letting go of old things made from cotton, polyester, and plastic

Breaking out the Bailey's and Kahlua and listening to "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" today. This is hard.

I recently read an article in our local newspaper describing the difference between a hoarder and a packrat. Not wanting to be either, but realizing that I have, perhaps, maybe just a little bit, saved more than my fair share of old stuff, I've resolved to get it all out of here before the summer hits. Slowly.

I know that I can't stop time by holding onto my kids' old clothes (would I really want to? Maybe just visit the past now and then, but buttloads of diaper changes don't really appeal to me). And it feels wrong to keep things that could benefit another person by storing them in a box under my stairs--until my kids find them someday--after they've become hopelessly outdated and useful to no one.

Generosity is the direct result of frugality, but hoarding is another form of wastefulness. When you have less stuff, your mind is free to wander and relax. To be able to look around and see a clutter-free home is a gift to oneself. I have a beautiful sunroom that could be used for hydroponic gardening and year-round plants, but it is like condemning them to death to put them out there now. I'll spare you the photos of what happened to my houseplants since October when it got chilly out there. Shriveled carcasses, I tell you.

I've decided to skip the garage sale idea and go for consigning everything, and what can't be done away with there will be donated to local charities. Consignment sales are wonderful because you get to keep about 70% of the sales, and the rest goes to a charity or cause designated by the group running the sale. There is some work involved though, with pressing and tagging clothes, but if you plan ahead and know the sale dates, you can spread the tasks out over time.

For those interested in consignment sales in the Middle Tennessee area, here is a website that lists many of them, including links to their websites:

http://www.kidsconsignmentsales.com/tn.htm

And now, before I resume my clothes-sorting activities, here are some of the donated items that didn't make the consignment sale cut:

I bought three of these hats in a moment of gardening zeal, but never ever wore them. I'm an old soul, but seriously?

Many good times were had with this Polaroid instant camera. Ahem.

Anybody who grew up in the 80's will know what this is--the propane-powered curling iron dubbed "The Clicker." We all carried them in our purses in junior high for emergency situations. I think some of the boys might have too.

A 90's Gap original. Yes, those are ducks. This in the era of grunge, go figure.

My army canteen. Plastic-flavored water. I hope the army is doing better for our soldiers now.

We loved the "Bloomin' Onion" from Outback Steakhouse and wanted to make our own, so we excitedly bought this guy at a garage sale. Beware of those "As Seen on TV" ads; either that or the problem was just me in the kitchen with a deep-fryer.


70's Tupperware coasters. What were they drinking back then?

Hey, there's little Olivia from The Cosby Show. How did she grow up so fast? This, coupled with my daughter's Backstreet Boys collection, makes for a great thrift store music donation.

Although we mustn't forget the Abba cassette. Includes the smash hit "Dancing Queen!"

These shorts are clearly having identity issues.

Great brand--Osh Kosh b'gosh--but the bugs and colors don't match up. I was always confused as to who to put these on--my son or my daughter. It didn't look right on either of them.


May God have mercy on the soul of the person who designed these. Swim trunks or not, there's no excuse for this. It looks like the "U" has strangled, or even worse, decapitated the poor blond girl!


I hope that stirrup pants stay in hell where they belong.


I'm feeling groovy. Enough of the procrastinating. Back to work I go, hi ho.

the "unsubscribe" bitchfest heard 'round the homeschool listserv

A close friend of mine signed up for a Nashville homeschooling listserv about two years ago, but ultimately decided not to homeschool her kids. The emails from the listserv were clogging up her inbox, and since she wasn't using the information, she wanted to unsubscribe.

This was nothing against the group or the people in it. Because she never read the emails, she was unfamiliar with the proper way to unsubscribe, other than what some other people had done, which was to send an "unsubscribe" email to the entire list. Unbenownst to her, this would create an online unsubscriber-bashing meleé.

Friend: Unsubscribe. Thanks!

Jacki (list manager, who ends all her posts with "peace within, peace between, peace among"): Unsubscribing info is in the footer of each and every email you receive from the list, just follow the directions. I've copied and pasted them here for you.
Jacki
List mom (but not list slave)

T.H.F.: Wow. How rude. I will now unsubscribe as well.

D.L.: If you thought that was rude, you should unsubscribe. What is rude is signing yourself up for an email list and then not taking the 5 seconds it requires to unsub yourself, but rather asking the list owner to do it for you because obviously they have way more time than you do!

