a long, involved fantasy where I ran away for a month and let him find out firsthand how valuable I am.  Kind of an adult version of a kid running away so her parents will find out how much they miss her! 

So, I'm happily planning this as I'm slapping peanut butter on bread, and ran headfirst, metaphorically, into The Issue - money.  As in, what would I use for money when I ran away.  I don't work outside the home and don't have a money tree growing in secret in the closet, so how would I fund this little getaway?  And that led into some thinking about the monetary value of BEING a stay at home mom. 

When the girls went to college last year, he told me that I should not see it as the end of being a mom, but as a well earned retirement and do what I wanted, which was pretty darn nice and made me feel much better for a while, but then as our college fund continued to dribble away, the money worrying came back.  I can't work at a regular full time job due to medical issues, and most part time jobs are in retail, which mean being on your feet for hours at a time, which I just can't do.

But then it came to me...maybe on peanut butter fumes....I worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year from the time the girls were born.  It was all on me, as he can't do a lot of the things an able bodied dad could do to help out.  So I did some figuring, and this is what I came up with...and trust me - this will BLOW your mind!

24/7 times 365 is 61,320 hours.  Multiply that times $22 an hour, which was roughly what I was making as a teacher, and you get (hold onto your jaw) $1,349,040!!!!  That's over a million dollars a year! And that's just ONE year!  Multiply that times 18 and you get $24,282.720.  WOW.

Now, I'm sure it could be argued that I didn't actually WORK all those hours, and that's true.  However, I was "on call" all of that time, which meant that at any moment, awake or sleeping, I could be needed.  Think about it - all of those middle of the night wake up calls of "MOMMY!"  The call from the school that a child has a fever and needs to come home.  All those hours of volunteering - Girl Scouts, dance, Latin Club, book fair, tutoring, etc.  Think about it!  It really adds up to 18 years of always being there.

I certainly don't expect anyone to write me a check for 24 million dollars, and that theoretical value of what I did will absolutely not help send the girls to college.  But the next time someone says to me or any stay at home mom, "Do you work?" we can say, "Why, yes, I do work - right here at home - and it's a VERY valuable job."

A Reminder of Reality

This picture is of a woman in India cooking.  The next time you're in Wal-Mart, thinking you need to replace your perfectly good but slightly old pots with brand new ones that match, think about this picture and imagine yourself cooking in that room...and then go donate that money to a charity.  My good GOD!  We have SO much.  People like this have so little.  Moral:  don't whine.  Be grateful.  No matter how bad off you are, if you're on your own computer looking at this, you are better off than most of the rest of the world.  That's definitely something to be grateful for.

Blogging

I read a number of blogs, which often crack me up and even more often provide me with something really profound to think about.  I believe that's what blogs are best at.  Voices out in the internet wilderness, telling us things we really need to know.

However, there also seem to be a lot of blogs out there with their owners endlessly inspecting their own navels and whining about why their lives aren't what they though they'd be.  I don't mean the occasional whine that we all do.  I mean the non-stop picking at life like it's a scab.  It's a very destructive habit - picking at scabs leaves scars - remember?  Our moms always told us that.
These people, I think they've missed the point.  The life we get is the life we've got.  Sometimes it's up to us to change it for the better, and sometimes it's for that life to change US for the better.  The goal here is BETTER.  Not richer.  Not cooler.  Not more exciting.  BETTER.  Better for ourselves and others.  The way to do that is NEVER whining about what we don't HAVE.

Take a minute...when you're feeling whiny...and do a gratitude list.  Start with "A" and find something in your life that you're grateful for that starts with "A".  Then do "B".  And keep on until the end.  I guarantee you will feel much happier when you are done.  Because you've looked at your own life and found things to be grateful for.  Gratitude is the ultimate anti-whining tool!

