ughs for UGGS

When C. wanted a pair of boots for winter, I thought a $20 pair of rain boots would be nice. No. She wanted UGGs. Of course, she did. Everyone wants them. So Santa brought her a pair of $165 boots. Yes. That’s right, I spent more on her boots than I did for either of my wedding dresses.

A week or two after Christmas, I was invited to a fancy cocktail party and realized, due to all my dashing around the city, I wouldn’t have time to stop home to change out of my sneakers into my one pair of stylish (Aerosoles) boots, so I ducked into a store and bought myself a pair of boots. The store I went into was K-Mart and those boots cost $18.

What happened to me? I wondered then. And I’m wondering now. How did I get in this rut of spending so much on my children and so little on myself? I think I am not unusual.

All parents want better for their children than they have themselves. Parents sacrifice for their children.

Basically, I realize, too, I’m jealous. My kids are more stylish and have nicer stuff than me. By being aware of this, maybe I can change it.

And I do have one consolation: C. will grow out of those boots and then I can have them. I miss getting those nice sneakers from my son.

Write Your Spiritual Autobiography

I am proud (and a little embarrassed) to be the guest speaker at the Resource Center for Women in Ministry at New York Theological Seminary next Tuesday, February 21, 2012 from 4 pm to 6 pm in Suite 500 at the Interchurch Center. Please join me. It’s free.

We will be talking about and practicing Writing Your Spiritual Autobiography. The workshop is inspired by Dan Wakefield’s book, The Story of Your Life.

Here is the sign in the elevator at work promoting the event!

I have led this workshop a dozen time and every single time, it’s different and the stories are brilliant. Seriously.

We write about and share how small, quiet, ordinary events shape our lives in unexpected ways.

Yes, the big events — the weddings, births, divorces, funerals — are important, but so too, are the ordinary days when nothing really seems to happen. The extraordinary is found in the ordinary. And we discover a pattern, a meaning — our own awesome-ness. We just need to take a moment to write down our stories and share them.

I am always blown away by the stories that I hear. There is a magical and healing power to writing and sharing your story. Just come to the workshop. You’ll see what I mean.

What My Girls Think of Barbie

We’re not really into Barbie but the girls and I were picking up some hula hoops at Toys R Us and one of my girls wanted to visit Barbie’s Dream House.

I liked seeing all the professions a girl could choose for her Barbie, including architect and art teacher.

As we were walking out of the store onto Times Square, one of my daughters said, “You know Barbie is never shown as homeless, so it’s not really real.”

My other daughter said, “Real girls are never perfect and perfect girls are never real.”

And just for a moment, with a hula hoop over my shoulder, I felt like I was doing pretty well as a mother of girls.

Facebook group for home organizing

This is totally embarrassing. I had been doing a lot of stash and dash at my desk at home – work papers, teaching ideas, bills, notes for blog topics, kids’ school papers, my art projects.

I posted a picture in a closed Facebook group, 2012 – Out With the Old Declutter Group. The group, founded by Alison, is a way for about 30 eclectic friends and acquaintances to hold one other accountable for making and keeping our home organizing goals.

And one Saturday in January I posted this picture:

I saw what I needed to do. I told the group I would clean my desk. So, little by little, throughout that one day, I organized. I found things I had been missing, like my wedding ring. I also found a still life of a pear that I’d painted and thought was pretty good, so I framed it.

To organize my papers, I grouped like with like. I filed some papers in my file cabinet, started a binder full of curricula, threw out papers, Christmas cards, my art.

And then I posted a pic of the finished, decluttered desk:

It felt so good to make my home space pretty and functional. And I didn’t need to hire personal organizer. I just needed social media – my online accountability group and my camera phone. Priceless.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helpers prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

 

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Keep Practicing

I love a daily discipline of writing. I loved doing NaNoWriMo in November. Writing is a solitary experience. So a shared blogging platform, like PostADay2011, made writing a communal experience in 2011

work in progress, my book for book of days

Today I signed up for 365 Grateful and Book of Days for 2012. I like a push, a reminder, shared misery, and shared joy.

I respond well to a gentle and encouraging nudge.

If I’m creative on a daily basis, then I have a vessel in which I can dump my creativity when something really cool pops into my head.

It’s good to keep practicing. Writing is a practice. I love that Buddhism is considered a practice, not a fixed religion. The practice of a religion or creativity is not idolizing an icon, but living creatively and staying open to the creative spirit.

Somewhere in my brain there’s a quote about the reason that firefighters shine the pole in the firehouse every day. It needs to be smooth for that one day a year when there’s actually a fire. That is why I write daily, for that one day a year. That”s why I practice.

Switching from Verizon to Sprint

It took three days hours to switch our phone service at our nearby Radio Shack.

The reason it took so long was that I could not authenticate myself. See, I gave them my license and credit card and passed the credit approval, but then Johary, the clerk at the store, handed me a phone and the operator asked me a series of questions, which seemed easy enough, like, “From which state did you receive your Social Security number?”

Maybe I was too breezy with my answers. The kids were tugging at my sleeve and the store was noisy. We had to get to the airport. And one of the the first of the three multiple choice questions I didn’t really hear.

In one question, the operator asked, “Where have you lived?” And rattled off some cities, to which I replied, “None of the above,” although one of the choices was my sister’s city.

Finally, the verdict. I was not authentic. I asked to speak to the supervisor on the Sprint authentication line. This is when my son began shushing me. Apparently I was becoming ticked off a little loudly. Janet #2233 in Colorao, the supervisor, apologized, but said, “You did not pass the test. You got two out of three questions wrong. Try again in 60 days.”

Janet was kind enough to suggest that before my next attempt, I should get a copy of my public record from my local county court. Presumably, I could bone up on myself.

Really? Really?

Me? I am the one who seeks authenticity in everything. But apparently I do not know myself well enough to get a new fricken’ phone.

The matter of the new phones finally got resolved when I called my husband who, apparently, was able to authenticate himself. (I had to head out of the store for the last couple of hours to get to my creative writing class.)

We did get new phones, but were not able to switch all the phone numbers and the data. The sales guy who was helping us, his daughter was in the hospital, which made us all feel bad for taking so much time.

our new phones

And any way, we did have a plane to catch. And as you can see, it was fun to play with the new phones as we waited in the airport lounge.