ellenoutloud's Blog

I live in a community with a centralized mail facility. Residents are issued mailboxes, keys that open them, and usually that system works out fine.

Usually.

For me, it’s inconvenient and annoying. While I appreciate the fact that my incoming correspondence, endless supply of catalogs, and host of windowed envelopes is safeguarded and secure, it lacks a certain – free will access that I really enjoy.

My point is, my will, my key, and my mailbox are seldom in sync. I most often think of retrieving my mail when I walk past the building that houses the rows upon rows of postal receptacles. I never have my key with me then.

Then when I do remember to carry my key in the car with me I forget to stop and check the mail. You get the idea.

Some time over the past four years I’ve lost one of the two keys we were issued when we moved in. I say I lost, an interesting pronoun since you’ll note WE were issued TWO keys. I maintain it is equally possible if not probable that the other human in the household with access to it lost it. Or we can always blame Rex.

That left me with just the one key that I never have when I need it. You would have thought that at some point I might have come up with a creative solution – like making multiple duplicates to keep in the car, store in an offsite storage facility, leave with a trusted friend, wear around my neck, just so when the only known key in the entire universe went missing I’d have a backup.

You’d have thought.

Well the solitary, mate-less key disappeared -- as one would expect it would – eventually. Whenever you cover the same mental ground over and over: “I really should make a copy of this key since it is the only one we have…” it’s a clear indication of two things.

- First, you must immediately stop what you are doing and attend to whatever that still, small voice is directing you to do, because

- whatever you don’t want to happen will happen.

Count on it.

I have spent more time than I even want to admit searching for that blasted key. I’ve looked places it could not be, would not be, would not fit it or have landed in. I’ve searched and researched where I’ve already searched for it. I got up at least ten times last night checking “just one more place.’

It’s times like these, when I’ve misplaced something, my husband becomes scarce. He knows by now no one will have a moment’s rest until the missing item is found. His last peaceful day was back in the ‘80s when I lost a hamburger bun. It’s a long story.

He’s learned it is wiser to leave the premises than offering suggestions for finding the lost article. “Where did you leave it?” “When did you have it last?” These are not conducive to harmony in the homeplace.

Fortunately, the Knight of the United States Postal Service – the one I’ve laid-in-wait-for since dawn – the guy with the MASTER key that opens ALL mailboxes, possibly in the entire GALAXY, had found my errant metallic opener and secured it inside my mailbox. Not that I could ever have retrieved it on my own, but he knew it would be safe from me – the loser of all things.

I really, really, really need to make a point of having duplicates made.

Really.

Where’s the Scout?

I haven’t seen one yet. But they’ve got to be around here some place. There’s evidence of them everywhere, but I never see them -- just their moms. Seems like wherever I go lately someone, friend, acquaintance, neighbor or stranger, comes up to me and throws me the pitch: “Hey, there! My daughter’s selling Girl Scout cookies, how many would you like?”

Don’t get me wrong – I am a big fan of the organization. Heck, I still have my sash from the fourth through sixth grades – the one my sister still teases me about. With its pins and badges and patches, it was a real big deal to me. A billboard of achievement. I was very proud of it. I still am.

It's just that when I was in scouting, and yes, there were ovens, and our cookies weren’t made over an open fire and folks were out of the caves and in to houses by then, we sold our cookies door to door.

No websites, no social media, no moms. We had our sales spiel, an order form, and if we were really fortunate, a good memory: “Hey, Mrs. Adams, its me again, last year you loved those thin mints, how about four boxes?”

This year I haven't seen one scout so I asked one of the mom’s about that. She said times have changed and the councils are delivered set amounts of cookies and there’s a lot of pressure and they need to sell what they’ve got. It’s all business and merchandising now. A moneymaking machine of an enterprise. Streamlined. Marketed. On-line.

No, today’s cookie pushers aren’t in knee socks, they’re in SUVs and frankly, I think the scouts are missing out.

Oh, I bought a box of shortbread cookies. And, I’ll put them in the freezer because I can still remember how good they taste like that -- but I only bought the one box. I could’ve bought a lot more.

I can resist a peer with an iPad but who can say no to a young girl with high hopes, a pencil, and a blank order form? When I find her she can put me down for ten. Her pick.

Gratefully, as far as I know, nothing is wrong with my in-laws or out-laws. By that I mean no one appears to be in the throes of some crisis, medically or psychologically ailing, or otherwise suffering.