Class Wars

While watching London and other parts of the world burn over the last few months, I'm sure there are a lot of complacent people who insist that "that could never happen here!" as if somehow we are morally superior to the rest of humanity.  Make no mistake - it WILL happen here.  All it will take is an incident to provide the flash point, and our cities will ignite faster than they did during the race riots of the Sixties.  Why?  Because the government, like Nero of old, fiddles while the economy goes up in smoke. 

The ink on President Obama's inauguration speech wasn't even dry before opposition leaders were publically vowing to make his a one term presidency.  And amid the mud slinging and name calling and blame assigning, one thing is clear - a failed economy is a victory for the opposition.  Because if the economy can't be fixed, everything can be blamed on the president (even though the seeds of this debacle were sowed during several opposition presidencies...) and that could lead to a change in the White House in 2012.  The big wigs claim they are working on the problems and that it's the debt that keeps all from being well, but that's just a front for what's really happening - they're waiting for this presidency to fail.  If they can just bluster and obstruct long enough, a fickle public will do the deed for them and they can sweep into the White House in a blaze of glory in 2012. 

But here's the rub - that won't fix the economy.  For one thing, the losing party in this farce will turn around and do the same thing, thus ensuring that the problems are never fixed.  And while all this happens, the unemployed and uninsured and disenfranchised population gets madder and madder.

We'll burn.  I have no doubt.

Heavenly Days

I often think about Heaven.  I have some definite ideas about it.  I believe that when our mortal bodies give out, it frees up our minds and we can access some of that huge mysterious part that scientists are always telling us we don't use.  With no physical restrictions, and the awesome brainpower that is now available, I believe that we can jump the constraints of time and space and go wherever and WHENever we want.  And I know exactly where I will go first.

Of course, before I go whizzing off, I'd like to think there's something of a welcome station where we start.  That the white light and the tunnel lead us to a celestial train which is pulling into the heavenly depot, where all of our family and friends are waiting to say hello.  Over there is Grama Nelle, with Grampa Loris puffing on his cigar...and there's my brother Steve, golf bag over his shoulder - he took time from his daily golf game to come and welcome me Home.  Oh, and there's my mother-in-law, Fran, saying, "Hello, hello, hello!" as she always did every time we arrived.  There are a lot of other faces, too, whom I don't recognize but I know instinctively are the ancestors who came before.  And frisking around getting under everyone's feet are the cats - Emily and Pooky and Charlie and Booger and Lady and Tigger and Tiger and little Jack.  

I've always thought that coming home, wherever home is, is one of the most wonderful feelings we experience on earth, and that makes me think it's God's way of showing us a little tiny taste of what we will find at the end of all things mortal.  You know what I mean?  The way your parents' house smells - even if it's not the same one you grew up in?  The way it feels to get out of the car, or off the train, or walk down the jetway towards those people you love best in the world.  It's His way of telling us that the best is yet to be.

And then...?  After we've caught up and eased those sore places in our hearts that have been there since these folks left us?  Then...we GO.  Wherever and whenever.  For me, it's a cottage just a little way out of a small town in Ohio, filled with love and laughter, and lots of children.  And I'm there - and I'm slender (a girl can dream, can't she?!) and there's my Scott and he can walk now and we can dance while the kids laugh and clap their hands.  And then the days just go by...the seasons turn... the world is never ugly and the kids never leave home and we just enjoy life as it ambles by.

The best thing of all?  That's MY heaven, but yours will be what satisfies your soul the most.  Only you, and God, know what that is.

Made in....Where?

Younger Progeny had to have minor shoulder surgery recently, and when I stopped by Walgreen's to pick up some supplies, I spotted bags of fall mallow candy - you know, candy corn and those fun and tasty shaped ones, pumpkins and moons and so on?  Anyway, both girls thrive on this stuff in the fall, so as a treat, I picked up two bags and as I was standing in line waiting to check out I happened to notice something on the label.  It said....Made in Mexico. 

