Maximizing Minimalism

Posted on May 24, 2012 by

I have a secret to confess.  I have a delightful little obsession with the television show Hoarders.  If you haven’t seen the show, it’s about people who have a mental or emotional disconnect that causes them to hoard.  I question my interest in this show, as I’m surfing through lovely programs about travel and food and housewives, yet suddenly getting the unnerving itch to scratch A&E when I see it pop up.  My husband J. hates it, so I find myself watching it in quite the clandestine manner when he isn’t around, much like, I surmise, a sex addict watches porn.

So what is it about Hoarders that I crave.  I think, if I have to be honest with myself, I understand them.  I can’t fully empathize with the particular subjects who find themselves compelled to shop and buy and save and never turn loose of anything.  That’s not me.  Honestly, most of the time the last thing in the world I am interested in is shopping.  And I’m fantastic at closet clean-out.  I do it at least twice a year with our clothes.  In fact we have the in-and-out rule in our house…you get two new shirts, you donate two that you haven’t worn in a year.  It works out great, especially in a 1910 Victorian with very little closet space.  No, I can’t empathize with the buyers, but I can relate to the people who turn around one day and realize that everything has piled up around them, and, honestly, it scares me.

I saw an episode one day and it was about a married woman with a couple of kids working in a professional capacity with a lot of responsibility, and her personal surroundings had simply stacked up due to a lack of time.  When she wasn’t working she was taking care of the kids and running them to activities here and there and things just started to stack…and to stack…and to stack.  And then she was just so exhausted and the stacks were so high that she didn’t even have the energy to decide where to start “un-stacking.”  My confession…that was me about four months ago.

Mind you, I wasn’t to the extreme that this woman was.  You could actually still walk around our house and function just fine, but the stacks were everywhere.  Okay…coming truly clean…stacks are still everywhere.  I feel like “stuff” has been closing in on us.  The thought of Christmas this last year was actually kind-of depressing because it meant acquiring MORE “stuff.”  Having been an attorney and a real estate broker, one of the biggest evils in my life has been paper.  Stacks of papers, copies, flyers, business cards, pieces of mail after pieces of mail after pieces of mail.  [Aside:  I hate mail.  And I hate business cards.  I'll put your contact info in my smart phone and you can do the same for me.]  I worked so many hours professionally and had a new little one to look after and tried to have some semblance of a life with my family in my spare time, that I just had no time to deal with the “stuff” of life.  Further confession…I often wished that our house might just catch fire and gloriously burn it all to the ground.  My grandmother had “stuff.”  She had a room that we kids called the “junk” room that was just packed high with God knows what and an attic that was filled to the brim (at least that’s what my parents said…I never went up there as a kid).  But she was a product of the Depression.  Save, because someday you might need and you won’t have.  With a strange nostalgic fondness in her voice, she would tell us about her family of ten kids taking mustard and bread sandwiches to school wrapped in newspaper.  I don’t have that excuse.

For those of you that have been following this blog, you know that we made a decision several months ago to begin the plan to move back home to Dallas this summer.  I decided then and there that this was the prime opportunity to deal with all the “stuff” in my life.  And, I’ve been slowly beginning the process. 

A great blogger and friend of mine from school (www.definingaudacity.com) recently went through the cathartic process of actually burning some of his things, having a perpetual bon voyage and bonfire to his past.  It got me thinking (at least the first few drops of oil landed on my gears, anyway).

Then, coincidentally, I happened upon a fantastic blog that was freshly pressed on WordPress… www.minimalistlifestyle.wordpress.com.  It’s a great little nugget from blogger Mark Lowe in Nova Scotia.  I love it.  Mark is doing what I’m thinking.  I’m tired of all the “stuff” and the “things” and the “schedules” and the “I gottas.”  Is anyone else tired too?  With a nod to Garth, “I’m much too young to feel this damn old.”

One thing that really intrigued me recently was Mark’s post on The Summer of 1000 Things Challenge.  A friend of his came up with the idea to challenge people to get rid of 1000 things every summer.  Brilliant.  The item can be as small as a dried up marker, so the idea is that you can even just start with a desk and find yourself tossing a large number of things. 

So, readers, I am taking this challenge this summer.  The Memorial weekend is upon us, which signals the beginning of summer, for all intents and purposes, and, thus, time to begin.  The gears are now turning.

I actually began this process last weekend when we cleaned out the last of the items from our storage unit that we have had for EIGHT YEARS and brought it all home to go through.  As we were driving home, I actually found myself getting angry.  J. could sense my discontent and asked, “What’s wrong?”  I said in utter disgust, “I don’t know what we have been doing for the past eight years.  What is all of this “stuff” in the back of the truck?  Why do we even have this?  It makes me angry at myself.”