To the best of my knowledge, no one’s out of work that doesn’t intend to be, everyone has a roof over their heads, and the whole gang is paying their way and their taxes.

Did I say I’m grateful? Please make that profoundly grateful!

The coolest part of making this many orbits around the sun is I have seen a season or two of want and of plenty. I’ve gained some perspective. I know tough times don’t last and the good ones don’t either and that both will come around again.

Which is why, this ordinary day towards the latter part of a lot of folks’ workweek, school week, and treatmeat week, I’m just so abundantly thrilled that nothing in particular is going on.

In fact, there are some smatterings of great – a couple of engagements, a 50th anniversary coming up, a successful business trip, and a clean bill of health.

Sometimes, in the absence of chaos, it’s easy to forget how magical those events really are.

May we always pay as much or more attention to the wonderful as we do to the not so.

Happy Thursday!!!

As my better and slackier angels waged their morning contest of wills this morning (Get up & Exercise! No, rest, you need your sleep!) I took a few moments to consider how almost every act of discipline involves choices. Sometimes, several of them.

These days I am trying to make my best choices early in the game. If I want to walk in the morning I start planning to the night before. I know me. And I am fairly confident that bed is going to feel even better seven hours later then it will be I first get in it. Discipline’s not easy when the alarm goes off.

Besides, I am a consummate excuse finder. I’ve been working with me and around my lazy predilections for years. I know good intentions need action so I set my alarm and my mind the night before. I lay out my walking clothes, shoes, and iPod where I have to practically trip over them to get anywhere.

Sure, laying out my gear doesn’t ensure success, but it does eliminate that whole host of excuses why I can’t – where are my shoes, I can’t walk without music, I’ll need my phone, etc. So I prepare.

I know what’s coming. Morning, fraught with all its delicious alternatives to getting up and walking: like sleeping in – or better yet, going back to sleep. I love that. Bliss is shutting the alarm off and going back to sleep for another hour. It is my truly guilty pleasure for it is enormously pleasurable and I always feel wretched when I do.

So knowing how I’ll feel if I don’t walk, I lay out my clothes and set my alarm, and most importantly, I set my mind. I make the choice. Every morning. But it starts the night before. Granted, the alarm is much easier to set.

Arggggh. Laces up!

I am an exceptional project launcher. Really. It’s in my DNA and has been identified by the experts as one of my five key strengths*. Their prettier term for my penchant to get something started is “activator.” I like it. And I like getting things started even more.

In business, it means you want me spear-heading that project you just can’t get off the ground or one that’s stuck in the morass going no where. I’m like human jumper cables – I don’t care how dead in the water it may seem to be, I can get that project running again.

Tee hee.

Then just color me gone.

Whatever it is that makes me so good at the ramp up makes me really sucky, (sucky being a complicated, technical term) at finishing. Ew. Details. Ew. Completion. Borrrring.

So this year, knowing what I know about myself, I am going to crawl outside my comfort zone and start developing my completer muscle. There must be one. And I must have one, somewhere. Mine’s just so undeveloped I can’t recognize it, kind of like my triceps before I started messing with three pound weights and wall push-ups. After a couple of weeks, lo and behold, I had some! Cool!

Sometimes developing a new skill means shelving an old and familiar one. Which is why, when I was in Michaels Arts and Crafts today, one of my all-time favorite places, I did not fill my cart with all the wondermous scrapbooking paraphernalia strewn throughout the sales aisles veritably screaming: 80% off.

See, I’m not a scrapbooker. But I love the idea of it, and I really love the idea of “STARTING” a scrapbook. Trust me when I tell you the closets, shelves, cupboards, and cabinets of my homes do not need one more unfinished project. I have needlepoint, calligraphy, cross-stitch, watercolor paints sets and other hobby beginnings galore.

They keep company with all the books opened, begun, and not read; half-hemmed garments, and an ironing basket, which is really just a way station between the hanger and the closest charity's drop-off bin.

No, I don’t need another “To-do” in 2012, what I need is a whole bunch of “To-dones.”
*Now, Discover Your Strengths is a self-help book written by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D.

One of the grand rewards I grant myself after an especially robust session of closet cleaning is the purchase of an item or two of something new – usually I’ll get a staple piece, another black skirt or pair of black trousers to replace the ones where the hem fell out or those that changed sizes in the closet.

So I was delighted to pick up a nice, needed, black pencil skirt at 65% off and I looked forward to wearing it today. I was doing my 360 spin in front of the closet mirror, just to make sure I wasn’t sporting a Minnie Pearl-esque prize tag, when I saw it.

