fortunate

Yesterday I spent $21.50 on three pomegranates, a half gallon of fresh squeezed orange juice, and a small heirloom dry farmed watermelon.  I feel fortunate that I am able to do so. $21.50 on five items that will expire within days of purchase is a bit steep.

$21.50 for me is a smidge shy of two hours of work on an assisting day. If you make minimum wage that is about three hours of work. That $21.50 can fill half a gas tank to get you to your job, pay for one-two weeks of public transit, cover the retail cost of a handful of Target tank tops, or maybe cover the cost of an asthma inhaler if you have good insurance.

$21.50 is a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, small jar of jam, two pounds of apples, 5 bananas, a head of lettuce, and a bag of baby carrots which can be lunch for you or your kiddo for a week. $21.50 can be a lot of things more filling or even more useful than three pomegranates, half gallon of fresh squeezed orange juice, and a small heirloom dry farmed watermelon. If I purchased these at my local grocer the poms would be smaller and more expensive and grown who knows where, the juice would not be fresh, and the watermelon would be a mockery of a melon that only looks like one on the outside. At my farmer's market I chatted with the guy who sells two variety of poms and the juice he coaxes out of them, I grabbed the last half gallon of fresh squeezed juice and talked about the excitement of the blood orange juice that appears in January, and I high-fived the guy with the green pick-up truck loaded with those gorgeous seed-full dry farmed watermelon that he grew about thirty-miles away. So much better than three pumpkin-spice lattes or a handful of tank tops from Target. So much better and skewed as not many people have the opportunity to visit a farmer's market or grow their own food. I am very fortunate.

My town often has large 50 gallon drums posted near the doors of our supermarkets. These are for our food bank for you to add to when you shop. If you do not feel up for selecting said food, there are often packed bags you can purchase for $5-$10 that already have food in them. When there are no bags ready, there are cards you can grab at the register for as little as $1. They make it very easy for you to give and I do. Often I will round up my purchase to the next $5 or so dollars, they make it easy and it helps. Sometimes the round-up is under $2 other times I grab a packed bag or two or add a couple pounds of rice and or grains to the drum. The markets in my neighborhood do this year round, not just at Thanksgiving, for which I am grateful. I remember being that family that could use a bag or two of groceries. If you are wondering where your food banks are in your neighborhood click here, it's easy to do and you can manage a week without lattes or acai bowls

Yesterday I spent $21.50 (without batting an eye) on three pomegranates, a half gallon of fresh squeezed orange juice, and a small heirloom dry farmed watermelon.  I feel fortunate that I am able to do so. $21.50 on five items that will expire within days of purchase is a bit steep.  I am very fortunate.

thrifty consumption

the box, camera and balloon pump were thrift finds. i found the balloon pump when i was in high school!

I think it is safe to say that I changed my thrifting habit. Curbed it even, sort of. I used to thrift for the thrill of finding vintage but now, now I thrift for needful and useful things. Things I put on my mental list, things to craft with and things for the preschool. I also only really go to the Goodwill Outlet here in town. It is a mess of a warehouse full of piles of junky junk and crappy crap with enough jewels tossed into the mix that you keep returning, and returning...and returning until you are one of those people; one of the regulars (I don't know any of their names but we're starting to nod at each other as we eyeball the others' armload). While I do not own my own pair of gloves, nor do I understand the whole system, I'm there often enough it could be embarrassing if I wasn't a natural born thrifter.

the green vase and the shelf were thrift scores... $2.25 total

Now I dash in with the idea that I need something red to craft with or perhaps a white pillowcase for another project. Sometimes I visit with a mantra in my head hoping the thrifting gods will hear me. Once I went chanting "salad spinner, salad spinner, salad spinner" and there one was for all of a quarter! I've found shelves for the tiny casa, tins for the mister's homemade ukes, rugs to color up the kitchen floor and tablecloths that I always think I will cut up for crafting but never do. Useful things, things I have been hoping to find, good things for super cheap!

we needed something for our keys, this was $1! one coat of paint later and it makes a happy home for keys.