This first thing we decided should go…my twin mattress trundle set from when I was like six!  This set has been hanging on to me for thirty years people!!  And the trundle is even broken!!!  What the hell!!!!!!!  I used this up through my final years in law school.  The trundle portion was in the living room of my one-bedroom apartment so that someone would have a place to sleep if they came for a visit.  The tag says it was a Sears mattress, which makes sense because my mother was an avid Sears catalog shopper.  I lovingly remember getting to have an Icee at Sears every time we would go to pick up an order.  It was my bed.  It was a good one.

When I think back, that bed’s run the gamut.  Here is the sequence of the trundle’s demise. 

Law school Halloween party at my apartment.  Lovely trundle made up, oh so nicely, in the background.  The only time I was ever a blonde.  (No, that’s not my real hair, for those of you that are a little slower.)

Now here’s when thirty-six people decided it was a great idea to sit on this thing.

And here’s the ultimate fate…frame bends, and the whole thing collapses to the floor with a crash.  It still makes me laugh remembering it.

If memory serves me correctly, I think my two friends J. and J., on either side of my lanky buddy G. in the middle, were the culprits of the crash.  But it could have been A. and C.  Somehow these guys seemed to quickly occupy a nice spot on the couch if they were the offenders.  Speaking of that couch…if it could talk.  That got shipped off to my younger brother for his college apartment, though, so it’s been long gone from my life for many years now.

I think that trundle just finally said, “Look…you were cute when you were six.  You irritated the heck out of me when you were fourteen.  You started ignoring me when you were twenty-one, and now I’ve had it with you!”  My response, “See how you like a ten by ten storage unit, then.”  Good times.

The great news is that we live in the middle of the city, on a major corner where you can set anything on the curb and someone will pick it up.  It was about 7:45 p.m. when J. and I set it out front, the set totalling two mattresses, a box spring, the trundle and two end frames…that’s six items folks.  Yes!  Only 994 to go.

In our typical fashion we decided it would be fun to make a game out of this.  We love to set things out on that curb and have contests to see who can get closest to the time that someone will pick the items up.  We decided that the loser that evening would have to pound a beer.  J. guessed 47 minutes.  I guessed 1 hour and 12 minutes.

Pick-up time…39 minutes.  Yep.  I was pounding a beer, and never so glad to do so in all my life. 

It’s slate cleaning time, guys. 

Can you benefit from the mantra of “less is more” in your own life?  Is “more” of something actually giving you “less” of a life?  Go ahead, look around.  Maybe even take this challenge with me.  I’ll be keeping you posted on my summer progress, and you can do the same.

And hey…it’s fun to pound a beer every once in a while.  Go ahead and do that too.  ;o)  – Amanda

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Paris Play-by-Play: Day 1

Posted on April 26, 2012 by

Some of you know that I just had the fantastic opportunity to spend a week in Paris (the first half of the week courtesy of my husband J.’s company and the fruits of his labor, the second half of the week courtesy of J.’s personal pocketbook).  I had such high hopes of blogging each day while abroad, but if you have ever been to Paris you know that, once there, the last thing you care to do is tie yourself to a laptop.  From the moment your foot steps out of that airport taxi, you are blissfully immersed in the beauty and romance that is France. 

After about an eight and a half hour direct overnight flight from Houston, with a couple of in-flight meals, several alcoholic beverages, a smidge of sleep (because I have a partner who flops on a plane), and one viewing of Moneyball (loved it, by the way), we arrived.  I was really too excited to be tired.  We headed to baggage claim where we were met by several other company travellers, who had also just de-planed, and a pleasant shuttle coordinator touting a friendly, “Bonjour!”  I had been given great advice by blogger Hilary Billings of NomadGrad.com to simply be polite with the French.  Say “bonjour” when you enter a store or restaurant and “au revoir” when you leave…basic courtesy is all they are looking for.  So “bonjour,” “bonsoir,” “au revoir,” and “merci” quickly became commonplace in my dialogue.  After practicing a little French on the plane, I also acquired an affinity for the number 18… “dix-huit,” pronounced “dee-sweet.”  Unfortunately I never got to use that one.  Dang it.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was a moving exposé in graffiti.  I have actually never seen so much graffiti in all my life.  I live in the fourth largest city in the U.S. close to downtown, but we have a graffiti abatement team in our area that is next to none when it comes to cover-up.  They must not have the same team between Charles de Gaulle and downtown Paris. 

We unloaded at the hotel valet area, where they were holding everyone’s bags because rooms were not yet ready (it was about 10:00 a.m. at that point).  “Here you go Mr. S.,” said the bellhop, “here is the ticket for your bags.”  I looked over J.’s shoulder and began counting…one, two…holy crap.  “Where is the other bag?” I protested.  “Those are our bags,” J. retorted.  “No!  The OTHER bag.  The hanging bag that your dad let us borrow???”  He very simply replied, “It’s at the airport.” 

You are freaking kidding me that this is how our trip is going to begin. 

We headed upstairs to the company’s reception check-in area to claim our badges (if you read my previous post you know how I hate name badges) and relay to the coordinator our issue with the bag.  She assured us that there would be no problem recovering our bag, but it was the kind of assurance that left me with a not-so warm and fuzzy feeling, as her sentiments were mixed with, “Here…pick a red, white or blue armband for the community service project tomorrow.”  I half-heartedly smiled thinking, “Whatever lady…I just need my bag that has ALL of our evening wear for EVERY event for the next 3 nights!”  We picked blue bands and headed back downstairs.