A hard as a rock, not-getting-it-off-with-an-acetylene-to rch, white plastic security alarm sensor. This sucker was so thoroughly attached to both sides of the fabric I’m not sure it can be removed. Dang, this baby is so big it could set off an alarm at a missile silo. I’m really surprised I wasn’t stopped at the door when I walked out with it. It wouldn’t be the first time.

I’m not proud of this but it’s a fact: I’ve been stopped for suspected shoplifting three times in the past two years. Now, to be clear, I am not a shoplifter and I haven’t taken anything from a store that didn’t belong to me without paying for it. We’ll leave my penchant for office supply kleptomania out of this. “Whoops! That’s YOUR pen?”

The first time I was stopped I could sort of understand. I bought all my clothes from a small chain store in town and walked into that same store one day wearing a brand new outfit I had just bought from them a couple of weeks earlier. Apparently, my failure to remove the price tag from the blouse coupled with the fact it was hanging outside of my shirt alerted their security staff. “But, I can explain,” I cried, producing my receipt from my purse.

The other two times there is no explanation other than I must have that swarthy appearance short blonde women of a certain age have. It must be the same profile that attracts all the attention of the airport security screeners every time I fly. “You, there! Please step over here.” I’ve come to expect it.

Still, the whole process of being stopped and unjustly accused is irksome. Come on, do I really look swarthy? I was hoping for worthy – of a second glance perhaps, or just a moment’s notice. I mean, who really wants to be invisible?

My clothes closet really needed some serious attention this weekend, so I took advantage of that fresh rush of “let me at it” energy that comes with the start of a brand new year and attacked in with a kitchen timer.

“What?!” You’re asking.

A kitchen timer. It’s a trick of mine whenever I have to handle a project that is especially daunting or way overdue or both. You know the kind. You’ve put the task off so long that what was once just a big chore now seems overwhelming. I use a kitchen time to underwhelm it.

Whenever I begin a particularly grueling task I’ll set the kitchen timer for just five minutes, knowing I can do just about anything that long.

And then something magical happens. Knowing I only have to tackle the whatever-its-name-is monster for five measly minutes, I am able to get started on it. And once I’ve started on it, guess what? Even when the timer goes off it doesn’t really matter, I’m already “doing” it, and I usually keep right on working.

Further evidence that most of us don’t need help doing something, we just need a little help getting started.

“Ding!”

I was watching a friend clean out the kitchen at her office last week. She was AMAZING. Ruthless, determined, unwavering. It was awesome to behold. Armed with a lawn and leaf sized trashbag she went through those cabinets and cupboards like this was an Olympic event and the clock was running. She was woman with a mission – tossing, throwing, pitching.

She glanced at expiration dates and tossed old prepared meals, spices, diet powders with aplomb. The more she threw out the faster she went. At times I swear I never saw her hands move.

As she finished one cabinet up high she’d scoot her stepstool over to the next and start it again. I watched dumbfounded (c’mon, purging is a one-woman job). She never hesitated. She moved with conviction and skill.

As she moved to the pantry I was clapping.

Nothing makes one a more appreciative audience than seeing someone do that which you cannot do. It’s like watching a stunt skier or extreme skateboarder perform death-defying fetes. They have this combination of fearlessness and talent. You know you could never do what they do and you stare, mouth open, in awe.

Today I’m going to tackle my clothes closet. I am hoping to take with me some of what I witnessed the other day. I’m going to model that certainty and confidence. I am going to brandish my trashbags and attack my wardrobe with the same sense of purpose and industry as the kitchen warrior.

Despite all the warnings, I am going to try this at home. Out of my way. You can’t stop me.

Eleanor Roosevelt said: "You must do the things you think you cannot do."

Im going in. Apparently, I must.

It's a New Year. Time to see what I'm made of. Wish me luck!

Somehow, back in September, back when I committed to this undertaking, a “year-end” deadline didn’t seem so daunting. When I wrote the challenge in my diary, in red, right after the words: “I will,” it seemed like such an easy thing to do.

Seems kind of crazy to make a resolution in the Fall with a December 31 expiration date. Those are usually saved for the first days of the new year, when there are more than 350 other days to accomplish anything I want to set my mind to.

But now I’ve gone and made a very specific promise to myself to finish a project by the end of the year, and here, with just a couple of days to go, we are.