What?  Okay, since when?  Has it always been made there and I just didn't know?  But Brach's is an old, old American company, right?  Since 1906, right?  (Okay, so I didn't know that 'til I looked it up on the website, but I knew it was old.)  Turns out they were purchased a few years back by a huge conglomerate called Farleys and Sathers, and they have five manufactories - three in the U.S. and two in Mexico.  I suppose it makes sense that we would get product made in Mexico because this little slice of boiling hot ick we live in is so close to it.

Look, I don't have anything against Mexico or Mexicans.  What I DO seriously hate is that practically nothing is manufactured HERE.  And, yeah, that means that we can go buy a lot of fun cheap crap, then give it away, then start over, on and on, ad nauseum.  But it seems to me that we, as a country, can't do that forever.  We're already way over our heads in debt, unemployment is still an ugly part of a lot of people's lives...and for WHAT?  CHEAPO CRAP? 

We need to bring our companies back.  Then pay decent living wages to people - not crazy wages, because that's how the unions shot themselves in the foot in the first place.  Honestly, people pushing brooms in auto plants making $30+ an hour?  Please...  And why did the unions feel they had to force the crazy wages?  Because we are all DAMN SPOILED.  We want our three t.v.'s, our two cars, cable, fast internet, cruises....  Insanity!

Look, people.  I remember my 95 year old father-in-law telling me once that he had just two books before he went away to college.  They went to the library to get books to read.  He had one good suit for Sunday and special events and he had a mishmash of hand me downs and second hand stuff for everyday.  Now, I'm not saying that we have got to start living like that again, but we could rein ourselves in a lot more than we do.  We need to be saving our money, bringing our factories back home, paying for things in FULL before we start playing with them, living in houses designed for one family, not eight families...EP's science teacher did an exercise one day where they had to tell what square footage their house was.  We live in an 1800 sq. ft. house.  Most of her class lived in 2500 sq. ft. or more.  According to this teacher, if every family on Earth lived in our sized house, it would take the equivalent of THREE additional Earth's worth of resources to build and sustain them.  For the bigger houses it was anywhere from four to fifteen Earth's worth of resources.  Incredible waste!

We in the U.S. live better than 95% of the world's people.   And here's the saddest and scariest fact of all.  Even if the rest of the people on Earth could come up with the money to live like we do, they still COULD NOT because we've used up way more than our fair share of the resources.  What's going to happen to us when the rest of the world starts figuring this out?

Seasons and Paths and a Diver Figurine*

                                                                                     

When I graduated from Ohio State, with my newly minted teaching degree, some 5000 other people graduated with me.  Yet, I got a teaching position right out of college, and taught for ten years with a great deal of success.  I believe that it was the path God wanted me on at the time. 

Ten years later, I resigned and became - by way of a pair of twin girls - a full time mom.  Though insanely busy, I was often restless and wanted something besides mothering and housewifery, so I tried varying things.  I painted country wooden stuff and made wonderful cloth dolls, and sold them at craft fairs, but I was never very good at forcing myself to make a bunch of the same thing, so I wasn't all that successful, financially.  Then, when the girls were in kindergarten, I got a sub certificate and tried subbing...HATED that.  Nothing like being in a room with 25 or 30 kids you don't know, with at least 3/4ths of them trying to drive you nuts. To me, it didn't feel anything like being a real teacher (my apologies to subs - I know there are some really amazing ones out there and you ARE real teachers!)  Then a full time position opened up at a local crafts big box store.  I LOVED that job, but it was the wrong time - too many hours away from the children I had fought for almost seven years to conceive.  Finally, I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, and while I love teaching classes, the selling part just isn't my thing.  When our girls went to college, I kind of floundered, wondering what was next for me.

Well, what was next was selling on Ebay.  I have loved vintage stuff - 40's and 50's mostly - for quite some time, and the day came when I realized that I had too much stuff, but I kept running into fantastic deals!  The logical outcome?  Sell the stuff!  However, I was quite prepared to fail, since I haven't had any appreciable luck in selling in the last 20 years.

