The Artist Within

It is after ten o'clock p.m. and, and as the late news began, my husband announced he was going to bed. "I still have to clean something out of the hall closet and blog about it," I said. He went to bed anyway. I opened the closet and grabbed the first thing I could see. A grouping of seven paper-back art books were the victims today. Seven books from another era that I purchased at a garage sale years ago because they "spoke to me." They spoke to me because the cover art was from a kinder, gentler time; a time when art was appreciated for art, not for commercial value. The instruction books each have beautiful covers and they are all, except one, by Walter Foster, whoever he is.

• How to Do Water Colors by Walter Foster (Price $2.00) Materials to Use, and how to Paint with Water Colors
• How to Draw the Head by Walter Foster (Price U.S.A. $2.00)
• How to Draw Horses by Walter Foster (Price U.S.A. $2.00) ...A Simple Way To Draw Horses
• How to Draw by Walter Foster (Price U.S.A. $2.00) Butterflies, Flowers, Trees, Shrubs, Boats, Animals, Birds, Landscapes, Still-Life, Heads, Hands, Lettering
• How to Draw Dogs by Walter Foster (Price U.S.A. $2.00)
• The Cats In Action by Walter J. Wilwerding (Price $2.00 U.S.A.) is this really a different person or is Walter J. Wilwerding a pseudonym for Walter Foster? Hmmm - the plot thickens???
• Keys to Sketching - Practical suggestions for improving your sketching.

Okay, what is an aspiring artist/pack rat to do? Do I toss these books and my dream of being an artist? Or do I keep the books and the dream of being an artist? I am going for option #2. I am not ready to relinquish my dream of being an artist. I am not going to mention the fact that I cannot draw, sketch, paint, sculpt, paint or even think about being creative in any artistic fashion. Yet, I will hold on to the dream and I will hold on to the books that promise I will be able to achieve that dream - someday!

Happy Birthday

I took another little break from cleaning/purging today to celebrate an important event. Today is Daughter #2's birthday. It is hard to believe my baby girl isn't a baby girl anymore. She is two years shy of the quarter century mark. I didn't mention that to her, as she was feeling old now that she has moved a bit farther away from the magical age of 21. I am feeling a bit old myself. How can I have a child this old (not to mention Daughter #1 who is 5 years older) and still feel like I am 21 or maybe 35, but definitely not past the half century mark?

Where have the years gone? Over dinner at her favorite Mexican food restaurant we relived the night she was born. How could 23 years have passed by so quickly? It seems just a few years ago when we were skipping school together (Pre-School, that is) to stay home and watch Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. And wasn't it just last year when we were going to Girl Scout camp and Destination Imagination competitions and ballet recitals? Then junior high band and twirling and her first car on her sixteenth birthday and the first job and then prom and off to college. How did it all happen so fast?

And what of the next 23 years? How quickly will they zoom past? And oh, my God, how old will I be then? I must remember to savor each day, to take it all in and live it to the fullest! How to slow down the clock is the question. No more wishing away the hours or the days or the weeks (even if I'm having a particularly bad day). I vow to live fully - thank you daughter, for the gift of helping me to remember what I don't want to forget.

More Closets

Today I didn't open the hall closet. I know that is my current project and I should be diligently cleaning, but I was otherwise occupied - cleaning closets. Today I had the brilliant idea to move my winter clothes out of my bedroom closet into the spare bedroom closet and to take my summer clothes out of the spare bedroom closet and put them into my bedroom closet. If that weren't confusing enough I also decided to clean out another closet that had some of my clothes in it. This wasn't just a matter of transferring clothes from one closet to another, I had to try on most everything and determine if I still wanted it or not. I ended up filling two large boxes to overflowing with clothes for the garage sale. Purge, purge, purge.

This cleaning business is getting out of hand. Some of the clothes I parted with today I have had for years. Sentimental reasons made it impossible to part with some items.

• I couldn't get rid of the matching dresses my daughter's wore to my mother's funeral.
• I couldn't get rid of the flower girl dress Daughter #1 wore in my sister's wedding.
• I couldn't get rid of the flower girl dress Daughter #2 wore in my brother's wedding.
• I couldn't get rid of the Li'l Abner costume Daughter #1 wore for her junior high school play.
• I couldn't get rid of theblack linen skirt that belonged to my mother.

