My "New" Jean Jacket

In the seemingly never ending quest for determining what is enough, I've come to realize that I...am...a...consumer. Yuck. It's hard for me to say those word and admit that, but when I look around there is evidence all over the place. I've even tried to make very concerted efforts in my life to "go green", but I still end up "consuming" quite a bit. I already have so much; surely there are more and better ways to use the things that are already here.

While window shopping one day, I came across a jean jacket and I'm telling you, it was love at first sight! (At least as far as jean jackets are concerned!) I'd never seen a "cooler" denim jacket. It was embellished with ribbon and beads and beautiful buttons in such a unique and creative way that I was drawn to the rack on which it was hanging and found myself slipping my arms into and looking for a mirror. Yup, it looked pretty darn good! As I put it back on it's hanger, I did something I should have done before I tried it on...I looked at the price tag. What?? $785???? I didn't have my glasses on, so maybe I wasn't seeing correctly. Maybe it said $78.50, but they just forgot to put the decimal point between the eight and the five. But upon further investigation, I found that the price was indeed $785. Hmm. Well, the decision was actually pretty easy because I didn't have $785 in my bank account to spend on a jean jacket....even a really cool, unique and creative jean jacket.

I embarrassed to say that for quite a few days I thought about that silly jacket. Wondered if there were some way I could somehow afford it. Wondered if it would ever go on sale enough for me to be able to purchase it.

One day, while I was pulling a sweater out of my closet, I noticed a jean jacket. My jean jacket. I had purchased it at a Goodwill store at one time and hadn't worn it in quite some time. It didn't look anything like the one I had seen at the store several days before. As I turned to leave the bedroom, my eyes rested on an antique Ball canning jar that is filled with old buttons and sits on my dresser. An idea began to take shape.

I did some cutting of seams and removing of buttons on my jacket. I tossed it in the washer and dryer to get a bit of a "frayed" look where the cutting had been done. Ribbon and beads were scrounged from various shelves and drawers in the house. All of these things...the ribbon, the beads, the antique jar with the buttons, even the jacket itself were purchased at one time or another and were deemed to be somehow necessary to me...I guess. When I looked at the beads, I couldn't even remember WHY I had bought them in the first place. But, I was pleased with the results of my "new" jean jacket.

Using the things that I already own and putting them together in different ways to create something new is fun and rewarding. Figuring out what is enough and being content with that....that's a path I am continuing to pursue.

Peace out,
Lyn

Here's where the rubber meets the road

I had a much different plan for this week's blog post and it will likely turn up at a later date. But given what happened in San Bruno, CA last evening, (about a 40 minute drive from where we live) I've been doing a lot of thinking and I decided to switch gears just a little bit.

For those of you who may not know what happened...last evening, somewhere around 6:00, a natural gas line exploded in a neighborhood in San Bruno. I imagined people were getting home from their jobs, kids were starting their homework and dinners were being prepared. One family was watching the Minnesota Vikings vs. New Orleans Saints NFL game. The next thing they knew, they were, literally, running for their lives! That was the part that was really difficult for me to imagine.

I saw and heard interviews in which people were saying they didn't have time to do anything except to grab kids and pets and run. Some people were not even able to use their cars because the intense heat had caused their cars to burst into flame. One lady didn't even have shoes on her feet. In story after story and interview after interview, people were saying the same thing, which was some variation of "I grabbed my three kids and ran" or "I grabbed the dogs and my cat and ran" or "I ran out of my house, helped my neighbor get out of their house and we ran"!!

Not one time did I hear anyone say "I ran back in and grabbed my jewelry" or "I ran back in and grabbed some clothes" or, not even "I ran back in and grabbed a bunch of photos". In every case it was life...whether it was kids, other family members, neighbors or pets.

In the hours since this horrific incident, I have thought alot (again!) about "stuff" and what is enough. There are a lot of things that surly make our lives easier and more comfortable, but in the end, there is nothing...just nothing...that is worth more than life.

I found this prayer and really felt that it spoke to this incident in a beautiful and profound way.

"Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in thy judgment and guarded in your speech. Be a lamp to those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility."

