Defeat.

Super cool original ceramic replica of a Polaroid Land Camera :)

"We shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat."

Twelve Steps, Step One

This inspired me this week, the idea that there is strength at the bottom, strength in brokenness. I struggle to hold on to his idea, even though I'm sure lots of people who know me would say otherwise, describing me as vulnerable. But the truth is, I like to look good. I talk big talk about trash and recycling, but deep down, I want people to think I have it all together and I want to look good.

I want to be a winner. I want to be the best. I don't want to admit my faults or flaws. I don't want the world to see the ugly parts of me.

It's easier to be vulnerable when deep down I think I have it all together, and the vulnerability is a nice persona. It's harder when it's the real thing, when the vulnerability is raw and needy and broken because that's where I am.

Defeat.

Pyrex mystery!

Meanwhile, whilst thrifting...I have a bad habit of finding things mysterious to me and trying to identify them. Yesterday I found this small round clear glass piece of Pyrex, marked "France D". It has a sloped base, but sits flat on the taller rims. It has a semi-circle notch on both sides, opposite to one another, that almost look like ashtray ridges. I've looked everywhere. My best guess is that it's some sort of obscure laboratory part. I'm interested in selling it when I find out what it is. It's my current mystère-du-jour.

I'm sitting in bed eating cinnamon toast and listening to talk radio. It's election day and boy do I not give a flying fuck. I am sick of the constant phone calls, the mail full of glossy attack ads, and the general vomit of political signs all over town. I am done done done. No matter how much I care about the issues, come election day, I usually feel this way. The whole process makes me hate to participate, hate to vote. I'd rather pretend to not care than participate in the orgy of power. That being said, I will step away from the computer and go vote, because I need to shut up about everything if I'm not willing to do the easiest thing available to me.

Cheers to all! Happy thrifting :)

Linking up with Sir Thrift-A-Lot's Thirftasaurus :)

Update: A friendly comment from a reader revealed that this is a milk saver! Thanks readers!

Curtis Jere :) :) :) :) :)

I'm sure there are at least a million gifs out there that could mimic the reaction I had internally when I found this in a bathroom during last weekend's estate sale. I'm sure you can imagine it.

There are two leaves that have fallen off (I bought it that way), and they are included with the listing. Initially, after purchasing it, I asked a friend to weld it for me, but this was before he'd actually looked at it, and I saw that the green wasn't a metal patina, but paint on the metal. I decided this morning to list it as-is, and allow the next owner to decide what to do. The welding options didn't sound safe enough to me. It was too risky to harm the piece irrevocably and I wasn't going to do an amateur epoxy job. I'm just not that kind of girl.

Speaking of which, have you ever noticed yourself more as you get older, realize how you are unique in the world? I'm noticing lately how much of a "big picture" person I am. I'm the person who finds things well, but I struggle more with the small details of my business. I'm not inept or anything - I can learn new things - I'm just recognizing that I naturally gravitate towards big ideas and less towards putting a plan into action. Little things scare me. They trip me up. They make me think I'll miss something huge and get trampled for it. I don't know if that makes any sense. I struggle with it most in romantic relationships, when I worry that I'm missing something huge (hugely bad).

But there was no way I could miss these owls. I was prepared. I knew what I was looking at. I'm awesome that way :)

Salvation Army fun :)

I thrifted today for several hours. I woke up, got myself together, and got out the door. I had several packages to drop off at the post office, then got some pan dulce for a ridiculous $1.20. One of the stores smelled a little ripe, so I was hesitant to hang around too long. Smells mess me up. I can't handle bad smells. I spent a week at a landfill in Mexico when I was a kid, and I'll never forget it.

I wanted to see some jewelry at the Salvation Army, so I asked the lady next to me if I could look in front of her. She was a large woman, and she and her cart were blocking the whole case. Also, she isn't looking at anything. She's just standing there. So I ask politely, she replies "yes", and returns to staring blankly straight ahead. "Hm, okay", I say, and walk away. "I'm looking!", she shouts. Really, I didn't have it in me to deal with that kind of crazy this morning. I almost cried when I saw a guy, and I was trying pretty hard to act normal.