“That lady isn’t convincing me,”  I sighed.  After twenty-two years of attachment to me, J. knew that he would have no hope unless he resolved this, so he disappeared for over half an hour while I was left to sit on a cushy couch outside the hotel restaurant to do a little people-watching.  It was now that my sleep deprivation kicked in.  All I wanted to do was recline like Giorgione’s Venus on that couch and close my eyes for a good five hours, minimum, but I thought it best not to nap in the lobby of a 450€/night minimum hotel and I had definitely better keep my clothes on.  Yes, the Intercontinental® Paris – Le Grand was lovely.  The attention to detail in the downstairs main rooms was nothing short of exceptional.  I marvelled as I looked around, ”Would this be what all of Paris would look like?”  I had no idea.

J. finally appeared and explained how he went through two separate women upstairs for help with the bag, calls to Air France®, and some crazy conversation with a representative who said we would have to print out a form from their site, fill it out and fax it to a specific number.  Fax it?  Seriously?  Who does that anymore?  J. said, “Let’s just go back to the airport and then we can take the company shuttle back to the hotel again.”

So off we went to explore our first Paris mass transit experience…the bus.  Nothing special to report there, only that you had better be ready to get on and get off quickly.  Not being much of a mass transit user in Texas, I found that I could likely get run over if I didn’t hurry along.  At the bus stop a girl did approach me with some sort of a clip board and said, “Do you speak English?”  I said, “Yes,” and she started in on some explanation about something that looked like a petition, to which I quickly said, “No, no,” as I could feel J.’s eyes penetrating the side of my skull with the glare of, “Don’t talk to anyone!”  I quickly checked my purse and our pockets to make sure they hadn’t been picked, shrugged sheepinshly and boarded the bus. 

“Bonjour,” said the bus driver.  Huh.  Even bus drivers say “bonjour.” 

Back through the graffiti we went.  Hello Charles, you old so-and-so, I mused, as we stepped out AGAIN at the airport.  The African gentleman with the French accent at the services desk, so strange to see and hear when you are used to living in Texas, was very helpful and gave us a ticket to go downstairs.  We were to then wave at him in front of a camera and he would let us into the baggage claim door.  Odd.

Downstairs we went, and there, much to our happiness, was our sweet shuttle coordinator.  She helped us navigate through the camera/door and into the lost baggage area and there, right where it should have been, was our beautiful, black hanging bag, folded and secured as we had left it.  All my slaving away to prepare for a week of fashion was now saved!  Hallelujah!

We had to wait awhile for other company travellers to arrive before the next shuttle left, so we grabbed a sandwich.  Even at the airport, my sandwhich of ham on butter on a baguette was awesome.  This would begin my love affair with French cuisine and my complete understanding of Julia Child over the next seven days.  Ooh la la.

You know how sometimes you get lemons and out of them you squeeze lemonade?  That’s what happened with our bag debacle.  Thanks to that bag we then met the nicest couple from Seattle, G. and M., who would become some of our best travel friends over the next three days.  I was glad at the end of the trip to have forgotten that bag.

With our room now ready at the hotel.  It was time to nap.  So we thankfully fell into this…

…so soft, so plush.  I couldn’t be happier.  Just to enjoy the quiet, quite a luxury when you have a two year-old.

Before long it was time to dress for the evening kick-off reception at the Palais Garnier opera house across the street.  The nearly 400 company attendees and their significant others convened in the lobby downstairs and the event coordinators began lining us up.  Before we knew it, we were being paraded out the front doors and across the street to a literal red carpet entrance to the opera with a full drum corp flanking us on either side.  I love hats, and if ever I should have been wearing a hat, this should have been it.  We felt like kings and queens in a procession walking up those grand steps.  And it was quite the spectacle.  People were gathering from the streets around our procession, taking pictures and waving.  I’m quite certain that’s the closest I’ll ever get to celebrity status.  So fun!

Palais Garnier was magical.  J. and I love opera.  We’ve seen Verdi’s La Traviata at the Fox Theater in Atlanta and Puccini’s La Bohème at the spectacular Sydney Opera House, but this…this was how opera should be enjoyed.  This was a step back in time to when opera was opera.  As if the gallery areas outside the performance hall weren’t enough, with their grand staircases, exquisite frescos and huge fireplaces, a step into the theater itself underneath the massive gold chandelier suspended overhead left every spectator is sheer awe.  “Who changes those bulbs?” J. mused.

Photo courtesy of stalkingthebelleepoque.blogspot.com.

The Palais Garnier was the inspiration and setting for Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera.  There are, in fact, wells and a water reservoir underneath, which gave way to the idea of the lake in Phantom.   