That doesn't mean I am a superior and savvy hardcore thrifter only buying things that have a purposeful purpose. I'm still highly attracted to colorful pyrex, kitschy coffee mugs and pretty frocks. But I have grown, I have! I pass up so many wonderfully fun vintage bits it makes my head and heart hurt a little but I have no room to showcase, only the quirkiest get swept up. I also have no head for a business as I have enough here in the tiny casa I need to photograph and list. So when I do find something extra swanky but it is not something I am going to by, I will pull it out and display it for the other regulars to see. Mostly that involves clothing with valuable labels, old and new. The other day I found a pretty Pendelton button-down with only the tiniest of a moth hole near the bottom hem...it would get buried quickly so I made a show of inspecting it and left it on the top. I have a good eye and some of them regulars know it as they swoop in on my discards. I often wonder what they think of my armloads of plastic colanders (perfect for little hands to push pipe cleaners into) coupled with a kitschy chalkware bank and short pile of 1970s potholders.

the rug was $1 and the rest totaled $3 (incl brand new micro grater)!

 Yet, even though I grin ear to ear with my scores, I often leave with a different kind of ache in my heart at all that crappy crap I root through, the stuff that is not fit to place in a real thrift store, the stuff that people consider disposable and cheap. Holiday themed plastic cups and serveware, dollar store dishes and cheapie stuffed toys make up most of the stock. It's as if people think donating all the cheap replaceable bits to a thrift store is a good thing when mostly it should be recycled or better yet, not purchased at all. It makes me rethink how I spend and while I am super attracted to the happy summer colors every season at Target, I know I could spend a better penny on something that will last many summers. It is why I save my pennies to purchase a handmade garlic keeper or giant mason jar water server instead of rushing out to have something now because for now, what I have works and will do. It might not be as pretty as I would like but it is serviceable and having something work even if it is bland is better than replacing your drinking glasses every year. The plastic goods and cheapie cheap items that clutter up our thrift stores tend to leave a lot of clutter in my mind. I'm trying to think it through, to word it well, this concern I have for our (over crowded) planet. I'm trying to rework my own patterns of consumption even as I pin away all the pretty I would love to have. So I'm trying to be thrifty in my consumption, both pennywise and environmentally sound. And while I did indeed just spend three dollars on a bucketful of crappy crap (I'm installing a water-wall at the preschool) I think if I can plan it out, and sit on it, my baby steps will only get bigger.

$1 and a coat of paint equals a happy mail/receipt center

**and ahem, I do have a follow up post for a pretty awesome thrift score that I just couldn't pass up. But in my defense, most of it IS useful...mostly.

today in my head...

i have not yet made friends with this new lighter brighter sunshine we're having. the time change here always throws me off-kilter. the mornings seems darker as if the moon just cannot help but linger a little longer and my sleep gets deeper, pulled under the covers by dreams of goats in minnie pearl hats, enormous corsages & missed proms and twisty windy roads that play music as you drive upon them.

i find myself sleeping in and then i wake up feeling guilty for the time i wasted dreaming. there is much to be done and for those of you who didn't know, yes, we are moving, moving, moving away from this big lovely city full of the best eats anywhere, empty morning beaches and mountains so high you need a coat for summer meanderings.

not only are we pushing off into the great US of A for a mad frolic with our country but we are packing up the tiny casa for an unknown tomorrow. we will cull and give and barter and sell a great portion of my mad collecting and acquisitions. the rest will be boxed up and stored until we return from our road trip. then....we have no idea really.

we know this trip seems nutty and crazy especially when we have roots here and the mister has a job, but we feel it is time to be crazy what with all the sorrow we have had these past few years. we have lost loved ones and little pieces of ourselves along the way as we two a-go-gos found that we cannot create our own wee one. so yes, an adventure is in store. a mid-life creative crisis is in the works and hopefully we will land with clear heads, brighter smiles and a readiness for the future.

so i hope to shake hands with these brighter sunnier days. i hope to embrace them and hug them and make friends as i will need all the company i can get as i stare at this very full and cluttered casa that needs to somehow fit into its new box home. it is almost more than i can focus on.