Last week, at another Salvation Army across town, there were two men in a dressing room at the front of the store. It was early in the morning, but no employees were around. One man was trying on clothing and the other man was making commentary. The door was wide open. An employee walked the thirty yards from the back of the store straight to the man and said, "Sir, you need to close the door." He didn't. "You need to close the door right now." He did. I tried to smile at her, but she's not much of a connector with customers.

Final winner of the week is the eighty-year-old woman trying on a string bikini over her clothing in the aisles at the first Salvation Army. I wished I could have documented that moment and then asked her for an interview. No shame.

An imperfect life.

I ridiculously love Degas, and have since I was a kid

I've been trying for a long time to have my perfect life, to be the perfect me, to get to the edge of my potential. Is it possible that I've been trying so hard to be awesome that I've neglected how awesome I already am, just as I am?

I've recently learned that I'm a pretty attractive person. Heretofore, I still held the beliefs bestowed upon me as a child: that I was annoying, dressed like a man, had terrible hair, and just generally looked horrible all the time. So naturally I assumed these things meant that I was ugly, and unlovable. Funny thing is, I'm not ugly, and I'm pretty damn lovable. All of that time spent believing the lies made me create a persona to cope with the ugliness. Everything I wear is an attempt to not look decrepit. I avoid certain hairstyles because they accentuate my utter awfulness. I exercise and eat healthy because it keeps me from looking horrifyingly ugly.

But now I know these things are a lie. Every. Single. One. So now what? How do I find out who I really am under all of the things I've put on to keep from showing the world the ugliness underneath? How do I become someone who is completely herself whilst still communicating health and well-being in my professional life? Where is the perfect middle and how do I get there?

And what happens if I stop striving for perfection altogether?

Marry me. Own me.

Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

My big term paper in 12th grade AP English was about Jane Eyre, specifically the concept of love in Jane Eyre. I've been trying to create my home my entire life. I never had one place that I could call home. I had a smattering of locations, and all of them together just wasn't home. But I found a home inside myself that I carried with me everywhere. It was safe. I made forts with pillows and blankets and my pink depression glass lamps I've had my whole life; and I would read The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew. I don't remember a lot of snacks, but my mother often bought graham crackers, so those I remember more than anything else. That was my "home".

I was told that my real home would someday be with a partner, a husband. He would give my life meaning. He would take all of the idiosyncrasies about me and somehow create meaning from them. He, this unknown person, was the only way I could become whole and complete. He was the only way  that someone would care about me the way I imagined was possible. He would care that I hate watermelon and love swings at the fair. He would listen to me when I wanted to talk, because it would be his job to listen and care. In sum, my future husband would love me the way no one else could.

Well I'm 31 years old, and I'm not married. I've never been married. I haven't met this amazing person who is going to save me, change my life so completely I'll finally be whole. So I've had to learn along the way that life is too hard to wait for this person to arrive. Life is too long to wait for someone that may never come.

Whatever the truth, I've learned that one person doesn't "complete" another person, and so to even strive for that is a futile occupation. Don't I deserve to be complete all on my own? Don't I deserve to be loved all on my own? And don't I deserve to be fully known without a spouse? Yes, yes, and a resounding yes.

So I find my home all within myself, and I carry it with me wherever I go.

Writing a book.

For the past several years, I have been slowly working on a book. Slowly is an understatement. This book might never be finished. But it is a part of me in a way that I cannot quite express, and therein lies the purpose of the thing. I write because it is who I am, and the book is my way of trying to figure out who I am. It's a weird circular thing.

Seeing myself is difficult, like running-an-ultramarathon-in-the-desert-difficult. I've spent most of my life seeing myself the way other people have described me: melodramatic, annoying, crazy, ugly. To challenge those messages, some of them a lifetime old, is a daily struggle, a work in the deepest primitive part of my brain. So to reach inside that part takes a different kind of energy than the day-to-day walking-around kind of energy.

Anyhow, the book is about my family and the reasons I am the way I am. But it'll probably take me the rest of my life to make something I'm really proud of. So in the meantime, it will be something, a hope, that sustains me.

Peace.

What is love?