I hate to admit I’m a sucker for time constraints and pressure but I am. Perhaps I’m not a procrastinator at all, just a chick that typically performs real well with a wildly looming deadline. Well, I’ve got one. A big one. Tick, tock.

It’s a personal put-up or shut-up moment for me – except for a very few, no one even knows I made the commitment. And I’m blessed, no one but me will be disappointed and I’m not at risk for letting anyone down.

It’s just me and me. Where the rubber meets the road. A real metal-tester.

Ooooh, whee! This New Year’s Eve promises to be like none other!

I’m hoping like mad that the only ball that’s dropped is in Times Square!

I don’t have many treasures left from my childhood Christmases, but my sister did gift me a couple of china choir singers that used to hang on our tree. And while I haven’t carried around too many artifacts from my first marriage, I still have a handful of ornaments from yules of that era.

We didn’t put up a full-sized tree this year, just the Charlie Brown Christmas tree my sister sent me last year. I love it. It prompts me to remember what the whole holiday’s about. It looked a little bare with just the one ornament that comes with the set, so I rummaged around the Christmas storage containers and found the collection of trinkets and memory joggers I’ve toted around with me through this life of mine.

There they were! The choir guys, and that first ornament I got when I came to Texas, and drums and santas from years when I chose those as the theme of the year. There were a couple from my travels, when I vowed I’d pick one up whenever I did, and one from the last Christmas at a city I thought I’d never leave. There’s the photo ornament of my Dad and me, and one of my dog now in heaven.

It’s an eclectic group – but they’ve hung together for many a season and taking a moment or so to take them out of their storage box each year is my supreme sentimental nostalgic indulgence. It’s just not Christmas until I do.

So even though they don’t hang in glory amongst branches and tinsel, they make a pretty collection on a table around the tree that means so much.

Merry Christmas past, Merry Christmas to come, Merry Christmas Eve!

The limp, tan, fella in the photo set me back about six bucks. He’s a 5-squeaker dog toy I picked up for my sister’s terrier. They live in New England so we won’t get to celebrate the holidays together but we share them as much as we can. She held her phone out so I could listen to her pup’s response to the present. Hearing the dog’s excited growls and yaps of delight, and my sister’s giggles was a real treat. A lot of holiday joy for little expense.

It always saddens me to see folks tied up in knots this time of year over gift-giving; Overspending, overthinking, overdoing. It’s easy to get so caught up the process of procurement we forget what the ‘giving’ is all about.

If there’s any blessing in the economic downturn perhaps it’s made us all try to do a little more with a little less. With more limited resources maybe we’re all a little more judicious and thoughtful in our giving.

Sad to say, I don’t remember that many presents I’ve given or received for Christmas’ over the years. I remember the ones that had heart behind them, like the drugstore journal with puppies on the cover and a purple bic pen.

Most of what I remember from Christmases past? The memories – the giggling and laughter and moments celebrated with others. Driving aroung looking at Christmas lights, caroling, staying up late and talking by a fireplace. Further evidence that money is no object or not the object, and sometimes the very best gifts are free.

Despite my inability to complete college Astronomy I am still fascinated by the subject. I was hoping for more solstice and equinox than physics and quarks, but then again, everything sounds better in the Syllabus.

So I may not be able to provide Cliff Note’s on Winter Solstice, I know enough about it to blather with gusto!

I love how it’s been recognized for millennia as a period of reflection and renewal. I respect the tradition of celebration before the harsh days of winter set in. I mean, if you know the hard times are coming, but they aren’t quite here? That sounds like a great time to get the revelry going!

And I love how every day we’re alive we get to learn something new. As a blonde that happens even more frequently for me, but on the whole we all get fresh new chances to gather information afresh.

I’ve always been fascinated by the monument Stonehenge. It is high, high, high atop my bucket list. Until this morning when I was googling today’s events I did not know that Stonehenge was built so that it lined up to face the Winter Solstice Sunset. Folks have been wondering in awe for a very long time.

Sigh.

A moment to pause and reflect, and renew. A last chance of celebration before the hard work and industry of the New Year.

Savor every instant!

--

A couple of very special folks are celebrating their birthdays this week – yep – smack dab in the middle of the Christmas holidays! I gave one of them a birthday bear a few years ago to try make the day just a tad more memorable. He’s a cute little thing, and sings a dandy rendition of the Beatles’ Birthday song:

“They say it's your birthday / We're gonna have a good time / I'm glad it's your birthday / Happy birthday to you...”

