No money to burn.

Hmong Embroidered Wall Hanging - I've seen them framed :)

One of my frequented stores has reorganized lately. I was disoriented for a brief moment when the shoes weren't in their usual spot, but I got over it. I found a lovely vintage blue lace dress. It had a matching jacket sold separately, but the jacket had some food on it, so I didn't buy it.

It's a beautiful dress - I might just wear it if I have a nice event to attend :)

This particular store calls their employees/volunteers "disciples", and when they call them for lunch they say, "All disciples, it's time for lunch. Disciples, it's time for lunch." over the loudspeaker, and I smile whenever I hear it. Whenever I'm at the Salvation Army, if I ask any employee how they're doing, they say "blessed". I've heard it so often, I've stopped believing it and started saying, "really?"

I found three beautiful dresses yesterday at another store, and only ended up buying one, a lime green linen dress from Talbots. I'll wear it to work. I've accumulated a whole set of colored linen dresses for work. It's quite lovely to see them hung on my wall (I don't have a closet). I didn't buy the other two, because I didn't have anywhere to wear them, and it seemed inappropriate and decadent to buy dresses I didn't need. Also, I don't have money to burn, so it's really about that more than anything else.

Please take a moment to read the most recent news about Syria, and consider making a donation to MCC, currently providing direct aid to Syrian refugees.

Relief efforts :)

Vintage A House Blessing by Arthur Guiterman

This year, I held a rummage sale at my church to raise funds for Syria relief. Money, raw paper money, is what people in crisis situations most need, because it allows them to obtain exactly what they need.

Unfortunately, when tragedy comes (war or tornadoes or tsunamis), people want to feel like they can do something. They want to help. They long to help. So they send things. They send clothing, and devotional books, and toilet paper. And this stuff cannot possibly all be used. It usually creates new problems for the people in need, because now they have all of this extra stuff to figure out how to store.

Vintage Desiderata on wood

We often see other people's tragedies as we would see our own, and we block out all of the unknowns (because they're unknown - duh). We forget that there's a mess to clean up, that there are lots of people and organizations nearby that are set up to help in these situations. If your neighbor lost their home, there would be other neighbors to help. People are helpers. People like to help.

So take this time to figure out how to make cash out of the things you want to send. Maybe you sell them on eBay. Maybe you have a garage/rummage/yard sale. Maybe you need to do that to get the $5 or $10 to send to the Red Cross or Mennonite Disaster Service. Maybe cash just isn't obtainable, so you go donate blood today (hey, you get a cookie, and juice!). Maybe take an extra minute to create space in your life to help more the rest of the year, when there isn't a huge crisis to focus on. Find a place to volunteer once a week. Find a kid who needs some unconditionally positive adult attention. Find a way to create a world where love overwhelms people 365 days of the year, not just one.

Rummage Sale Planning - Part 3

Very unique vintage square dance skirt - just sold :)

When I was in college, I was really interested in event planning as a career. So I got into large-scale athletic events, events that get planned all year long, take a lot of human power and time, and are fun to participate in. I ended up on my knees one year in San Francisco, taking ankle monitors off of hundreds of open-water swimmers as they came out of the water, freezing and exhilarated. That was a good hair day, the last one I can remember clearly. I think it was the salty sea air.

Rummage sale planning is very different. There isn't a lot of "planning" that I'm able to do on my own. I have the idea. I execute the idea. People come alongside me to help, and somehow it happens. If I were more organized, I imagine the sale would be more organized. I don't know how to make that happen. I'm sure that other people do. For the time being, people will bring things to church this week, I will spend Thursday and Friday organizing the donations, and several hours on Saturday trying to sell it all. That may not be enough for some people, but it's enough for me.

Last night, while running an errand for a friend, I happened to pass by one of my favorite burrito places. The sign was down and the place was empty. I haven't eaten there in months. I guess unbeknownst to me, I'd been keeping them in business ;)

Ugly sweaters...again

So I walk into my favorite thrift store this afternoon to find lots of people looking for ugly Christmas sweaters. I determine that this is an excellent time to tell the group my funny story from a couple weeks ago (crickets in response).

For some odd reason, I am a little hyper, so while I'm doing my regular wandering, I shout out every time I find a Christmas sweater. People begin to leave without buying anything. I feel like a failure. A few minutes later in the cheap bin, I find an excellent one, but it needs to be washed (why it's cheap-so weird). I bring it up to the front later to give it to the cashier. There were so many people looking for them, so many.