Love opens a person up to new things, or so I thought. I like country music and Led Zeppelin and poetry because some guy who loved me liked those things - the list could continue on and on. I am who I am because of the people I have loved, because of the people who have loved me. And I'm happy for that. I'm glad for these things.

But I'm beginning to wonder if true love, the best kind, makes us like new things, or if true love makes us more like ourselves, who we truly are. I don't know that I've ever asked myself this particular question, but I'm beginning to see things in myself that make me think that I am my best self when I'm in relationship to another person who doesn't try to change me.

When I was a kid, everything about me was wrong. Trying to change me was a full time job. So I grew up to be an adult who didn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. I didn't know who I was. I was a stranger to myself. And I've spent the last decade or so trying to get to know this person I am, trying to love her as she is, and not as she should be.

Anyhow, part of this struggle is in surrounding myself with people who affirm me without telling me what to do or who to be. It's difficult to choose these people wisely. It's difficult to love myself enough to choose people who treat me well. But somehow in the wondering is the answer. Somewhere in the mess of my own heart is everything I'm looking for.

That's all I got.

No rest.

It's really important to me to live at peace with other people, and that might make me what some people call a pacifist. Of course, I hate labels. The frugal part of me appreciates substance over all else. Anyhow, living at peace with other people is difficult, because peace isn't about the absence of conflict. Peace is about what's on the other side of that conflict.

When I have a relationship that isn't quite right, I suffer: I lose sleep; I have trouble eating. I just generally feel like ass. And what I wish I could do is just throw the whole thing away. It's not worth all the pain incurred. Being alone is preferable. Except it's not. It's not preferable to be alone. It's not good to be alone. People need to be with other people. We're pack animals.

But people are flawed. I am flawed. So when I get together with another person, we will have a flawed relationship. And that's where I get stuck, romantically speaking. I can have flawed friendships - sure. But flawed romance? That feels wrong and sinful, like God has some perfect person for me, and I'm going to miss out on that person by being in the flawed relationship I'm in.

Meandering thoughts late at night.

Cheers.

megan + burritos = 4EVER

I may have created a new holiday tradition wherein I eat as many burritos as I want. This lasted about two weeks, and it was wonderful. Last night, it ended tragically. I don't know what to blame: bad avocado, undercooked potatoes, not enough hot sauce, or an over-toasted tortilla. It was all wrong, and I'm left me with an empty feeling in my heart.

As a diabetic, food is not always enjoyable. I can regularly be found stuffing my face with handfuls of raisins at 11pm in a dark kitchen, scrounging for old sugar packets mid-afternoon at work, or just miserably eating anything at anytime. Sometimes I eat because I have to, and I hate it. Actually, I am usually eating because I have to. Food is sustenance, energy. Food is the thing that keeps my blood sugar steady in a way that nothing else can. When something is forced upon me, I usually hate it, even if I previously loved it. If you tell me I must do something, I will cease to love it. I really don't like to be told what to do.

Burritos are enjoyable. Burritos I can do. I also love sandwiches, just less. And if I love something that I can also eat (which will not be a bad choice for me food-wise), the heavens open up for a glorious moment and let me enjoy food. It's a precious thing, and I savor every bit of it.

Except for last night. Damn you bad burrito.

I'm afraid of new things.

I'm pretty much on vacation right now, focusing on my store, resting, considering the possibility of reading a book instead of watching old Law & Order episodes on repeat, and just generally attempting to re-center, ground myself for the pending new year.

I have this new thing in my life, this new person, and as I move through the unknown of this relationship, I am faced daily by all of the things I try to avoid most of the time. I'm recognizing how much I avoid risk, perhaps not risk in the standard sense (I'm not risking my life or anything), but risk in terms of my own heart and soul. See my thrifty heart is a frugal heart. I calculate and recalculate. I weigh pros and cons. I anticipate potential problems so when they come, I'm not surprised. I know when to throw in the towel and call it quits. Thrifting is the way I control my life. Thrifting is the way I make sense of my own soul.

But nothing new and wonderful can come out of something known and understood, at least not intentionally. I've made a lot of choices in my life for the wrong reasons, and they ended up being for my benefit in the end, but I couldn't have orchestrated that; I couldn't have known the future.