We didn’t get to see an opera or a ballet, we were just there to tour at our leisure and enjoy a bevy of cocktails, wines, and hors d’oeuvres on the company’s dime.  We walked through room after room of beauty allowing our senses to be completely overloaded, finally deciding we had better grab a table.

I scanned our various options, and then, much to my surprise, noticed a few Juliet-style balconies overlooking the string players that were fitted with two-tops.  Could this be possble?  The center table appeared to be open.  There was a group of people chatting and blocking it from view.  I looked at J. and pointed, “That’s where we’re sitting!”  He looked surprised, “Are you sure we can sit there?”  But, like a woman on a mission, I was already headed past him in a quick dash to grab my spot in the limelight. 

“Is this table taken,” I asked the group blocking it from view.  “No,” they all seemed to reply in unison.  Excellent.  So, there we sat, center-stage, just we two as the melodies of the strings played below. 

We got quite the attention at our little table.  One of the event coordinators passed by and said, “Ah, quite the tête-à-tête.”  Even the company’s C.O.O., C. E., stopped and said, “Has anyone taken your picture?  How did you score this spot?  Wow!”  To which one of the other execs jumped up and said, “I’ll do it.”  So there we were, likely dining where very few people had ever dined before (nevermind the guy who appears to be chipping off a piece of the marble behind us for a souvenir).

I was in love and had only been Parisian for twelve hours.  We closed down the party at the open bar on the bottom floor and left out the main entrance as we had come, less the drum corp.  Garnier was even more magnificent at night (Paris, to be honest, is even more magnificent at night).  As we prepared to cross the street to the hotel, we took one last photo of her in all of her glory.

As would be the case every night, the party continued at the hotel bar.  We waited in line to order one glass of champagne and one gin and tonic.  Then we got the bill.  Holy #$%@!  Are you kidding me?  J. asked the bartender just to confirm that we were looking at the correct numbers.  News flash people…the bill for hard liquor in Paris will kick your butt, take your name, and stomp on you in the dirt.  And it doesn’t really matter where you go (we checked out the menu wherever we went).  I told J., “No wonder people want to live in America.”  Here’s the menu if you don’t believe me.  And remember…that’s in Euro…so even the conversion is NOT in our favor.

From then on we decided that if the bill was on us, we were drinking wine.  Wine prices are pretty comparable to what you would pay in the states.  Besides, who doesn’t like wine, bread, cheese and chocolate?

As Day 1 came to a close and we quietly strolled down the hall to our room, I couldn’t wait to see what Paris had in store.  I was already delighted, but there was oh so much more for the taking.

- Amanda

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3 Things I Don’t Get…Flag Pins, Tucked Sweaters and the Use of Licorice on “Chopped”

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

You know how you go through life and from time to time you say, “I just don’t get that?”  There are so many things in life that I “just don’t get.”  Sometimes I mention them out loud to my husband J.  Most of the time I just keep them to myself.  I decided that it would be interesting, from time to time, to go ahead and say them out loud.  So, thus begins the start of my “things I don’t get” blog segment.  You’ll see it crop up from time to time under my “Humor” section.  

There will likely be humor.  Sometimes it might spark controversy.  But that’s the great thing about this world…for every thing that I “dont get,” there is someone out there who “gets it.”

#1:  The Flag Pin

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, which I am absolutely not, I just don’t get the whole flag pin thing.  This could be largely because of my aversion to wearing pins in general.  I just don’t like the idea of something poking through perfectly beautiful threads, expertly sewn together, on my clothing.  And couple a name tag with a pin and that sends me over the edge.  (I’ve always despised wearing name tags.  There is nothing worse to me than the inevitable conference table check-in with the sticky-backed “My Name Is…” and a sharpie staring me in the face.  But I digress.)

Mind you, it’s not that I don’t get the symbolism of the flag pin.  I understand that it is a way to express your patriotism, like flying the flag in front of your home.  I get the same warm and fuzzy feeling that you do driving through any HOA governed neighborhood in suburbia U.S.A. on the Fourth of July, seeing all of those tiny red, white and blue flags lining the sidewalks like soldiers standing at attention.  But what I don’t get is the evolving trend equating the absence of the flag pin to an absence of patriotism.  This really came to light for me in the 2008 election when Obama was denounced for not wearing a flag pin.  It’s been four years since then, though, and the flag pin, no flag pin thing is still sticking around in the lapel of America.

With this growing trend, especially in politics, I find myself, probably unfairly, questioning the WEARER of the flag pin and his or her motives instead.  Lately I’m asking, “Is he REALLY wearing that flag pin to show patriotism?  Or is this just a political ruse to garner more votes?”  So, it seems that this weird trend of equating the absence of the flag pin to an absence of patriotism has caused me to have a jaundiced eye towards wearing the flag pin.

I guess too, I’m sort-of scared of the slippery slope effect on pin wearing.  I mean, what happens when the status quo is “wearing a flag pin”?  Does that then mean to stand out one has to start wearing a flag pin AND a bald eagle pin?  What if THIS becomes the status quo?  Do you then move to adding a rose pin (the national flower, in case you didn’t know that)?  And then do you move on to adding an oak tree pin (the national tree, in case you didn’t know THAT)?  I’m just not that interested in the leader of my free world showing up to meet dignitaries looking like Stan from Office Space.