and i think, maybe for this week, i need the extra sleep, the extra time to dream, the remaining bits of a life in a tiny space full of fun and fine memories, chirping birdies in the garden, and sundress weather in march. for now i like this lazy sense of living even while all that needs to be done is lined up in front of me like a group of children waiting to be picked for the team. pick me! pick me! ooh ooh, pick me! picking is the hardest part, because always, someone is last...

wrapping my head around it all

aka darn my brain!
i have an attachment to things. be they pretty, colorful, quirky, old, or odd. i can't seem to let go of so many objects because they hold something in them, some memory or some idea or some insight to someone i have loved.

attempting to purge this tiny casa will be a wonderful relief but at th same time i am having the hardest time wrapping my head around the possibilities of things tossed. that said, i don't want to be tossing anything. at least tossing as in putting it into the ugly black plastic bins that get picked up by the growly turquoise garbage trucks only to be hauled off to someplace no too far and dumped into a giant hole only to then be covered with more crap. this, appalls me. and i sit on this thought and i think it and it sinks in and i feel a little ill and i look around the tiny casa and wonder what to do. at some point that gnawing little knot fades enough for me to forget and my day continues on in any number of normal ways.

until, it hits me again like a stealth attack from the witch-baby when she scratches out and lunges for no reason that we can think of. she may be pretty but she packs a mean scratch. and okay, here is where i get all tangly wordy and circular and gobbled and such. it's just me trying to wrap my head around it and it is just me acknowledging how conditioned i am to buy more, to become a magpie when pretty things bat their wispy lashes at me. and how much i struggle with it because i like pretty things but to what end?

saturday morning i ran off to the enormous mall to return an impulse buy before the crowds got there. i'm not a mall shopper anymore save for my target and the jc penneys which are a almost neighbors in the brick behemoth. i park the car near the target and run to the penneys to return the two tops that reminded me of thinner days. from there, i walk the short walk through the mall to the target to get some toothpaste. as i walk the short distance i spy the hallmark shop has its holiday stuff up and wander in for a look and as i'm looking at this tiny store that is crammed to the gills with...crap...my heart sinks and that gnawing triffid of a thought starts bouncing around my belly. there are clever looking things, nicely packaged things, things that compel my hand to reach out and touch and things that make me think "i can make that". there are things upon things upon things and it hits me. they are temporary. they are things people will spend their hard earned money on, enjoy for a mere moment and then discard...i may see many multiples crowding the aisles at the thrift or i may see them broken up and left to die in the middle of the street or i may never see them at all because they will be dumped into a land fill that crappy, shoddy houses will built on.

i continue on my walk and i'm thinking how i am in a mall. a single mall full of stores full of temporary things full of people buying these things that will soon be discarded. i feel like a light begins to flash above my head mocking me...for all my want of simplicity and sustainability, i am a consumer in the most regular icky kind of way. and this happens to me all the time. not this realization of temporary products but of this cape of consumerism that i like to stylishly think i can alter. we are all consumers, i get that. that is how our world works but we are consumers without purpose or without intent (at least i am) and i need to change this. i know i do but do you see the shoes they have here or the mugs they sell here or this or that? aack! make it stop!

i have a tendency to think about how commercials don't make me want to run out and buy products (well except for the titan peeler...i jest...sort of) but the packaging (which is why the orla kiely stuff from target was such a success). the other thing is for me, if it is out of sight it is out out of mind. if i don't see it, i don't need it. which only works if you remove yourself from pretty products. what i need to do, what i want to do is to make more of those purposeful choices i rambled on about here. i think i need to work towards my goal of the handmade pledge. i do a lot of handmade items, i shop at a loft of thrifts but i don't do it exclusively therefore i cannot take the pledge. i make every effort i can muster at this point in my life to shop etsy and other crafty folk but still there are Threadless shirts to be worn or rubber chickens to be sent to the nephew in college. little steps, baby steps. that's my mantra and i'm sticking to it.

thanking outloud

thank you all for taking the time to think and write out a comment on my previous post on choices. so many of you wrote and commented about my blathering on in the grocery store that i wanted to respond to you and i haven't figured out an easy way to do so here on blogger so you get this post instead...(p.s. there are thank you's out there for my fellow hoarders as well, keep reading!)

i have to say that it feels tremendous to know i am not alone in my kookiness. i like that i am in good company to my rambling thoughts and mumbling to myself tendencies. phew!