What a surprise I was in for!  I found a Gay Fad decanter and glasses at Goodwill for around six bucks - and they sold for over $50.  Ditto a set of canisters, a tray, and several other items.  All of a sudden, it seemed that God had opened the door for me.   I believe this is how I am going to be able to help the girls pay for college.  I'm sure there are challenges ahead - times when nothing sells - but for now, I enjoy the feeling of success.   To everything there is a season...

*The figurine?  I bought it for a quarter at a garage sale in Harbor Springs, Michigan, and sold it for over $63 dollars this week.  Thank you so much, Lord!

Tomatoes

I love to eat raw tomatoes.  As a child, growing up in Ohio, summer meant long, hot days playing with my friends under the big green trees out back, running through the grass with dirty, bare feet, then coming in to dinner to ice cold milk, and, if I was lucky, fresh picked tomatoes and hot corn on the cob.  Sometimes, that was all we had, and it was plenty, because a hungry child could eat all she wanted.  No one needed anything else to distract from the incredible taste of butter dripping down the chin, the sweet, crisp taste of the corn, and then, as a lovely counterpoint, the icy, salty, tangy tomatoes.

Unfortunately, though we go to the midwest every year, Beloved Spouse's current school calendar insists on us being home by the end of July so he can go back the first week in August.  Those of you from the midwest know that the good, local corn and tomatoes don't show up until (at the earliest) the first week in August.   That leaves us, every year, coming home too early for corn and tommy-toes feasts (as my dad would say!)

Fortunately, this year a farm near Petoskey came to the rescue with locally grown hothouse tomatoes.  They were AMBROSIA.  I am not exaggerating.  I couldn't wait to get back to the cottage and slice one up.  Plus, they looked so pretty in the old pottery bowls in the cottage!  See for yourself:

Doesn't that make your mouth water?  It sure does MINE, though I'm also starving, waiting for Elder Progeny to make homemade spanish rice and pollo asado, from scratch.  She is COOKING this summer.  All the time.  I have the hips and butt to prove it.

I've heard that some of the organic farms around here are now doing heirloom hothouse and garden tomatoes.  I'll keep you posted, though somehow the idea of eating them in February or March isn't quite the same.

Serendipity

One of the things I love about life is how little delights pop up when you least expect them.  Case in point - we emptied the van the first night we were home and I immediately started unwrapping bundles and rediscovering all the neat things I found this summer in Michigan and Indiana.  I really found a LOT this year, so once it was all out of the paper and wrap I separated it into "sell" and "keep" and began the process of cleaning, weighing, photographing, and listing the items on eBay. 

The next day we went to the grocery to stock up and when we were unloading back at home, I looked across the expanse of the cargo area and noticed some bags slightly under Elder Progeny's seat.  Thinking they were trash left over from the trip, I grabbed them up to pitch them...and nearly dumped a solid, tissue wrapped object onto the garage floor!  Upon investigation, the bags turned out to contain a lovely vintage figurine I had purchased at a new thrift in downtown Richmond, Indiana, and a delicate, gold painted, porcelain tray with daisies which I found at a Goodwill...somewhere!  Perhaps in Bloomington, Indiana....

Anyway, I thanked the good Lord that either hadn't ended up smashed on the concrete, and took them inside to clean them up and decide what I was going to do with them.  I have a cheerful, blue and yellow daisy-spangled tablecloth - mint! - I got on eBay last spring on the kitchen table right now.  It represents summertime to me - makes me think of Black Eyed Susans and the wonderfully fragrant stretches of verge alongside the woods and fields at home...don't get me started, or I'll be crying over my keyboard and messing up my laptop....

I don't have a matching napkin holder for this cloth, nor a set of salt and pepper shakers, so on a whim I grabbed up the tray, plopped the figurine and our plain old shakers, and set the whole shebang in the middle of the table...and stood there, happily surprised by how great it looked together!

Serendipity: (noun)  luck, or good fortune, in finding something good accidentally 

Yep, that sums it up.