So yes, I dig for treasures, but I don't know what I'll find. I don't go looking for particular things; I find wonderful things because I open myself up for them. I spend time preparing, and at the right time, I know what I'm looking at.

People are like that, in some ways. We become people who know what they're looking for, so when we see it, we'll know. I guess I'm wondering if I know what I'm looking for, after all this time, if my years upon years of singleness have taught me anything, or if I'm still just my naive sixteen-year-old self in a grown up woman's body.

Only time will tell, because only time can do the hard work of growing up. Being a grown-up is hard.

Painting share :)

It's Christmas and I'm thinking about my goal of making the world a better and more beautiful place. Did you know this about me? At some point in my early youth, my favorite book was Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney (1982). Miss Rumphius was a lady who made a beautiful life in her work, in her travels, and in her scattering of lupine seeds on the hillside.

Miss Rumphius never married, and when she was old, she retired to a cottage by the sea. I don't know if I imagined my life the way it is today, single in my little cottage, perfectly content. I lived in the jungle once. I've seen some pretty cool things in my life, and my soul is fed by the work I do each day. These all seem like things Miss Rumphius would be proud of.

The holidays are a difficult time for me. I am reminded of the brokenness in the world, and the brokenness in my own life and family. But then, without fail, I am never alone in these feelings. A woman in yoga shouts "I hate Christmas" at the beginning of a class last week. I am welcomed into people's homes and families in ways that shock me with an abundance of love.

Tonight I will read several long passages of scripture at my church's annual Christmas Eve service. I was practicing just now. Think about how you say the word "homage". I've decided to say it like an English speaker, and not the francophone that leaves deep inside me ;)

Fun quotes of the day from fellow thrifters!

1. Great Expectations? I heard that's a terrible book. Sans irony, people. Sans irony.
2. Well, whatever turns you on, right?! In response to someone who enjoyed fantasy novels. Not romance novels. Fantasy novels. Poor man, publicly shamed for asexually enjoying Star Trek.

Big work day :)

Large Vintage Boat Painting on Wood - One of Two

Occasionally, I don't get a lot done. Overall, I am incredibly productive, but this also includes time that is not always filled with activity. Today has already been an incredibly productive day, and it's not even two o'clock yet. I got through a ton of merchandise that has been waiting to be photographed and listed. I feel like a bad ass.

Vintage Hermes on the Lyre Needlepoint

My friend Van over at Thrift Core always talks about branding and doing what nobody else does. Every time she says something about this, I think about what I do differently from other eBay sellers. I have yet to figure it out. I want to be unique, but I also make money from selling things that aren't so unique, like Anthropologie and Lululemon clothing.

Maybe it's because I make so much of my purchases at thrift stores. My store reflects thrift culture in that it is a cheap(er) way to be unique, stand out, but also to wear designer clothing if you don't want to be different. I sell 7 For All Mankind jeans because I know there are teenage girls out there who want to be like everyone else.

Vintage Kitchen Decor - Kitschy Art

More than ever before, I want to make money at what I do, not gold shoes money, just gas and groceries money. I think I've finally come to a place where I think I can make more money doing what I absolutely love. Maybe I haven't figured out how to describe it per se, but I'm figuring out how to do it better every day.

Close friends of mine still don't really know what I do, and that's okay. I haven't talked a lot about it until recently. I think I was embarrassed to be someone with an eBay store. Even when I tried to be vulnerable, I felt like people shut me down with negative statements. I have had to learn to be okay with what I do and who I am regardless of what anyone else says. If I take this position, and actually talk about my life with people I'm close to, I have more positive interactions than negative interactions. I've learned who in my life likes to hear about my shop, and who doesn't really care. Now I have friends in real life who get excited with me when I have a big month.

So all y'all online friends, thank you for all of your support. Sometimes I need your kudos more than you know :)

Vacation is no party.

1980 - Small Vintage Portrait on Particle Board

A few days off have put me into thinking mode, one of my all-time favorite modes, as it were, and I'm sifting through my brain, trying to decide where to go and what to do next in my life. I wish I knew, truly. Today, I'm thinking about opening a thrift store. As yesterday's thinking revealed, dreams are sometimes only images flashing across our brains, without any structure to hold them together.