There have been many years my friends have lamented the fact that their special day gets lost in the shuffle of hall-decking, shopping, office parties and family gatherings; travelling, to-do, hubbub, and all the fal-de-rol of the season.

I can’t help smiling when I hear them express that. I imagine another Child born at Christmas often feels the same way.

Somewhere in all the what of the holidays there is the why of them.

--

One Christmas I got to play Santa. For real!

The company where I was working had adopted a very large family off an angel tree and wanted to have a party for them and needed a Santa to pass out their gifts. Despite how shy and retiring I am, I was elected!

I invested in a regulation red Santa suit complete with toy sack, itchy beard and hair – the works! Trust me, that get-up gave hot and heavy a whole new meaning.

Oh, sure, the older kids weren’t particularly impressed by the dweeb in the costume with the runny mascara, but the little ones under five were spellbound.

“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh” the littlest one kept saying as she alternately hid from and ran after me. She was probably three and thus had low expectations of Santa – or low enough for me to get by with it.

A few years later my husband got to wear the very same suit – proof positive the costumers meant business when they said “One Size Fits All”.

At 6’ 5”, with a natural mustache, beard, and booming bass voice, he was born for the role. He was asked to portray Saint Nick for a party at a domestic violence shelter for abused women and their children. He heard lots of sad stories that year. Good thing Santa wasn’t wearing mascara.

I haven’t seen the suit in years now. I think it got lost in one of our moves or maybe it’s up in the attic over the garage in one of those vaguely described storage boxes marked “Christmas” that gets pushed further and further back each year and never finds its way down again.

I need to find it, and an occasion to wear it again. Maybe we all should. Everyone should play Kris Kringle at least once in their lives. I know once you’ve been touched by the magic suit, well, you stay touched.

Something magical happens when you don that ensemble. Somehow you become a little bit more like the big guy himself and that makes you want to stay that way long after you take the costume off.

I suspect there's a little Santa in all of us -- Maybe we just need to let our Inner Santas out!

--

Santa Claus portrayed by children's television producer Jonathan Meath

I confess, I’m homesick. Happens around this time every year – some strand in my DNA runs amok and suddenly I feel like a sockeye salmon, I just want to go home.

Going “home” is a little tricky now. The house I grew up in was dozed a few years ago. The precious 1,200 foot ranchette was leveled so monstrous 11,000 foot tuscan villa could go up.

The folks that lived there are gone or moved away and I’ve done some moving myself. Since I first left “home”, I’ve had fifteen other addresses. Blame it on witness protection, I’ve never truly settled down.

Sometimes I think I haven’t laid down roots. I’m just not tied to any spot of geography. Not having children makes that easier or maybe it just explains it. Children may be your roots. Perhaps they are your home?

So while there is no real estate to return to nor highly populated reunion coming up, there will be holidays and Perry Como, festivities and friendly gazes. And, if not a chance to lay down some roots, there’ll be ample opportunity to make some memories, and they are almost as good.


"Oh! There's no place like home for the holidays,
'Cause no matter how far away you roam,
When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze,
For the holidays you can't beat home sweet home!"

Sometime’s the obvious, isn’t.

The spouse and I aren’t going all out with the hall-decking this year. It’s just the two of us and the fur-bearing creature that’s taken over our home. We could put up a tree, just to give Rex something to take down, but it’s probably better for all of us if we keep everything simple and out of reach.

As I refuse to be identified in our neighborhood as “the one that lives in the dark, unlit house” I convinced the tall one to help me hang some lights, garland and a couple of wreaths over the garage door. It’s the least we could do.

He had a moment’s inspiration and decided we’d even change the bulbs in the lanterns to green or red ones. How festive!

We changed out the lightbulbs and… voila!

Nothing.

They didn’t come on.

At all.

Well of course they didn’t, we’d turned the switch off.

We turned it on and tried again.

Nothing.

Which led to a whole weekend’s worth of investigation and accusations including but not limited to:

What did you do?

Did you touch something?

Did you DO something to the switch?

Are you SURE you turned it on?

Are you sure you turned on the RIGHT one?

Did you jiggle it?

Three years in this house and all of a sudden flipping on the garage lights requires mechanical ingenuity? Ah, there’s nothing quite like a little holiday decorating to bring a family closer together.

In the end it turns out that dropping a sack of new bulbs might not be good for them. Or they were defective to start with No matter, another trip to the hardware store and a couple of replacements later and the Griswold’s have their moment of enchantment.

Which only goes to prove my point. When it comes to the holidays? You must never give up!

Fa la la la la…