Photo courtesy of ryanspitch.blogspot.com

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m more concerned with whether or not someone has a vested interest in educating our children, or caring for the poor and needy, or being a good steward of the earth that God has created for us versus whether or not he or she chooses to puncture the threads of his or her clothing.  Sometimes I think I would like to run for office solely in the hopes of someone asking me, “Mrs. S., why are you not wearing a flag pin?” and me having the opportunity to answer, plainly and simply, “Because I don’t wear pins.”

#2:  Tucked Sweaters

I actually just saw this a couple of months ago, when it was still sweater weather here, while having dinner at a restaurant with friends.  I was just about to cut into a deliciously awful cheese enchilada when my one margarita down gaze landed upon him…the guy with the tucked-in sweater.

So, here’s the thing…I’m not really any sort of a fashion icon.  I have clothes in my closet that have stuck around WAY too long, with me somehow still trying to re-invent myself in them.  Mind you, I do love fashion and appreciate good fashion when I see it.  But I don’t get the tucked sweater.

I remember leaning over to my friend C. at dinner and asking, “Who does that?”  He said, “What?”  I said, “The tucked-in sweater thing.”  He said, “He probably thinks his waist looks good and he wants to show it off.”

Am I missing something here?  Is this fashionable?  I actually searched Google® Images for “tucked-in sweater,” and, lo and behold, there they are…everywhere!  Turns out, there are probably lots of THESE guys (and girls) running around out there.

Photo courtesy of ironingboardcollective.blogspot.com.

Maybe I know nothing about fashion, now that I think about it.  Sweater weather to me is a great excuse to hide that little extra muffin top that baked up in the oven known as Christmas.  

As I’ve probed a little deeper into the soul of myself, preparing this blog segment, I’ve uncovered what I believe to be the root of my tucked sweater issue.  I think my aversion to the tucked sweater has something to do with my aversion towards wearing belts in general.  This is in direct polar opposition to J., who firmly believes in wearing a belt even if his shirt is un-tucked and you can’t see it.

Here’s the deal, though.  I ABSOLUTELY believe that if you are tucking in a shirt you should be wearing a belt (don’t get me started on the tucked shirt with no belt thing or I could go on for days).  So…don’t worry, all of you “belt-wearing” friends.  I firmly believe your belts to be appropriate and wonderful.  You just won’t catch me wearing many belts, because, and this leads even deeper into the soul of myself, I don’t like to tuck many things in.  Could this be one of my life metaphors?  That I like life to hang loosely?   Hmmm. 

This MUST be why the tucked sweater comes as such a shock to me.  My knee jerk reaction when I see this is to always say to myself, “Now what the heck is that person doing messing up a perfectly good excuse NOT to wear a belt?”

I’m not sure that I will ever “get” the tucked sweater, but I’m pretty sure that has everything to do with the layers of my own personal onion and nothing to do with fashion. 

So, I guess, tuck or don’t tuck.  I really don’t care.  And, besides…it’s variety like this that makes the world go ’round.  Lord knows we all don’t want everyone dressing like me.

#3:  The Use of Licorice on “Chopped”

I love the show Chopped.  There is nothing better than watching people run around trying to throw together food in a ridiculously short period of time only to all end up looking like dead horses at the end, with one of them waiting for a kicking while he is already down. 

I think I like the show because I really appreciate that someone can come up with something fabulous to eat, that looks like a piece of art, off the cuff and in the same amount of time it takes me to just measure the ingredients. 

BUT…I feel like every time I turn this show on lately I hear Ted Allen saying something like, “Your challenge…to prepare a main course using boiled eggs, filet of mahi, shiitake mushrooms and licorice.”  Or, “Chefs…you will prepare an appetizer using black Spanish radishes, pigs feet, ginger root and licorice.” 

Photo courtesy of eatmedaily.com.

If I hear the word “licorice” one more time, I think I might have to start boycotting this show.  I simply don’t get the use of licorice in so many of these dishes.  Just like fashion, though, I am certainly no cullinary master.  You masters of the kitchen universe out there need to enlighten me on what the heck is going on with the affinity for licorice.  There will be two times you will catch me consuming licorice…if it’s red and it comes in a package that says Twizzler® or if it comes in the tiniest of glasses and is lovingly termed Sambuca (or the “devil,” as I like to call it, after spending a late night in Brisbane, Australia drinking and teaching a group of Aussies how to two-step…but I digress).

I’m thinking that I have to try a dish made with licorice just so I can see what all the fuss is about.  I’m just not a huge licorice fan.  The black jelly beans are always the last to go, and they’re usually going in the trash.  This could be like coffee infused filet, though.  That was a special at one of my favorite restaurants one time, and I thought it sounded really weird to mix coffee with beef…but it proved to be one of the best steaks I’ve eaten. 

