Thought I Had a Bad Week

Thought I was having a really bad week. Some people have said some not-very-nice things about me. My feelings have been deeply hurt...and it's kind of hard to hurt my feelings.

A girl I went to summer camp with for years turned 40 today and also found out the tumor in her breast is malignant. Her mother died of breast cancer when we were about 13.

Another friend has lost much of what he owns to a fire.

A church member is in the hospital getting fluid drained off of his heart and having dialysis so that his body can continue to function.

I still own my bad week. Even if you can name 100 people who are worse off than you are, it doesn't mean that what is happening to you doesn't hurt or isn't difficult. But being present to what is happening around you and what is going on with other people instead of retreating into your own trauma/drama sure does make a difference.

Words to Live By

I have not been an avid blogger as of late. I have had a wonderful opportunity o write a weekly column that appears in several papers in the Little Rock area. Between coming up with ideas for a sermon and a column each week, my blog well has been running dry.

However, tonight, after doing some cleaning out in my house, I found a notebook that I kept in my twenties to collect quotes that I liked--from people I know, from people on tv, from movies, etc. I share some of them here.

The worst moment in an athiest's life is the moment when he is thankful but has no one to thank. --unkown

If you want to be your own person, learn to think for yourself. If you want an "A" in the class, learn to think like the professor. --Anne Russ

There are three things I have always loved and never understood--music, art and women. --Le Bovier de Fontenelle

I'm trying to find myself. I don't know what that means, but by parents are buying it, so I'm sticking with that. --Russ Gorman following our freshman year of college

Never eat anything orange, unless it is an orange, a carrot or a sweet potato. --Anne Russ

It's been my experience that no matter where you go, there you are. --Suzanne Sugarbaker

Why is easy listening so hard to listen to?--random comedian

Men learn to love the women they're attracted to and women become attracted to the men they love--Andie McDowell

If you have a college degree, you can be certain of one thing. You have a college degree. --Dr. Robert Anthony

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine a marriage and a career. --Gloria Steinham (she said this 30 years ago and it still stands today!)

Nobody is happy all the time. If we were, we wouldn't be human, we'd be game show hosts.--Winona Rider in Heathers

Beware of men who cry. It's true that men who cry are sensitive to and in touch with feelings, but the only feelings they tend to be in touch with or sensitive to are their own.--Nora Ephron

According the Washington Post, Dan Quayle thinks Roe vs Wade are alternate ways of crossing the Ptomac.--A. Whitney Brown

Prejudice is the most ridiculous thing on earth. There are so many good reasons to hate people on an individual basis. -J.J. Wall

And my personal fav:

Life is kind to people who aren't cursed with self-awareness--Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham

Buy Something July

Now that we're back in buying mode (and considering re-imposing the ban), daughter has bought her first pair of vintage shoes. She got a good deal on them because the shop owner was having a difficult time finding someone with feet that small. They are great pair of black boots, circa 1960-something. People must have had smaller feet back then, because hers are little.

Her comment on vintage/re-sale clothing? "It's like hand-me-downs that you pay for." And we talked about how buying "gently worn" clothes makes for good stewardship as well as good fashion sense.

I am enjoying my upgraded I-pod. My workouts are better and longer. My house is cleaner. And I am generally more relaxed this week than I have been since the old one quit. When I start to get distressed by how dependent I am on an I-pod, I just put on my headphones and listen to the latest podcast of This American Life. I even sent them a donation when I realized what a calming effect the voice of Ira Glass has on me. I need to help keep them on the air.

Last Day of Buy Nothing June

Well, we made it. Not sure how much of a lasting impression it will make on the daughter. She is already planning everything she wants to buy. And to be fair, I will be at Best Buy tomorrow to obtain a new I-pod and cannot wait. In many ways, Buy-Nothing-June been a nice break, and we all feel good about the donation to the World Wildlife Federation. In other ways, it hasn't been easy.

For me, in spite of a lovely break in Oklahoma with friends, June has been a really hard month. I have been surprised to realize how often after a bad day or a bad experience, that the idea of buying something to make myself feel better crops into my head. And how it just made the day worse to realize that I couldn't buy something. I don't think of myself as a "shopalholic" nor do I spend a lot of my time shopping, but apparently, I do turn to consumerist activities for comfort from time to time. It's never a major purchase--a kitchen gadget, a fun t-shirt from Target, a new pair of shoes--but I hadn't realized before June how often I "comfort shop". I actually almost caved after an incident yesterday, but realized that nothing I could buy would make my hurt feelings any better.

I haven't been able to turn to food for comfort either, as I am trying to drop some extra pounds. So without consumerism or food to turn to for comfort, I was forced to up-level my prayer life. I have to say that prayer does not give me the instant gratification of a pound bag of almond m and m's or a new pair of shoes, but its effects are much longer lasting and build over time.

Now if I can only remember this as we move in to July and beyond.

Buy Nothing June Marches On

In spite of my I-pod withdrawal, I am actually enjoying buy-nothing-June. It's nice to go somewhere with daughter and not have to go through "can I have? can I have? can we buy? can we get?" I'm not sure yet how we will transition back into the "buying" months and still maintain some of the restraint we have shown this month. We may need to strictly define what she needs to pay for out of allowance and for what we will foot the bill. Although, now that she's moving into tween-ville, those lines get even more blurred.

We have had to stretch a couple of times over and above the I-pod incident. Our two porches are in dire need of a power wash, but a hose down will have to do for now. Skip has had to give up his Saturday scratch ticket ritual. Daughter is pretty low on summer clothes now that school uniform time is over, so I have do laundry more often to make sure she has something clean to wear. I may be sporting a more natural look as the month wears on and my make-up supply runs out. At the risk of TMI, I am sloughing off summer skin with a homemade concoction of sugar and olive oil because my body scrub ran out a week ago. For the good of the family, I did purchase some heavy-duty hair conditioner to keep the tangles out of tender-headed daughter's sun and chlorine damaged hair. I decided that was a necessity.

I wish I could somehow tabulate the amount of time I have gotten back these last two weeks by not stopping here and there to pick up this and that. Add to that the time saved by not looking through sales flyers or e-mail specials, and I may gain a whole day of my life back in this one month.

Money saved. Time saved. Must remember this. Daughter has decided that the money saved this month should go to the World Wildlife Fund to help save endangered species.

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