I end up finding an excellent gift for my sister's boyfriend, and a whole stack of Celine Dion CDs, which I did not purchase, because I was uninspired. I did, however, find a whole tube of glow sticks. That was pretty awesome, but I didn't get them because I couldn't visualize myself on the corner during the fair selling them. I guess I could have found a concert or sporting event to sell them at, but it didn't seem worth the time and effort, dollar-wise.

Today at a staff lunch, someone brought a homemade popcorn cake. I didn't taste it because I wanted to have my dessert of pie. I only had one piece of pie! Go me!

World AIDS Day

 

AIDS is so huge, and hidden, that we often forget how real it still is, that people are still suffering and dying, that whole countries in Africa are essentially being run by an orphaned generation.

Please don't choose to be apathetic and helpless today. Please do something.

As I focus my own advocacy and support towards Mennonite Central Committee, I will point you in that direction. If you already have something in mind, please comment on this post. I would love to hear what you do to honor those who suffer, who have died, who have lost, and who struggle each day to fight against oppression and racism and indifference and ignorance to fight the evil of HIV/AIDS. Please know that the most populated countries in the world are those most at risk for total devastation (e.g. India & China).

Please don't give up on caring. It hurts, and it's difficult, but it also makes you human.

Tis the season for catalogues!

So, this morning at the post office was great. There were four catalogs in the trash. I only used one, and got packaging material for two medium-sized boxes out of that one catalog. Yay Christmas season! I hesitated to throw the three I didn't use back into the trash, but that's where they came from, and I can't bring someone else's trash into my apartment, because that would just solidify my craziness.

Then, later in the day, a friend emailed me to ask about the best thrift store options in the city to donate large items ( I especially love when people call or email to ask me thrifting questions). I suggested the Catholic Charity downtown, because they're small and cheap, and they offer cheap goods to a neighborhood in need. I've been frequenting there so much more often over the past year. There's so much going on in the building; I'm not sure what's specific to the thrift store, but it's a busy place. Sometimes there are people who seem like employees, and sometimes they seem more like volunteers. There are always a lot of people shopping, and lots of clothing for children.

I've become more and more disturbed over the last year by the changes in thrift stores that have coincided with the changes in the economy. Instead of becoming beacons of hope for their communities, many stores have upped their prices. They've changed their market entirely, trying to make thrift attractive to groups that aren't already big thrifters. I don't like that. It cuts off those in need from their needs. I don't know if I'm saying this very eloquently. It's very systemic, and complicated to explain, because ideally, I'd have charts and graphs to show how prices have changed over time.

Goin' on a bender

I've been on a bit of a candle bender lately. It's so nice to have them burning at night, and my day job is so draining that I need little extra bits of warmth and light at the end of the day to replenish. So I've been thrifting used candles, but have come to a bit of a problem. They burn to a certain spot, and then they're done. So I'm putting up this video to show people how to renew and reuse old candles that they either already have at home, or find whilst thrifting.

You can find plenty more instructions online, so I won't bore you with the details. I was able to find a lot of wick options. It seems like a fun thing to do with kids maybe. Just wrap 'em up in sweats and tape potholders to their hands, and you could probably leave them in the kitchen unattended.

Please, please, don't throw those away

There is a lot of information on the interwebs about recycling shoes. Over the past ten years, I've been sending old running shoes to some place in the Midwest. It feels kinda funny, now that I think about it. I don't know how I got on that kick. I was really into running (ridiculously), so I would wear out a pair of running shoes and send them on to someone who would then send them on to Africa, I believe. This was pre-TOMS, and specifically for running as a sport.

Shoes are very bulky, and if they are synthetic or rubber (Is that synthetic? It grows on trees.), they don't break down in landfills. I've seen a lot more labels lately that boast the shoe's biodegradability. In my dreams, I get to go through landfills in a spacesuit and find stuff that could be recycled (yes, yes, I know that people do this to survive).

You can go here to make your own decision about how to recycle your unwanted shoes. Nike has a large-scale recycling program that breaks down shoes into raw materials to build with.

I know that this is a lot of information for your already overloaded brain, but whatever you do, just don't throw them in the trash. If you need me to come to your house and deal with them, I will (but most likely I will just talk you through the process over the phone, because I'm really busy and you need to be empowered to do it yourself).

Recycle yourself!

I love giving blood. I think that if there was one perfect activity to do on a Saturday morning, it would be giving blood. Giving blood is like the most beautiful thing. It's a gift that you can give over and over again, and can save lives. What's the downside? It is, at it's essence, a way that we can truly connect with other people, to give blood from my body to your body? That's intimate. I don't exchange bodily fluids with anyone, so blood was my outlet. Key word: was.