If you are able, please donate to the Red Cross. www.redcrossbayarea.org. They are providing emergency services for those impacted by this tragedy. And be generous to those you come into contact with in your own life...not just with things, but with your time, love and attention. THEY are the things that are truly important.

Peace out,
Lyn

Mismatched?

Have you ever come across things in your life that just don't seem to "go" together? Sometimes it's people. I've known of couples who have gotten married. Lots of people said, "It will never last. They're two completely different people." And yet, 30 years later, they're still together!

 I myself have a friend that I met while in college. I can clearly remember the first time I saw her. We were taking 'Intro to Elementary Education' at the same time. (BTW, it was this class that caused me to realize I was NOT cut out to be a teacher. :) I have enormous amounts of respect and gratitude towards those people who have made teaching their life. They are over-worked and under-paid...and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for being there for my kids!!) This gal made some comments on the very first day of class that really shook things up! Wouldn't know, we were randomly put together in a study group. We found out we differ in our thoughts about a lot of things and in some other ways, as well, but yet, many years later, (I won't say just HOW many years;)) I count her among my dearest friends. Even though we are two very different people, somehow we "go" together. :)

We can all think of all sorts of things that don't seem to belong together. One of my favorite appetizers is a piece of cantaloupe wrapped in a thin slice of prosciutto.Fruit and salty meat?? Whoever looked thought of putting those two things together was genius!

In this quest of rethinking what is enough I've realized that I need to start looking at things and thinking about things in new ways. Not just seeing them for what they are on the surface, but looking a little deeper and realizing that there might be more there... or at least another use for them besides their original intended purpose.

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago as I was going through closets and clearing things out. (Crazy, crazy, crazy how things just seem to accumulate over time, isn't it??!) I found some partial skeins of yarn that I had put away. I like to knit. Only simple things: scarves, dish cloths, hats, baby sweaters. That's my repertoire when it comes to knitting. Normally, when I finish a project, there is a little bit of yarn left over. Can't throw it away, right? That would be wasteful...it's perfectly good yarn!

I've never really crocheted much of anything, so thought it might be fun to to crochet myself a scarf. I could use a scarf for this winter. I started with the light green and crocheted a very LONG chain. For my next row, I used some bright red that was left over from a knitted dish cloth. (Side note here...I will never be able to use a regular dish cloth again. The cotton, knitted ones are so much better!) Light green and red don't really "go" together, but it was next in line. I went from one color to the next, and continued to crochet until all of my scraps of yarn were used up.

This will be very warm during the winter! :)

Now, instead of scraps of yarn taking up space in my closet, I have a fun (funky, perhaps?!) and warm scarf to wear this winter. And all of the rows of yarn remind me of people that are part of my life. I think it's important to look at the things (and people and relationships, too) in our lives with new eyes. There may be potential there that you never even imagined!

Peace out,
Lyn

100 Things...Really??

For quite some time now, I've been thinking about the idea of  having enough...being enough...doing enough...what IS enough?

 I recently read an article telling about a book where a guy pared his possessions down to 100 things. That's it! Just 100 things. I began to wonder what my 100 things would be if I were to do the same thing. Pictures would be part of my 100, for sure. But then I found myself wondering, "Are pictures one thing? Or would I have to count every single picture I kept as part of my 100???" And then I wondered that about lots of other things; silverware, (Are forks, for example, collectively, one thing or do I have to count every individual fork?!) underwear, books, clothes, towels, etc. Even things like kitchen knives. I like to cook and have different kinds of knives for different purposes. It was in thinking about the knives that I realized, I could use one really good knife for a variety of different tasks in the kitchen. It dawned on me that there are lots of things that I have that have lots of different uses. It just takes a little bit of thought and seeing things for more than what they appear on the surface.

There is a scene in the movie, 'Apollo 13' when the astronauts are trapped in their spacecraft because of a malfunction in some equipment. They, along with Mission Control back in Houston, are feverishly working to figure out a plan that will allow them to get back to Earth. The three astronauts on board are creating a deadly and toxic amount of carbon dioxide in the cabin and they need to figure out a way to remove the poisonous gas. There are all sorts of brilliant, scientific minds working on the problem. They all know how to remove carbon dioxide from the air. The problem is, the astronauts don't have any of the items necessary to do the job. But someone in the group decides to take a look at all of the items they DO have in the cabin. They are able to come up with a device that filters the carbon dioxide from the air. The device includes things like the cover from their procedure notebook. Now that's brilliant! Using what was available (granted, they had no choice in this particular situation) instead of getting a bunch of new stuff.