Until today!

Then there were the things I tossed that I have held on to for years because I thought I might one day be able to fit into them again. I tried them all on and some I could actually fit in to, but they were horribly out of style - like the navy linen jacket that has huge shoulder pads.

It is amazing how much room I have in my clothes closets now. And, no - I am not going to go out and buy more clothes just to fill the space. I am going to enjoy being able to find things. I am going to enjoy knowing that everything in my closets fit me. I am going to enjoy not having to re-iron things because they were smashed into the closet with everything else.

I am beginning to like this cleaning/purging thing - I just hope I don't get too carried away!

Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter

Are you well versed in Peter Rabbit? It was a necessity when my children were small. We knew about Farmer McGregor's garden, about Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter, and about Hunca Munca and her husband, Tom Thumb. We made countless batches of Squirrel Nutkins's banana nut bread (none better), and ironed our clothes thinking about Mrs. Tiggly-Winkle, who was always ironing something. We made friends with Mr. Tod and Pigling Bland and the Fierce Bad Rabbit and Apply Dapply, and Miss Moppet, and Cecily Parsley. The world of Beatrix Potter was a wonderful, magical world for my children and for me. I am reminded of this today as I make another foray into the hall closet. The books will be moved from their former home in the hall closet to their new home in the children's toy closet - waiting a new generation

Champagne Memories

On March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day), 1979 I married the person I was supposed to marry. Of course I didn’t realize until years later just how lucky I was that things turned out that way. Marriage is a leap of faith. We fall in love, get engaged, plan a wedding and then suddenly the day of the wedding arrives and you think – this is for the rest of my life, how can I be sure? But usually the couple goes through with it, as we did, because of faith. I consider myself fortunate to be in the company of others who have made the right choice; I hope my husband feels the same! The point of all of this is to tell about my wedding.

We had our wedding in a town 500 miles away from my hometown. We were married in our college town, but had the bonus of having my maternal grandmother in the same town. She agreed to host the wedding reception in her home as she had done for most of her ten children. My parents and siblings flew in a day or two before the wedding and all of the wedding arrangements had been made, as simple as they were. Having recently orchestrated Daughter #1’s wedding I am flabbergasted that my mother naively went along with my plans. I chose a simple, inexpensive dress (however it was to that date the most expensive dress I had ever owned), I found a woman to bake the wedding cake in her home and my soon-to-be husband and I transported it in our own vehicle to my grandmother’s house (perhaps the subject of another blog to be titled “how I almost got a divorce before I was married”), I even hired a photography student from the local university to take the wedding photos. In short, I planned a beautiful, simple, cheap wedding, but it was just what I wanted.

The only detail I intentionally left undone was purchasing the alcohol for the reception, my father wanted that duty. On the eve of my wedding, while my soon-to-be husband was bachelor partying and I was fretting about the bachelor party, my father purchased several cases of champagne and set up a make-shift bar in my grandmother’s pine paneled den. For the bar he laid a board across some stacked cinder blocks and covered the whole thing with a starched white tablecloth.

The memory of the wedding ceremony in the same Catholic church where my parents were married twenty-two years before (and where my daughter and son-in-law were married twenty-seven years later) is a blur, but I remember the reception clearly. My father in his best suit proudly pouring champagne to our friends and relatives, my mother passing out plates of the delicious “home-made” wedding cake, and the young photographer snapping photos of the happy couple are with me vividly to this day.

Then why do I need two empty champagne bottles I have saved for thirty years as a remembrance of my wedding? Good question. I just took two dusty green bottles out of the hall closet and I feel guilty about even thinking of throwing them away (actually I will recycle them). But obviously, I don’t need the bottles to remind me of one of the best days of my life. Everyday I see the man I married thirty year ago. I know his hair has grayed and his waist has grown, but I still see the young man I had the faith to marry; the young man who toasted his bride with cheap champagne poured by my beaming father at the make-shift bar.