I used to give blood on schedule, every eight weeks or twelve weeks, or whatever the length of time is that they require you to wait. I would happily talk to the volunteer at the cookie table as we watched the news, or I read a magazine. I think I usually drank juice and stayed away from the cookies, but seriously, now, I'd dig some of those trans-fat-filled cookies anytime. Yum. It's especially awesome to learn about how that person came to be a volunteer at the blood bank, or what they do with the rest of their time. It's strange how fascinated I am by the whole process, but I just am, no particular reason. No one has ever given me blood, if that's what you're thinking.

Three years ago, I gave it up. I had to call someone to get a ride home because I couldn't drive myself. I was too dizzy, and had to lie with my feet up, or my head up, or something up, in order to make the phlebotomists happy. It was a sad day. I'd known that it was coming; I knew I had more trouble than most people. I knew that I did it out of some deep unspoken need, rather than a real ability. So giving it up was really sad. I still miss it.

I still get to give blood every three months, but that blood just goes to a lab for testing, then probably gets dumped as medical waste. It doesn't save lives. It just saves my life, I suppose. I wish saving my own life thrilled me the way saving someone else's did. Saving my own life just feels like the right thing to do. It doesn't make me beam with joy or anything. It just gets me to another day. Oh joy.

You know you want it.

Excellent things to thrift for:

1. Shoes. I always find great shoes (as you may have seen from my photos). A good pair of shoes lasts, and many quality shoes, even if they are damaged in some way, can be repaired. Also, this allows you to have a larger shoe collection without the guilt (or if you're like me, you'll still have guilt over the accumulation of earthly treasures because you were raised to be a biblical literalist and sometimes you can't quite shake it).

2. Books. Unless you're looking for something specific, one can find all of one's mindless beach reads (and a ton of Harlequins) at your nearest thrift store. When I go on vacation, I usually just pick up a few and then drop them off one by one as I go home. I don't know how this is working, but I imagine that the books are getting picked up and read by other people. I did leave them on the subway, after all.

3. Furniture. I have slowly been accumulating furniture for my new place, mostly small organizational pieces. I of course have my usual few pieces that I've had forever that always move with me, but when I move, it's not uncommon for me to donate a lot of what I own. I hate moving with a fiery passion, and the less I have to deal with the better. Also, I have the same stuff to put in/on the furniture, so my place usually looks the same anyway. When I have energy like a normal person, I'll even paint the furniture, which is super fun. My old house was so cute when I did this. But that was before graduate school. My life has only gone downhill from my early twenties. Don't let my ridiculously good looks fool you.

4. Linens. Hang with me for a minute, those of you who are easily grossed out. There's nothing a good heavy wash followed by a nice dry in the sunshine that can't renew that beautiful quilt. I have yet to purchase used towels, but I've definitely thought about it. I did find some lovely handmade washcloths the other day, and I did buy them, but they looked new, so that doesn't quite count. If you can't think sheets quite yet, start small: napkins, tablecloths, maybe even a nice afghan?

5. Kid stuff. Oh my goodness. The last thrift store I was at had toys all over the floor. There were too many to fit in their bins! And you could find yourself in a dump of a thrift store, but they'd have nice children's clothing. It doesn't get worn as long, plus children are typically very neat and tidy because they take all of their clothes off whenever they feel like it; you get my drift.

Hopefully soon, this post will be followed by a post on things not to thrift for. You can of course send suggestions at any time.

Moving on from the Present

I'm slowly going through all of my belongings, paring down to the essentials so I have less to move into my new place next week. I have very little, not enough for a full kitchen, which I won't have anyway, so it's perfect. I have a ton of books and no bookshelves, though, so that's still an issue. I'm going to miss my dogs like crazy. I'll have to sleep alone for the first time in a very long time, and that's scary.

I took several bags of clothing to the thrift store this afternoon. It always feels good to do that. I know I'm helping them; they're helping me; together we're helping other people. The circle of a thrifty life is a beautiful thing.

The last time I lived alone was at the beginning of my really bad depression. This new phase of my life is completely new. I'm not afraid of what-might-be. I know I'm going to be okay.

I'm excited to have my own place, my own space, but I'm going to miss my current home terribly. There will be a hole in my heart for a while without these seven people, without people knocking at my door, without always having a person when a person is desperately needed. I will also miss being that person for others. It's really nice to feel needed.

If I knew that someone would help me put my hammock up in my new backyard, I'd feel a whole lot better right now.