I wish I could step confidently into the dreams I've had for so long. But what I've found in my life, over and again, is that dreams are never what you think they will be. You fall in love, only to discover the hollowness of the other person. You buy an old car, only to realize that you aren't the hobby mechanic you'd hoped to become. You take a job you'd only just imagined in college could exist, only to find it radically conflicts with who you are as a person.

So I've become a little scared to dream, hesitant to take another step forward only to see a nubile dream die with a thud. I'm scared to discover that being human is really as difficult as it seems to be, full of failings and hardship, slim glimpses of true beauty, followed by slippery hope in something more, something big enough to hold, something more substantial.

I think I've stopped trying to find someone to fall in love with because I've realized it's impossible to manipulate, that some things cannot be made to happen, that some things really are out of our control.

Peace, friends :)

Celebrate good times, come on!

Vintage Tiki Hula Girl Boob Mug from Harvey's

I've spent the morning researching PhD programs outside of California. Those non-resident fees are astronomical! Don't bother getting a PhD without getting a research or teaching assistant position, which will likely give you automatic resident status and give you a stipend or scholarship in return.

I don't want to be a "doctor" per se, but I continue to run into the reality that I think in a research/clinical way, and my work does not particularly allow me to pursue these things actively. I love to research and write. I don't necessarily want to do tests on people, or rats, or monkeys. I just want to write about the thoughts in my head. I think that's a reasonable goal for a doctoral program - Dear Dean of Admissions, I'm brilliant and I need to share it with the world. Please accept me. You won't regret it. You'll be happy you did.

I tried to do this as a seventeen-year-old applying to the honors program at my university. It didn't work out so well. It made sense to me, but I guess they diagnosed me with narcissism, and threw the essay away. I'm struggling a lot with self-doubt right now, and will be spending the next two weeks trying to work through that. I don't think I want to go back to school. I think I just want to go to Montana, and meet some lumberjack with a thick beard who will appreciate my intellect, and write poems about trees.

Actually, I'm less interested in men than I ever have been. It's pretty wonderful. I highly recommend it. I think I've dealt with some issues surrounding my feelings of inadequacy about being single. Or maybe I'm just pretending. Who knows?

Anyhoo, good to have you. Please come again :)

A troll! From Norway!

Vintage Nyform Troll from Norway - without hair ;)

I have found throughout my adult life, that in large groups, when I speak out about something, I leave feeling unacknowledged, or unheard by the larger group, only to have several people approach me afterward and say in a whisper, "I feel the same way you do".

I recognize that part of this process is my feelings of inadequacy. Perhaps I say brilliant things that make people think. Perhaps I contribute in great ways, and people want to acknowledge that, but don't feel like they can contribute in the larger conversation. Or maybe I'm an idiot, and people are placating me. I dunno.

I'm really struggling with this right now, these feelings of inadequacy. I was told for so long that I wasn't enough, that my hair was wrong, my clothes were wrong, my face was wrong, etc. So when I get up and go to work every day, I'm stuck figuring out how to integrate my adult self with this little kid who can't move a muscle without being reprimanded.

I'm working on it - don't worry about me :)

Thrift Share :)

Anyone ever heard of Molyneux? Twas new to me :)

The only thing that has inspired me to write in the past two weeks is Serena's Thrift Share. I have been working really hard to pay all my bills so I can go to Canada in July. Frankly, I'm exhausted. But not so exhausted that I can't do my thing and thrift like a mofo.

All of these Vogue patterns are size 16, bust 38", and uncut! So awesome.

Modelesque in every way. Look at those cheekbones!

 
I have been having so much trouble buying pants lately, not because they don't exist, but because I am particular and I want to be thrifty about it. These things make it really difficult. I think I might spend some time this summer making some long linen pants and maxi skirts. Unfortunately, due to the exhaustion, I'm finding it difficult to do much more than feed myself, and go to work. Yes, I understand why celebrities get hospitalized for exhaustion. You're tired and you need an excuse to just lie in one place and do nothing.

