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Author, Historian, Storyteller

Archives for June 2014

We May Have Been On to Something . . .

DatingOne comment so far

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually think we had something figured out back in sixth grade. I know, middle school is the tenth circle of hell that Dante left out of his Inferno for fear that he would scare people to death. But when it comes to dating, I think we had something figured out back then. Think about it, if you liked a boy you mooned and giggled over him with your friends for a bit, and then you’d send one of them over to him with a carefully folded note – the folding was very important –

Notes

that had some variation of this on it:

Do you wanna go out? Circle yes or no.

Yes                         No

He got the note, he responded and you were either on cloud nine, or you became so depressed that you wanted your life to end . . . until your BFF gave you her Lisa Frank folder that you’d always been jealous of and then everything was alright. How much easier is that, than what we do as adults?!? It takes all of the pressure off! Imagine a bar – because we’re adults now, so we’re allowed to drink! – where you go with your friends and when you see a guy that you like you send one of your friends over with a note:

Do you wanna get a coffee tomorrow at 10:30? Circle yes or no.

Yes                         No

He gets the note, he responds and you either keep looking or you have a fantastic evening with your girlfriends secure in the knowledge that you have a coffee date the next morning. The next morning you go out and chat over coffee – where you can make nice sober decisions – and decide if you’d like to pursue things further. So. Much. Easier.

Or, if you’re a little more adventurous than that, there could be a nice game of Spin the Bottle over in the corner. A coat closet designated for 7 Seconds in Heaven. You can find out a lot in seven seconds! Sometimes, all you really need to know can be discovered in seven seconds, ladies you know what I’m talking about. If things get really out of hand then maybe some Twister or Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board!

Okay, that’s going a little too far, but the rest sounds fantastic! No skeezy guys invading your space who won’t take a hint, no public rejection for all to see. A simple yes or no question and then you move on with your evening. I like this plan. Who’s in?

Three Strikes?

Life, Live and LearnOne comment so far

I had a conversation this weekend about when it’s appropriate to call it quits on a relationship with someone. At what point do you decide that a person causes more grief and drama in your life and you gracefully cut them loose. I find that I have a three strikes and you’re out policy. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I’m done. To my thinking, life is too short to spend it with people who repeatedly hurt you, continually criticize you or expect you to be somebody that you aren’t. Quite frankly, if you can’t accept me for who I am and show me the same respect that I show you, then I don’t feel the need to spend my time or energy on you.

bridges

On the one hand, I wonder if this attitude means that I miss out on good things because certain people are no longer actively in my life like they used to be. But on the other hand, I spent a good portion of my life forgiving any and all trespasses against me, and all it got me was repeated heartache and the belief that embracing who I am was wrong and inappropriate. I don’t know that the former has enough draw to make up for the latter. So does that make me an emotionally stunted, unforgiving person, or does that make me an emotionally healthy person with enough respect for myself to set clear boundaries? I’d like to believe that it’s the second, but sometimes I really don’t know.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy drama. On the stage or in a book it’s great, but I don’t like it in my everyday life. I don’t need to have some sort of crisis to solve or problem to figure out to make my days exciting. Quite the contrary, I prefer things to run smoothly and easily. Now that’s not to say that I’m afraid of or avoid conflict. I’m one of the most bull-headed people I know and will step up to a fight and argue a point until even a two-year-old would back down. I’m stubborn and I like to win, but I don’t thrive on the conflict. I don’t need it to feel good about myself. So spending my time with people who continually bring that part of me out is exhausting and vexatious. What do you think? When is enough, enough?

When Inspiration Strikes

Change, InspirationLeave a comment

There’s something that happens when everything falls into place and finally makes sense. When the path clears before you and no leap of faith is necessary because you can see every step that you will take for the next few feet, few miles, few years. You finally know who you are and what you are supposed to be doing. And all of a sudden everything else feels superfluous. It doesn’t matter and you have no idea why you’ve spent so much time and energy and stress on something so . . . inconsequential. The clarity becomes a numbing certainty and you realize that deep down you knew, you’ve always known.

This has been a part of you since day one, you just needed someone to open your eyes. Open your soul, peer inside and extract the very essence that pulses through your veins. That thing that makes getting up in the morning not just bearable, but joyful. That makes your job your work. Your life’s work. Your legacy that you will leave behind to impress upon the minds of all those who are yet to come. All those who are just a glimmer in their parent’s eyes. All those who will come from the eyes that do not yet exist to hold a glimmer. That kind of work. That kind of clarity. That kind of purpose. The path is clear. Just place each foot in front of the other.