The two champagne bottles were all I purged from the hall closet today, but I am making more progress than physically removing items – I am realizing I don’t need to hang on to the “stuff” in order to keep the memories.

Double or Nothing

Yesterday I removed five things from the hall closet. Today I am going for ten!

1. A wooden candle holder holding a melted, out of shape white taper candle. I am putting the candle holder in the garage sale bin and throwing away the candle.
2. A bag containing the leftover invitations to my best friend’s daughter’s wedding shower dated September 9, 2007. I am throwing these away and wondering why I kept them in the first place.
3. Two large red wooden treble clefs with Daughter #2’s Junior High School band years and instruments (flute and percussion) stenciled on them. I cannot bring myself to throw these away so my husband is taking them to Daughter # 2’s house in the morning and she can decide to keep them at her house or throw them away.
4. A box full of plastic notebook sheets designed to hold collector cards. I have no idea why I have these; no one in my family has ever collected any kind of card. Garage sale.
5. A small basket. Garage sale.
6. A large basket perfect for gathering vegetables in my garden. That’s what I will do with it.
7. A small canning jar. I still think I am going to can something, so I’m keeping this.
8. An Electronic Crossword Puzzle game that I have never been able to figure out. Garage sale – maybe someone else can make it work.
9. A ceramic jar I bought at a garage sale because I thought it was pretty. Garage sale.
10. A spiral notebook from 1999 containing notes on colleges for Daughter #1. I hate to throw this away. This is one of those things that seems ridiculous to keep, but it is really hard to part with. What to do, what to do?

That’s today’s ten – not a huge accomplishment, but every little bit helps. Right?

Here I Go Again

Oh, my God. I just looked through past blog entries to see when I actually last cleaned/purged anything. The answer is: April 25, 2009 (at least it is this year!).

So, how bad do I feel? Um, not really that bad, I have been enjoying life; enjoying spring and summer. I have had other activities – it isn’t like I’ve been sitting on the couch watching American Idol – I am happy to report that I did not watch one single episode of American Idol this year. Truth be told, the only night I have a television vice is Monday. I am nearly addicted to The Big Bang Theory, only because my daughters went to high school with the prototypes for the characters. And How I Met Your Mother, and Two and a Half Men are great. But that is only one TV night. What have I been doing if not cleaning out the hall closet? Well, I have planted a garden in my back yard. I do work a fulltime (plus) job. I visit my 102 year old grandmother everyday after work and do at least one hard crossword puzzle with her. I have a full life, I see friends, I drink a lot, I read, I take care of my two dogs, and I spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook. But – (drum roll) the purpose of this blog is to clean 30 years of clutter from my house and that hasn’t been happening since APRIL 25! What is wrong with this picture? EVERYTHING! So in the spirit of the blog I will remove 5 things from the hall closet, just to cross the line of resistance and make it easier to blog (and clean) tomorrow.

Here goes, I am walking to the closet now… These are the 5 things I took out of the hall closet:

• A fish bowl – I will put this with the piles of garage sale crap in residence in Daughter #1’s room.
• A flower vase – I really like this vase and thought it was lost. I will put this under one of the kitchen cabinets with the other vases and I vow to use it the next time I buy (or pick) flowers.
• A candle – I just lit it. Maybe burning it up is a good way to get rid of it?
• An odd clear glass container with gold swirlies on it. I really don’t know what this is supposed to be – maybe a candle holder or maybe a candy dish. I am selling it in the upcoming garage sale for an entire dollar!
• A blue glass Christmas tree ornament, missing the metal apparatus that connects to a hook that connects it to a Christmas tree – I am throwing this in the trash right this minute

Hoorah! I have actually dealt with 5 items from the infamous hall closet. Hopefully this will begin a trend. Tune in tomorrow.

History

I’ve been thinking a lot about history lately. Not History, like the Civil War or the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler, but history in the sense of shared history with friends and family. It all began last week when I attended a small get-together in honor of my aunt’s “going away” for the summer, given by some of my friends. At the little get-together there were three women who had known each other since elementary school. That began my nostalgia for a shared history with friends. I immediately began a small pity-party, attended by only me, regretting a childhood spent moving several times and leaving good friends. I envied the longstanding relationship the three women at the party shared.