So maybe I’m just missing out on one of life’s hidden treasures.  It could be that the licorice flavor is somehow amended just so when cooking, so that you don’t really get the same level of pungency that you do when eating it plain.  I’m not sure, but I guess I’ll never know unless I try.

Summary

So, to sum all of this up, I don’t know if you’ll catch me doing any of these three things.  I’m probably most susceptible to trying the licorice dish.  But if you do ever see me out and I’m wearing a tucked sweater with a belt and I’m bedazzled with a bit of flag pin flair…ante up and bet your money that I HAVE been consuming licorice. 

But it won’t have been in a sauce drizzled on mahi.  It will have undoubtedly been from imbibing several shots of the “devil.”

- Amanda

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The Run

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run.  

So I ran to the end of the road, and when I got there I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town…

…And when I got there, I thought maybe I’d just run across Greenbow County.

And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I’d just run across the great state of Alabama.  And that’s what I did.  I ran clear across Alabama.

For no particular reason, I just kept on going.

I ran clear to the ocean.  

- Forrest Gump.

[Screenplay by Eric Roth, based on the novel by Winston Groom.]

Photo courtesy of: brokenheartedrunner.wordpress.com

Have you ever just wanted to run?  Sorry, but I’m excluding you “runners” out there.  I’m not talking about wanting to run because you love it as a sport or because it’s your hobby or because you need to do it to stay fit or because you have some sort of a cause that you need to raise money for.  I’m talking about running for no particular reason.

Yesterday I empathized with Forrest Gump.  I just needed to run.  I went running for no reason at all.

At 5:45 p.m. I donned my black stretch pants and tank top and laced up my running shoes, which are two years old now and in sad shape (they definitely don’t have enough wear left to properly support my stride at all…oh well).  I grabbed a bottle of water and my cell phone and proclaimed to my husband J. that I was headed out to take a 40 minute run around the neighborhood.

“Uh…okay,” was J.’s bewildered response.  I didn’t leave enough room in my schedule for dialogue on the subject, and instead just slipped quickly out the door.  “Be careful,” he called.

See, I’m not really a runner.  I can run, but it isn’t something that I crave like J. does.  But on this day, at this hour, I was simply called to run. 

I really didn’t have a plan or a path, I was just going to periodically check my cell phone to keep track of the time because I had to be back to the house by 6:40 p.m. so that J. could leave to go to Memorial Park and do some “real” running. 

I started out heading west on our street and just began winding my way through the Heights.  As I ran, I found myself not unlike a huge mixing bowl with ingredient after ingredient of emotions sifting together, the beaters blending with each pace of my feet.  This would be one of the last times I would likely run through this neighborhood. 

Where I live is lovely…an eclectic merger of the old and the new, with a touch of grace in the sweeping branches of the live oaks, the purposeful cracks in the sidewalks and the heterogeneity of the people.  It’s a community anyone would want to visit.  I always believed that this would be where I would live and that the old 1910 Queen Anne that we had been painstakingly restoring, and then ceasing restoration on, and then restoring again would be where I would die when I was one hundred (I have plans to live to be one hundred, you know, so that Willard Scott can flash my picture on the TODAY show’s Smuckers® birthday celebration…only I just realized that Willard will be dead by then, nuts).  But you know how what you believe doesn’t always fully match up with what you know to be true on the inside?

As I ran down Tulane, turning left onto 14th and then south onto Rutland, I came to realize that I had only really been staying here for the past 8 years.  I’m not sure I have ever fully “lived” here.  I’ve made a great go of it, and I’ve done just about everything that one body could possibly do.  I’ve run two businesses in real estate and law; I’ve almost completed 4 different remodel projects, giving a little bit back to the world by making a few homes in Houston’s inner area better than they were before (I still drive by our first project on Wakefield in Oak Forest and remember how our design ideas modernized a neighborhood eyesore, how our brushes colored that siding, how our hands laid that tile on the front porch, and how I cried when we turned over the keys as if my child was leaving home for the first time, surely never to return); I’ve tended a 3000 sq.ft. inner city garden on our lot, selling vegetables at the local farmers’ market, to neighbors and to area restaurants;  I’ve dined at just about every restaurant imaginable; I’ve flown out of Houston Hobby Airport and over the city in a Grumman Cheetah with J. as my pilot; I’ve kayaked Buffalo Bayou; I’ve volunteered at schools, served on committees, donated to causes; I’ve gone to art festivals, exhibits, galleries, garden tours, block parties, parades, hay rides and served as a docent for the annual Christmas tour of homes; I’ve had season tickets to the opera; I’ve seen plays; I’ve sung along at concerts in large venues and small pubs; I’ve held Easter egg hunts on our lawn, slip n’ slide parties for Fourth of July and shrimp boils with friends on the slab of concrete that once housed our old barn out back; I laid my body out on a table at Texas Woman’s Hospital and gave someone life, and I brought that someone home on a chilly Valentine’s night to our 1910 relic, which he affectionately calls “Biggie’s house” whenever we now pass by while running errands; I’ve loved here, I’ve shared here, I’ve made more friends than I can ever even begin to count here, but somehow as I ran yesterday I understood that I have always been searching for my place and am still searching.  It is as if deep down I have known myself all along to be a nomad, a gypsy dancing by day but with eyes of ebony continuously hunting in the night, never finding rest. 