*hugs to you nessie, i hope your weekend and future weekends are always magical. let's keep with the tiny to make BIG change! the shop is going to be interesting...cool ccrap that no one needs but when yo usee it, you will NEED it!

*goosie-here's to small change and thinking and sharing and like-minded peeps. hugs to you!

*ah cathy! i speak of a rant i have in my head all the time but since i am not a parent i fear i cannot say it outloud. it irks me and throws me into a downward spiral when people point out that fact to me. yer right, i am not a parent but i am a mother at heart and a smart cookie to boot. keep up your rants for me! blogger power!

*susan-thank you. now that i have put the words out there. i chastise myself with each touch of a product. no matter what it is. it doesn't keep me from poor choices but it keeps me from thinking about them more. as for the purge, that is exactly what i am doing. i think the biggest issue is that most of these things belonged to my mother and with her gone, i miss her too much. each object has meaning to me. i know she is in my heart but sometimes a jar full of dollie heads is better...;)

*vone-stacey and i often talk about the bubbles we live in. some bubbles are all for making biggee bubbles. i just hope those can attach to the tiny ones. we need bigger bubbles. we need more shouting out of the domino effect, the butterfly effect and the zipper effect. thank you!

*oh amber! love what you wrote and posted! sometimes i am fierce in this thinking and other times i think "i'll be gone soon so what is the point?" gotta keep looking at the big picture I want to see, not the one everyone else is trying to make me see. and while i would have loved to jam that cigarette into his nostril, i know that he still would not change. sigh. doesn't mean i didn't want to. :) and yes, i need to clean and purge so badly otherwise it will be a repeat of cleaning out my mom's and grandma's...and i don;t have any kids to do it for me!

*dkzody-excess is evil. i'm still in the throes. i did find a website listing dairies that use glass bottles. it's just rewrapping my head around the cost. as i type this, the mister is planting the fall garden so with luck we won't need a csa but when the sister a-go-go had one, we rocked some awesome new tastes! isn't is amazing that they are out there? we're already in a small apartment so downsizing to make it less is my goal. i think that if i can knock it down to having ap lace for everything and to only keep what has a place, i can do it. even if it does mean getting rid of my venus de milo salt & pepper shakers. sigh. you can do it!

*yvonne-hugs and squeezes to you! i always love your words. these are so similar to what i hear from myself everyday. we just gotta try, right?

*Ainslie-that's me, addled yet lucd or at least i try to be...lucid that is. the addleness sometimes takes over. thank you for your words,we can only keep on keeping on. right?

*rozetta-i know! why does that happen? i hoard and hoard and hoard and then i get rid of it and sure enough, a week or so later i have just the thing that NEEDS it! aack!

*IamSusie-thank you...i think i am afraid of making room for more! heehee!

*sachitea-zameander has been an amazing source of support and creativity in helping me purge. yes, having someone help is a great gift. a GREAT GIFT! yes, like a sliding puzzle only right now i only have a few numbers lined up. i think if i can just get one more, things will click into place! good luck on your purge..vent away here if you need to!

*Silencer-yes, a second hand is the best thing possible. yay for getting your closet done! make sure that you don;t enable another hoarder when it comes time to clean out yer craft space. they'll take everything and then you'll be helping her clean and you'll bring everything back! aack! :)

*jasmine-it's like we're pinballs destined to bounce along in a machine with no let up. aack! sending you good thoughts to get through it all!

*libby-we are the best at multi-tasking, right? how is the quilt coming along? i wanna see it! sending you good cleaning juju...you can do it and then we can have Portos!

*Stephanie-i never did make the muffins, i was good and made dinner instead. but yes, the kitchen counter needs to be clean as well as the bed made and i feel like i didn't lose the battle alltogether. phew! thank you!

*cindy-pull up a chair and i'll serve you up something cool to drink and we can cheer each other on in the purge. yer are right, it ain't easy at all! do you need someone to bug ya? i will....;)