Jacki: Each and every email from the list _has the unsubbing information in the
footer. Also, please note : I just posted this information on Jan 21. Sorry, but, IMO, FWIW, the rude person is not me --the list mom (who is not the list slave) but folks expecting others to perform tasks for them that they are or should be (particularly if they are or are thinking about homeschooling their own children) capable of performing for themselves, now that's rude in my book.

Peace within. peace between. peace among,
Jacki

Friend: For crying out loud, you people are way too emotional! Honest mistake--get over it!

Jen: I think we should all put a 30 minute hold on angry postings. It is really unpleasant to read these tirades and it reflects badly on us all.
Yes, I waited 30 minutes to send this.
P.S. I am going offline the rest of the day, just in case this provokes angry tirades (just joking....mostly).

D.L.: No, it isn't a mistake. It is a blatant act of NOT following simple instructions, which are listed at the end of EVERY email sent to this list.

D.L.: Sorry, Jen, I didn't wait 30 minutes. Mainly because I know Jacki has several other things going on today and simply doesn't need to deal with these petty "unsubscribe" posts. After 12+ years of helping her with these lists, I do tend to get a little aggravated with people who can't/won't do things for themselves.

Friend: Perhaps it's time for you to retire then, before your blood pressure gets the best of you over something so unimportant, in the grand scheme of things, as a listserve.

D.L.: I would if others were willing to step up to the plate, instead of telling us how to do things!

Traci: Looks like we have weeded out the crazies now! LOL

David: Well in the grand scheme of things not much in our lives is important. That just goes to show that the grand scheme of things is of limited usefulness in judging what is important in our everyday lives. I think having your time wasted by inconsiderate people is quite reasonably a matter of some personal importance. And of course if it was the first time it had ever happened it would be easy to let it pass. But when it has been pretty regularly repeated for years, it gets old, very old.

Friend: It's unfortunate that you feel that your reaction to everyday inconveniences is not important in the grand scheme of things. It's also unfortunate that you are a group that does not forgive mistakes. I'm sorry, but not all of us are perfect in every detail of everything we do in life, as you would claim to be.

Amanda: Ok. How about we just unsubscribe from this thread? ;)

That was the best idea someone thought up all day. And that finally ended it.

I think it's time for Jacki to rewrite her goal statement from peace all around and instead try for something a little more attainable, or at least find a new catch phrase that meshes more with her online personality. Also, learning correct punctuation would be beneficial, especially since you are your children's teacher (I corrected a few of the errors so that you don't come off as a complete idiot).

D.L., you should probably schedule yourself for an upper GI to check for an ulcer.

Traci, way to promote your group!

And David, I sincerely hope you find a purpose for living (other than insulting people, whom you don't know, on listservs).

the mini greenhouse I ordered from ebay arrived! (and this is a bad sign)

new year's workout session with exercise guru Denise Austin

I've been working out to Denise Austin videos for several years now. I absolutely love her. The same three routines have endlessly rotated through my DVD machine.

I find them tossed around on the shelves of the entertainment center and replaced by Clone Wars movies all the time. Needless to say, they've acquired their fair share of scratches.

Today the disc kept skipping forward. I went from 15:12 to 16:43 to 17:36 in less than 20 seconds. I didn't complain, of course. I just improvised with a couple of off-beat side steps and chassés.

My exercise mat was stuffed behind the TV where I couldn't reach it, so I stopped the movie to figure out what to do. I could hear Brandon cracking up. He was laughing at the paused face of Denise Austin. Scary and hilarious at the same time!


We decided to make a montage that combines her intense workout expressions with my thoughts while exercising to her videos (when I'm out of shape). Enjoy, and know that you're not alone in the funky faces department.

I'm ready to take-on the weights now. Yes. Yes I am. Here I go. Now.

B, please get off the TV. I can't see what she's doing. You're breaking my concentration. Hey, can you grab the remote off the shelf? I need to run downstairs a minute. What do I need? Just some energy food. Old Christmas candy or something. Or something.

See, this isn't so bad. Really it isn't. If I don't stop trying to smile like Denise, though, I'm going to end up choking on the candy goo that's still in my mouth.

This doesn't seem so fun anymore.



All children and animals need to leave the room immediately.