I just thought I might keep this one - wow :)

Maybe someone will make me long linen pants and maxi skirts? A girl can hope.

Linking up with Apron Thrift Girl :)

The Bachelorette returns...

Vintage NKOTB pillowcase :)

Due to my lack of a television (not because I'm some uber-hipster, but because I'd have nowhere to put it), I don't have cable. This means that I'm one day behind the blogosphere in terms of commenting on The Bachelorette. I know. I know. I've failed my strange niche of reality television/theology/recycling-loving crowd, all two of you. My apologies.

The first episode of this new season was the first time I was able to really start seeing pathology right off the bat, to trust my gut, to allow myself to say "something's not right with that guy". Of course, this is all hyperbole, since I'm not on the freakin' show, but nevertheless, I'm learning to trust myself. Creepy comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, it can be really attractive on the outside, but it shouldn't take long to reveal itself. It's shallow and self-centered, needlessly self-deprecating and hyper-focused on flaws. Creepy people make you feel "icky".

My love of pop occasionally feels shameful ;)

I felt "icky" several times this evening, as I ate my favorite homemade vegan mac-n-cheese. Shirtless dude took too long to find a shirt. Dancing dude had zero ability to laugh at himself, and stared a little bit too intently - ack! But then...Bikram guy had the potential to be too intense, but was successfully able to be chill in stressful situations. And this guy looked like he was holding back tears as the final roses were being handed out and he was roseless - perhaps overly emotive, but able to be real in a strangely stressful situation.

The whole thing is a cluster-fuck of emotional absurdity, yes. But it's also an opportunity to do some self-reflection. While watching the Bachelorette meet her men, I'm wondering if I would be pretty enough for a group of men, or if they'd think I was weird and crazy, and if I'll ever be running through an orchard, holding hands with the person I love, who simultaneously loves me, and wondering at the beauty of sheer existence.

So many things to think about. What a great summer show - I'll keep you posted ;)

A new shop?

Finished Vintage Paragon Stitchery :)

I especially love finding beautiful wall hangings, vintage art for someone to buy and delight over its uniqueness. I've found several small oil paintings that customers have enjoyed. And these things are fun for me to sell, because I know (or imagine) that they will be used and benefit someone with their beauty. I'm high-minded, if nothing else.

Both my Etsy and eBay shops have been cluttered with random things for most of their existence. Yes, I have things that I do more frequently (e.g. vintage ties, mugs, shoes), but for the most part, there is no rhyme or reason. The Recycleista, a thrifty blogger, recently opened a new shop with a specific theme (vintage papers), and it occurred to me that I am capable of doing the same. I too can hone in a little more, make a niche through what I already do, and offer it up to the masses in kind. The thing that has stood in my way has been an insecurity about what I sell, or perhaps an insecurity about myself as a person in general.

Anyhoo, I am thinking about it. It might just mean that I wait until summer arrives fully, or that I develop a better stash than I do today. I think that I'd like for it to be original art (in theory), though items like the above are also quite lovely.

Thoughts?

Oh Canada.

I love finding unique little vintage oil paintings - and sharing them :)

I want to go to Canada. Last year, I wanted to go to Bolivia, or maybe that was the year before. I love traveling. Not the sightseeing though. I like to go far away and stay in one spot. Maybe I'll walk around a lot, but I'm not a schedule-the-whole-trip kind of girl. I get so tired. Mostly, I just want to see people that I love, and when they live in another country, I want to go to that other country to see them. Also, I like to eat. So yeah, you can feed me if I visit. I won't argue.

I haven't been shopping a ton lately. I mean, in comparison to other times, I feel pretty light right now, even though my shop is full. Maybe I'm hitting some sort of thrifting stride. Or maybe I'm hitting a life stride. I dunno.

My real job ends for a while in several weeks, and then I'll have the summer to thrift and lounge by imaginary pools, and probably eat a lot of frozen yogurt. Last night, I finally traveled to a far away place to find the one-and-only place in town that has soy fro-yo. The flavor yesterday was peanut butter, so I had that with chocolate cookie crumbles on top and watched men with ZZ Top beards walk by looking rugged and manly.

That's it. It's Saturday, and I'm exhausted.