About half way through my run a wonderful thing happened.  It started to rain.  And it didn’t just rain, it poured.  And I kept running.  If you have never run in the rain before, you should try it at least once in your life.  When you are fully out in the open, unimpeded by a vehicle or a structure, it is just you, the earth beneath your feet, and God, and you immediately recognize that you are present at a sacred moment in time as the fragrance of the freshest rain billows around you in a way that you can only experience by standing in the middle of it. 

We will be moving back home to re-join family in Dallas this summer.  As I begin to pack up my tents and sell off my lands here, I look forward to the journey ahead.  But, have no doubt, I will peek back over my shoulder for one last look before I depart.  Will this be my Canaan?  Perhaps my restless soul will finally find contentment.  I likely will not know until I arrive there. 

Then again, does anyone ever really “arrive”?  A deeper truth that I probably don’t want to admit is that the substance and sustenance of life resides in the journey itself and never in the arrival. 

I might be destined to wander forever.  Jenny gave Forrest a pair of shoes and then she left.  Despite his claim that he ran for no reason, deep down he really knew the reason in his heart.  I ran yesterday for lots of reasons, all masked under the epidermis of running “for no reason at all.”  That was a half-truth.  We all have a reason to run.  No one really runs for no reason at all.

I guess since I’ve run this far, I’ll just keep on going.  Who knows…maybe when it’s all said and done, I’ll run clear to the ocean. 

If I do, I hope it will be raining when I get there.

- Amanda

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Just do "You"

Posted on March 15, 2012 by

Reblogged from Mighty Inspiration:

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Just do “You” better than anything else. Yes, that may seem like a strange and random sentence but it’s really not. So often we choose who we will be and what we will do minute-by-minute based on the prying eyes of others. Real or imagined we decide there will be judgments made and we hesitate. In our eagerness to belong or to be seen favorably we abandon our instincts and do what others want.

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This is a perfectly concise statement on how life should be.  Letting the "you" shine through is a turn down the path to destination "contentment."  [Click on the "Reblogged from Mighty Inspiration" link at the top to view the entire article.]
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Welcome, Mister Sad. It’s So Nice of You to Visit

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

-I’m Kurt.   I’m incorrigible.

-Congratulations.

-What’s “incorrigible”?

-I think it means you want to be treated like a boy.

Courtesy of fanpop.com, Maria Meets the Children - The Sound of Music

I finally just broke down last night.  In the middle of changing a Pull-Up, said Pull-Up wearer, eyes meeting mine while standing on the changing table with tears streaming down his face, proclaims to his father behind me, “Sawee DaDa.  I hit Mama.”  I just turned around to my husband J. and broke down in pathetic sobbing, “I just can’t do this anymore.  I feel like this is all we do all day long.” 

I turn back around to Pull-Up wearer N., look at him, place my hand on the nearby T.V. cabinet for some sort of emotional support and just let ‘er rip.  It’s that wailing sort-of sob where you’re gasping for breath at the same time.  Very dramatic. 

I quickly realize that N. has stopped crying and is now just staring at me in wonderment.  I sense that J. has left the room, either to say, “I’ll just let the two of you hash this out,” or simply to conveniently throw away the old Pull-Up.  Probably a combination of both.

J. re-enters and N. places his hands on my shoulders, peeking around to him saying, “Mama so sad.”  J. responds, “That’s because you hit her buddy.  That makes Mama sad when you hit her.”

Truth be told…Mama is sad because Mama hit him.  Now before anyone goes calling C.P.S. on me, when I say “hit,” I mean “spank.”  Mama had to spank N., which Mama feels like she has been doing now multiple times a day for several days.  N. is two. 

Any of you out there who have owned a two to three year-old probably know what I’m talking about.  I feel like my life is full of “pops on the heinie” (as we call them) and sessions of “time out.”  And these “pops” and “sessions” are absolutely exhausting me. 

I finished getting N. ready for bed, expressed my sheer undying love for him and handed him off to J. to take upstairs for a story.  I then grabbed my cell phone, exited the building into the cold, clear night air and dialed my mother.

It isn’t very often that I call my mother for advice.  It isn’t very often that I ask anyone for advice.  If any of you read my post  Kings in Our Streets, then you know that I’m a handler.  I’ve spent most of my life saying, “I do it myself!”  But this was one night, out in the cold on a cell phone, where I could not do it myself.

You know how your mother always knows within a few words if something is wrong?  “Is everything okay?” she asks.  “No, not really,” I reply, trying to keep my composure as best as possible.  “I have to ask you a question,” I continue, “and I hope the answer is A LOT.”  She laughs and repeats, “A LOT?”  “Yes,” I answer, “A LOT!”