I think I may be stroking out. Call your father!

I can't believe what you're asking me to do here. This thing was supposed to be low impact. Where do you get off.....??? The nerve!



Forget the Queen...God save me!

Who am I? Where am I?



You've got to be f#&*ing kidding me. I'm done. Done done done! Until tomorrow.

the lortab cycle continues to spin

Today I am angry. And utterly disgusted with humanity.

This morning my husband learned that a woman in her 60's, whom he supervises at work, had her Nashville home broken into. The intruder demanded Oxycontin at gunpoint. She told him that she didn't have any, but when he searched her purse he found three, yes, count that, three Lortab pills. He proceeded to beat her over the head with his gun, then took one of her kitchen knives and stabbed her through the hand for lying to him. The news story is incomplete, but here's the link:

http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=11843690

She was recovering in the hospital and planned to return to work next week, when she suddenly suffered a heart attack. She is now preparing for cardiac surgery.

And if that isn't bad enough, the plot thickens. A health clinic recently opened in the neighborhood where my husband works. They must be handing out narcotics like candy, because groups of downwardly mobile people often come into his store and line up for the pharmacy to get their prescriptions filled. If the wait is too long, they'll stuff merchandise into their pockets to pass the time. My husband, who is security manager of said store, does his job and arrests these shoplifters/narc heads.

The pharmacist there, however, does not want these addicts brought to justice.

He recently pulled my husband aside. "Why do you need to arrest these people for shoplifting?," he asked. "They're good customers for us. We make a lot of money off of them on narcotics. Can't you just frisk them as they're leaving the store?"

I guess ethics in the medical profession is heading out the door.

First of all, the money that the pharmacy is making off of selling the drugs is our money. Most of those prescriptions are paid for with TennCare, which is the public aid form of health insurance in Tennessee. Essentially it is us, the taxpayers, who are footing the bill for the growing dependency on pain medicine.

Secondly, our doctors that so liberally prescribe Lortab and other similar pain medicines are fueling drug habits that are resulting in wasted lives, crime, and death. I'm not sure they always stop to consider this when they're casually scribbling away on script pads just to get patients out the door. They need to. The Nashville City Paper reported in December that "if the country is experiencing an epidemic, Tennessee is a veritable hotbed — with its own startling stats. That’s because the Volunteer State historically issues more prescriptions than any other; it was ranked No. 1 in a 2007 Novartis Pharmacy report on prescriptions per capita, with a rate 1.5 times the national norm. It follows that Tennessee, then, would boast a pharmaceutical drug overdose rate 26 percent higher than the national average."

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/police-face-new-kind-drug-trade

It is high time for the medical profession to consider the implications of how they handle complaints of pain. In nursing school we were taught that pain is a subjective experience and must therefore be believed. I learned as a nurse in the ER that this is not always the case. People lie and exaggerate to get what they want from the system. It took years for this fact to break through my naive mind.

The medical profession needs to jump off the bandwagon of loose and casual narcotic-prescribing before more lives are unnecessarily destroyed and lost forever. If this doesn't happen soon, the pain we feel as a society is going to trump anything that a bad back could ever inflict.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/19/crimesider/entry6115808.shtml

home security systems...

...are no match for TP'ers!

January, a month of contemplation. And facebook-dodging.

I used to dread January. Being stuck in the house, the frosty air, the draft coming through the cracks in the doors and windows, and never getting the heat set just quite right.

But now I look at it like this: I don't have to pull any weeds, because even though they're still alive, the frozen ground has cemented them down. I don't have to feel like I should be out cruising around in my car enjoying the wind whip my hair into knots; instead, I can sit in front of the crackling fire with my family and watch a movie together with smooth knot-free hair. My freckles are fading from less sun. I get to spend more time reading through cookbooks and garden tomes. I don't have to cut the grass every week. I mean, my husband doesn't. :)

Continuing on with the stillness theme from Christmas Eve, it's a time for reflection on my life. I seem to have a lot of these, actually. I guess that's good, since I can't really seem to get it right and backslide every so often. Time to check myself. Thanks, good old January.