walking-a-clear-path

Happy Days

Happiness, Life, Live and LearnOne comment so far

I recently came across the hashtag #100HappyDays and was intrigued. So I investigated. I enjoy a good motivational article or program, so I figured, let’s see what this one is all about. Turns out that it’s this initiative for people to sign up, and every day for 100 days you’re supposed to take a picture of something that makes you happy and then post it on social media tagged with #100HappyDays, or some other personal variation that you come up with if you don’t want it easily searchable by the masses. What a fantastic idea! Focus on the positive. Even on a bad day, you have to come up with something that makes you happy. They had me hook, line and sinker. I signed up. May 1st I was going to start my 100 days of happy. I didn’t make it. In fact I don’t even think I made it three weeks before I gave up completely. On the Happy website it stated that the #1 reason that people quit was because they claimed that they didn’t have the time. This was not my reason for quitting. It also was not because I had a lack of happy things to photograph and post. I quit, because I realized that it had become work. I had plenty of things that were making me happy, the trouble came from the fact that I wasn’t interrupting my happiness to document them. I enjoyed the things that made me happy and then I moved on with my day. Which meant that at the end of the day I was stuck manufacturing some photo for the project. I had actually begun to plan out my photos in advance. Staged happiness. Which seemed a little counter intuitive. I realized that I didn’t need the reminder that there is something to be happy for every day, because I was happy every day. In reality #100HappyDays was a success for me, just not in the way that they would measure success. It helped me to realize that my life is full of everyday things that make me happy, so anything above and beyond is icing on the cake. I realized that my furry babies give me endless amounts of happiness. The endless funny things that they do. The way Bubba will “talk” to you if you’re not giving him the attention he thinks he deserves. The way Zoey will crawl into my arms in the middle of the night because she needs a snuggle. They make me happy.

Puggle Sandwich

Puggle Sandwich

I realized that my friends give me endless amounts of happiness. Whether we’re being goofy or serious, doing something planned or impromptu, their presence is comforting. They make me happy. Mush I realized that crossing things off my to-do list, fresh produce, a glass of wine, a good book, a cool shower on a hot day, watching water lap up on the shore, good theater, finding something on sale, and abandoning all of my plans getting a pizza and staying in to watch a movie all make me happy. I realized that it wasn’t complicated, it wasn’t some grand mystical thing that is always out of reach. Happiness is easy. It’s a choice to focus on the good things instead of letting yourself get bogged down by the bad. I realized that I don’t need 100 pictures to remind myself to be happy. I am happy.

Adventures in Extreme Couponing

, Live and LearnLeave a comment

Over the weekend I decided that I was going to dip my toes into the crazy world of extreme couponing and see what that was all about. Okay, so it was really more like moderate couponing, since I only went to one store and didn’t come home with 50 of any one product. Because let’s face it, I live in an apartment with no extra storage, where would I put 50 tubes of toothpaste? Not to mention, wouldn’t most of them go bad before you had a chance to use them? How much toothpaste can one person go through? I think these thoughts should have been my first clue that I am not a “couponer.” I don’t know if that’s how they refer to themselves, but it sounds good to me.

couponing

At any rate, I sat down and strategized. Instead of figuring out my meals for the week and then shopping accordingly, like I usually do, I looked at what was on sale. I painstakingly looked through what was on sale and what coupons there were. Is that something that I normally buy? Is it something that I occasionally buy? Is it something that I never buy, but could find a use for? I made lists, I wrote down prices, compared savings between products and made note of quantity limitations. Then I divided and conquered. After all, I had two coupons that would get me $20 off of a $75 purchase. So I needed two trips that would add up to $75 each so that I could save $40.

Then I hit the store, and despite the fact that I had a very detailed list, my trip took twice as long as normal. I became that crazy person climbing into the freezer to the get to the stuff in the back because the product that I had a coupon for wasn’t on display in the front. I was the person triple checking between the package sizes on the shelf and what I had put on my list, “Damnit! My coupon doesn’t cover the 10 oz, I need the 13 oz, where is the 13 oz!” At one point, I actually asked an employee if they had a particular size in the back because they were out on the shelf. I’m pretty sure when he turned around to go check he rolled his eyes at me. I don’t blame him. I would have rolled my eyes too, because I’m pretty sure I had that manic, “But I have to save 30 cents” look on my face.

That’s when the manic took on a whole new level; they were out of one of the things on my list. Which of course meant that my calculations would now be off, because I had added everything up to reach the golden $75 mark. I’d given myself a little bit of a cushion, but I couldn’t remember how big of a cushion, and after all I was supposed to be buying six of this particular product so that was gonna take a chunk out of my total. I was paralyzed, I was standing in the store paralyzed trying to decide if I should just double up on something else on my list, or if I should start going through the aisles until I found something else on sale that would be an equivalent price, or should I just chance it and hope that it all worked out okay at the register and not be forced to scramble to find something really quick to make up the difference of $4 that I would inevitably be short of my $75 mark. Argh!!!!!!!

I have never been so stressed grocery shopping in my entire life. It was ridiculous. It was beyond ridiculous. By the time that I made it to the register and watched as the dollars fell away with each new coupon I realized that I wasn’t even enjoying it. Usually I think it’s very fun when I swipe my Vons card and watch as the amount goes down. But this time all of the fun was gone, because I had already done the math and I knew how much it was going to go down. I got some satisfaction from the fact that I actually made a dollar on one product, but beyond that I was just glad that it was over and I hoped that everything would fit in the kitchen.

etc_couponing10__01__630x420

All in all, I saved right around 50% off of my groceries. Like I said, moderate couponing. But if I really look at it and calculate in how much extra time I spent preparing for my grocery shopping trip, and how much extra time it took to do the grocery shopping – remember two trips on top of the extra time to get the exact right products – I’m pretty sure I actually paid about 125% for my groceries. I work freelance, so all of that time that I spent I could have been working and making money. Huh. I think I’ll be sticking to normal grocery shopping from now on.