The following morning I attended a bridal shower with my daughter for a young woman who had been my daughter’s best friend from Kindergarten through sixth grade. They hit junior high school and went their separate ways, but we were invited to the bridal shower and were thrilled to attend and wish this friend best wishes on her upcoming marriage. The history my daughter and the bride-to-be shared was something that couldn’t be ignored. Again I found myself wishing for a longstanding history such as this.

So my thoughts were set and I began thinking a lot about longstanding relationships. I soon realized I was in the enviable position of possessing a number of friendships with respectable histories. I have the good fortune to be friends with a group of women I have known since the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. I met one friend when my husband and I began dating and the others soon after. We have gone through childbirth, raising children, pre-school, elementary school, junior high, high school, college, children’s marriages, and in some cases grandchildren together. We have suffered divorces, illnesses, bridge lessons and miscarriages together. These are my oldest and dearest friends and we are truly bound by our shared history.

Last year I had a reunion with my college sorority sisters. After almost thirty years we got together and time and age (and gray hair) were erased for a the weekend we spent recalling our time together as young adults discovering who we were. The history we share is priceless. We spent that magical time between our teen years and adulthood together.

Recently the popularity of Facebook among the fifty-somethings has reconnected me with friends from high school. We are all grown up, responsible adults, but we share the knowledge of knowing who had acne, who had crushes, and who had unplanned teen pregnancies. In short, we really have a history.

I am also fortunate to have newer friends; friends who share common interests, work, lifestyles. Friends who love to get together often to share food and wine, friends who I am making a history with now; friends who send me funny emails and messages on facebook, friends who call me on Friday night to see if I can come by for a drink.

If I were looking for a history I needn’t look farther than my own family, kind of like Dorothy and her own backyard. I am lucky to come from one of those big Irish-Catholic families where the aunts, uncles and cousins are scattered across generations. My aunts and uncles are my contemporaries, closer to my age than my mother’s. What a history I have there, we have known each other since my birth. We have a friendship that is closer than the typical aunt/niece or uncle/niece relationship. They have seen me through every stage of my life and vice-versa – there is no more history that that!

In addition to these wonderful history-fueled relationships I have yet another. I have a new friendship by virtue of my daughter’s marriage. My daughter’s in-laws are now part of my family. The histories of my son-in-law and his parents are now part of our family’s history. We are bound together because of the union of our children. We have become privy to another family’s past as it has melded with ours.

How fortunate I am to have such rich and deep friendships; friendships with such rich and deep histories. I won't be attending any more pity-parties for a while.

Mean People Suck

My week has been shattered by a mean and senseless act. The act didn’t even happen to me, it happened to my daughter, which makes it much worse. My daughter was a victim of a random act of violence. She left her house last night to join the family for our weekly dinner with my 102 year old grandmother only to discover someone had thrown a brick through her car window. Not only did the vandals shatter the passenger side window, they shattered the front windshield and caused significant damage to the roof of the car and the back window. There was nothing in her car to steal except for an inexpensive cell phone charger which they left. Apparently the point of the car bashing exercise was just to destroy someone else’s property. Why would anyone do this?

After the police were called, car windows were taped over, padlocks were secured to the backyard gates, and a can of mace was purchased, my daughter joined us for dinner. She was uncharacteristically quiet all evening and when we left I encouraged her to come home with us to spend the night in her old bedroom. She refused, saying she couldn’t be afraid to stay at her own home. The bastards could destroy her car, but they didn’t destroy her.

Today I chauffeured her around while her car was having the glass replaced (at a significant cost, as she only has liability insurance on her vehicle). I tried to get her to talk about how she felt about the incident, but she informed me it was over, in the past, and she was ready to move on. Bravo! I am so proud of her for not letting the mean people win. By refusing to let the bad guys get her down she has won.

There will always be good and evil in the world. As long as there is more good we have a fighting chance.

"One time, at band camp..."