I'm going off the "grid," so to speak, to welcome back the real world--the sky, the stars, seed catalogs, writing, knitting, music, trees, my house, kids, husband, job, appearance (haha)--you know, that which I should be focusing most of my attention on, away from the constant jibber-jabber of social networks. I've temporarily ditched my facebook account so I can figure out what I really need it for, what purpose it is serving in my life, and how I can turn it around to a good thing from what it has become for me: a nuisance/time-waster/forum for old friends to hit on me/opportunity for coworkers to recite my posts verbatim at work in jest/agent of hurt feelings between relatives/bearer of frequent obnoxious outbursts by me.

And so goes my love/dear john letter to facebook:

Dear Facebook,

I'm still not sure if I love you or hate you. I let you into my life about a year ago, when I was trying to figure out if what my teenage daughter was doing with her friends was either illegal or dangerous or both. She refused to "friend" me for awhile, so it was just you and I and another wayfarer on my sad little one-friend list.

But then the infatuation started. As I slowly searched out people I knew, random names from my childhood appeared like a pyramid scheme, one name leading to ten more familiar people. Excitement blossomed into giddiness as I was befriended (or is it refriended?), over and over again. I felt validated as a person. The funny thing is, I didn't care for some of those people back when I knew them in real life; but no matter, we were all adults now, right? Surely the grudges from 20-something years ago would be instantly dissolved as soon as I shot them a few emoticon smiley faces(:-D). Who could resist such cuteness?

But, dearest one, it seems like you're trying to take over my life. You occupy my thoughts more than the leftover Christmas candy that I stashed up high where the kids can't reach. You're blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. And I think I'm getting early carpal tunnel syndrome because of you.

How does that saying go again? Something like 'parting is the sweetest sorrow?' Maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe I've got you all wrong too. And maybe someday I'll give you another chance. But for now, I need to get a real life. You're no longer sustaining me with your imaginary zoo world, and I'm afraid that I may have killed half of my animals off.

Until my next log-in,
Clementine

Now, as it is, facebook has become the future of family feuds. My husband's family had it out publicly because pizza was served for Easter. I've seen long relationships start and end (as in "have a nice life"). I've read as people seriously contemplated the existence of their mental health and spouses complained about one another. I've watched closely as married people (who weren't married to one another) unapologetically flirted. And I've perused more drunk photos than I can count.

What I'm wondering then...is it appropriate to post what should be intimate--such as words of regret, love, sympathy, and support--on a web page that unrelated people can read? Is it proper to hash-out family arguments over whether one should eat pizza or ham for Easter, when my old high school acquaintances are privy to all of those silly debates?

Facebook has become a show, and I have unwittingly and unwillingly become an entertainer. People actually look forward to reading the ridiculous things I write. This has led to somewhat of a celebrity mentality--a false popularity, an ego skyscraper built upon quicksand, a fool's gold of friends. But do they like me for me, or for what I am posting? This is a question that I have agonized over. I've put more energy into trying to find the answer to this than what it is worth.

What makes me feel most insecure and high-schoolish about facebook is that you can lose a friend at the click of a button without so much as a goodbye. "Nice re-meeting you for the past 3 months after 25 years, but you're really not that interesting. Yeah, I'm sorry that your grandpa is sick and your husband spends too much time ignoring you. I don't want to read that stuff though, and some of your musical choices really suck. I like it when you're witty, but you don't do that enough. Goodbye." If only we got something along those lines of an explanation. But we don't.

Some of my readers will counter by saying "I don't really care about those people on facebook--they're mostly from my past, and I stopped talking to them years ago." So why bother posting anything at all? And why do we call them "friends"?

The internet is slowly redefining the entire concept of friendship. A facebook friend is the public equivalent of a pen pal. However, there is no obligation to respond. And most people don't care if you do or not. The difference is that emails and letters require time and work and a commitment to staying in touch with a person.

I don't want my important friendships to be public. And I can see, as I look back on the past year of social networking, that most of them are not. Yet some of them are skirting gossip status. And what about the others--those "friendships" that rely on updates and wall posts? Well, those say both a lot to me and about me, and I need to figure out the best way to handle them. While I'm thankful to have found some of these long-lost people, I am still old-fashioned when it comes to relationships. And I hope upon all hopes that private, personal communication never goes out of style.

But maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle. Perhaps facebook is nothing more than a fun website to take quizzes that answer the eternal questions of "Which rock star was I in a past life?" and "How many lovers will I have?", and surveys about your friends such as "Do you think so-and-so farts silently in public?". If so, then it has definitely been a worthwhile ride. :-)