Awhile back, my youngest son had an assignment to do a report about an historical figure that made an impact on his or her area of expertise. My son has a very great interest in sports so he chose to do his report on Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play Major League Baseball. The report had to be written and then memorized and presented to the class. Oh, and the student had to be in a costume reminiscent of the historical figure that was chosen.

My son got on-line and found some very nice Jackie Robinson jerseys. They also came with a very nice price-tag of about $100. I not only didn't want to spend that much money on a jersey that would be worn less than a handful of times, I really couldn't spend that much money on it. Just didn't have it.

So I began to look around for suitable options at home.

Me: "Hey! How about a nice dark blue t-shirt? The color of the Brooklyn Dodgers?"
Son: "That would look stupid!! It's a t-shirt, not a baseball jersey!"
Me: "What about your Giants baseball jersey? I'll put a patch over the Giants logo."
Son: "Are you kidding me?? It's not even the right colors!"
Me: "Well, give me a couple days. I'll think of something."

I looked at the images of Jackie Robinson jerseys on-line. The prices didn't change in the two or three days that I kept looking at them even though I wished REALLY, REALLY hard that they would! There just HAD to be something that would work.

And then, somehow, it came to me! I took one of my husband's white t-shirts and laid it out on the dining room table. I had blue markers and blue paint. I taped off the sleeves to resemble rag sleeves on a baseball jersey and painted them blue. I used a yardstick and the blue markers to draw pin stripes down the front and back of the jersey. I dug through whatever craft supplies I had and found some dark blue felt and cut out the word 'Brooklyn' in my best cursive and block letters that spelled 'Robinson' along with the number 42.
The 'Brooklyn' was glued to the front at the proper rakish angle and the 'Robinson' and 42 were glued to the back. We added baseball socks, cap, pants and cleats (not that difficult in a household in which three boys have grown up!) and ended up with a perfectly acceptable Jackie Robinson baseball uniform. :)

I'm finding more and more that even IF I have the ability to purchase something new, it isn't always the best. Besides, it would only add more to my collective number of possessions and I've got a long way to go to pare down to 100 things. :)

Peace out,
Lyn

Beginning

This was a sign posted on the door of a school I helped at in Nairobi.

Beginning~~ It's the start of something new. But it can be difficult knowing just where to begin. I've felt for a long time that there was a "piece" of me that was missing. I love my family and would not want to trade one single second of the decision I made to stay home and raise the three amazing human beings that are my sons. As they have gotten older and needed less of me and my time, I began to wonder what the next chapter of my life might look like.

So, I decided to just...start...begin...and see where things take me.

A few years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Kenya. I worked for nearly 10 days in schools and a safe house, (for vulnerable young girls and boys who have no family to care for them) helping to serve food, put in a drip irrigation system and just spending time and learning about that beautiful country from my new found friends.

After returning home, I was struck by how MUCH I have. Really, it's way too much. I did a little research and found that the average American throws away about 65 pounds of used clothing every year. (!) That's crazy!! Especially, considering there are those who barely have even one or two things to cover themselves.

I started designing and making shirts and jeans using recycled t-shirts. I would mostly wear them myself or give them as gifts. People really liked them and kept telling me I ought to sell them. Then one day not long ago it occured to me that maybe by selling them, it would give me a way to contribute financially to help the girls in that safe house that made such a huge impression on me. With the help of my brother-in-law, Dave at RevWebMedia (http://www.revwebmedia.com/)  we created my website, http://www.mymissingpeace.com/. I am donating $10 of the purchase price of each t-shirt directly to the safe house at Kusitawi Village.

 I plan to blog about creative ways to use what we have, be content with what we have,and discover how our "piece" can bring us "peace" when we use it to help others.

Peace Out!
Lyn