My dear friend called yesterday asking if I might have a music stand her grandson could borrow for band camp. Knowing my pack-rat tendencies, she thought I might have one since my daughter was in junior high band ten years ago. Sadly, I do have one, even sadder, I can’t find it. It is probably somewhere in the, as yet untouched, hall closet. If I had only cleaned out the closet weeks (months?) ago when I said I would I could have made a junior high band student a (pun intended) happy camper.

Rain

In my part of the world hot summer days often bring evening thunderstorms; not much rain – just clouds showing off with their ominous formations and lots of lightening and crazy wind. It is quite beautiful to watch as long as you don’t expect rain. If you expect rain you will be sorely disappointed.

I sat outside this evening watching a storm roll in from the east. What a gorgeous contrast – the setting sun in the west illuminating the trees on one side as they were darkened on the other by the storm. (Yes, I know I should have been inside cleaning my hall closet – but the mosquitoes haven’t yet arrived, so I’m taking advantage of the evenings while I can.) Besides, there is just something about an impending storm that is too great to resist, even if I know it will bring no rain. There is lightening in the distance and the low rumble of thunder so far off it is difficult to detect. I might not have noticed the thunder had it not been for my storm-phobic Border Collie, Chloe’ Belle. The poor dear is scared to death of storms. She prefers to be snug inside her kennel whenever there is a threat of thunder, even if that threat is hundreds of miles away. I, on the other hand, enjoy sitting outside on the patio until the last dry minute. Tonight I was tricked by mother nature and we did get some rain. Now it is a matter of waiting to see just how much. Will I still need to water my garden in the morning? Perhaps I should develop a Border Collie sensory exam to determine my watering needs. I just might be on to something!

Family Dinner

Several years ago my aunt, uncles and I began meeting one evening a week after work for a glass of wine at my grandmother’s home so we could see each other. We each visit my grandmother, now 102 years old, every day, but our visits rarely overlap. Aunt Gail visits for breakfast and newspaper, Uncle Steve visits for lunch and crossword puzzles and I visit for evening snack and the ceremonial locking of the doors for the night. We enjoy what we are able to do for our beloved Big Red (longstanding nickname for my grandmother), but we miss seeing each other, ergo the weekly get-together. The weekly glass of wine soon evolved into more than just an opportunity to see each other but into a weekly dinner, with each of us taking a turn at preparing the meal and setting the scene for a family history lesson.

Tonight was one of our weekly dinners, and it served to remind me, as it does every week, of how much I love and need my family. My mother was the eldest daughter of ten children; I am the eldest granddaughter of, how many – maybe 100 "greats and grands". Family is my touchstone; family is my universe. Our weekly fellowship does more than allow us to visit with one another – it reminds us of our history, it reminds us of our connections, it reminds us of from whence we came. We may be different, but we are the same. We may hold different political views, but we have the same morals (however they may be interpreted), and the same values. We share the same history; we share the same legacy. Meeting once a week allows us to remember that even though someone may bring a vegetarian dinner of tofu lettuce wraps, others can broaden their horizons by trying new things and realizing that tofu can be tasty!

It Was a Full Day

I began my day at 5:45 a.m., as usual, when my alarm clock beeped. But instead of getting up to a leisurely cup of coffee and an hour or so to write followed by a short run, I jumped right out of bed, threw on my clothes and was at work by 6:30 a.m. (I showered last night in anticipation of my busy morning). Today was the annual highlight of my job. Today was the day I had young people show up for their first day of their first job. What an honor to be part of that experience. The young teenagers, some only fourteen years old, have been volunteering for the non-profit organization where I work during the past school year and have earned the job. They reported for work at 7:30 a.m., sleepy, but excited to be earning their own money. I witnessed a right of passage. Proud parents or grandparents or guardians dropped off children for work this morning and picked up young adults; young adults who are now responsible and contributing members of our society. To think I had a hand in this transition is phenomenal. After putting in a busy morning with the newly hatched workforce I still had to get to my office to do the mundane part of my job. After an exhausting ten-hour day I left work, but not to come home to more work (alas, another excuse not to clean!), but to bask in the good feeling of helping to create good citizens of the world.