“What’s your question?” she pushes.  “My question is, how often did you have to spank me when I was little?”  She started laughing and very easily responded, “A LOT!”  Before I could even really go on she continued, “I remember lying in bed some nights praying that I was doing the right things, that I wasn’t being a terrible mother.  But you were strong willed and we would go toe to toe.”  I was feeling so much better.  She had been in my same shoes 35 years before and time, thankfully, hadn’t erased all of her memories of it.  She knew right where I was and fully appreciated my state of affairs.

We talked for a long time, even my dad got on the speaker phone.  He remarked, “You just can’t let him win at age two in situations of discipline or he’ll be winning at age fourteen, and that’s not good.”  How true.  I have known people who let their kids run all over them when they were little and most of them grew up to cause problems and go astray in so many ways.  What they both seemed to say was that I have to stand firm…that it won’t be easy, but that if I do it right it will be relatively short-lived.  I sure hope so.

“But what do you think I can do differently that might reach him and get him to react in a different way?” I asked my mom.  Then she reminded me of the brilliantly invented Mister Sad.  Mister Sad was a gentleman developed by my wonderful sister-in-law E., who is a nurse.  She basically took a sharpie, drew the face of a sad guy on a wooden spoon and invented the friend to every parent seeking discipline…Mister Sad.  When my mom heard about this a couple of years ago, she actually thought it was so clever that she invited her own Mister Sad to stay at her house when my nephew was going through his terrible two to three stage.  We all laughed because her Mister Sad had crazy spiked hair where he looked like he had just been electrocuted.  In any event, no kid seems to want to see Mister Sad come out of the drawer, because a pop on the back of the bottom with that wooden spoon smarts.

So, that was it…enough said!  I went inside, after asking my parents how it felt to still be parenting, determined that the dawn of the next day would bring with it the arrival of a fellow by the name of Mister Sad.  And, lo and behold, at 5:45 a.m. this morning he showed up on my doorstep looking really sad and really pissed.  (Just what I need.  Another person at my house who is really sad or really pissed.)

I offered Mister Sad a nice place to rest inside the drawer of my buffet cabinet in the dining room, centrally located to all areas of common household activity.  He thankfully climbed in.

When N. came down this morning I informed him that we had a new visitor that he should meet…Mister Sad.  He was so very curious when I led him to the dining room and explained that Mister Sad would be sleeping in Mama’s drawer and that he only woke up and came out if little boys and little girls were misbehaving.  I pulled out Mister Sad, and he clearly pondered the expression emblazoned on the granular backdrop.  He wanted to touch Mister Sad for himself.  I allowed him the indulgence of a brief touch, but explained that this was the only time he would be able to hold Mister Sad and, as I took him back and opened the drawer, remarked that “we sure hoped we wouldn’t see much of Mister Sad since N. is such a good boy.”

I think for a while Mister Sad might be my new best friend, revealing himself at all hours of the day.  But I’m really hoping that he won’t overstay his welcome and we can all just get on with our lives…less sad and less pissed. 

After all, a departure would be equally prosperous for him.  Room and board at my place doesn’t come cheap!

- Amanda

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The Oddity of Being on T.V. (Part II)

Posted on March 4, 2012 by

It was the last Saturday in August.  I had just finished celebrating my nephew’s birthday at a bounce house party place (with a broken air conditioning system), I was sweaty and rushing by their house to quickly pat my new nephew on the head for the first time before racing to the airport to board a plane.  I had to be back early because HGTV was filming a segment for House Hunters International at my real estate office the next morning.  I made my flight, had friends pick me up from the airport, had dinner, and then it was off to bed.  Checklist before turning in…suit hanging up (check), shirt ironed (check), specks of dirt wiped off of my black heels (check).  I could finally go to sleep.

I popped up the next morning, showered, fixed my hair and make-up, and actually got out the door early enough to grab a Starbucks® on the way to the office.  Perfect start.  My friend L., who would actually be the subject of the episode, called me to say he was running late (not surprising), but that the camera crew was also a bit late.

I arrived to the office and chatted with the Saturday receptionist about how cool it was to have HGTV filming at our office.  I went upstairs to peruse our choices of conferences rooms.  “Mmmm…this one has the computer where I could look like I’m working, but this one next door has the nice shiny conference room table.  What to do?”

It was getting close to time for arrival, so I thought I had better go to the bathroom and primp one last time.  “I think my hair is falling a little bit on the left side.  Dang humidity.”  I wondered how many people would be looking at my face on high definition, as I leaned in closer to examine my lines in the mirror.  Oh well.  The receptionist came upstairs to find me, “They’re here!” she said, a subtle giddiness in her voice.  I took a deep breath, fluffed one more time and headed downstairs to greet the star cast member and crew.  It was showtime!

It took a while to decide on which shots to shoot where.  They finally decided that they should shoot me first by myself in the office with the computer talking about the market and L.’s situation with his current Houston home.  I got “miked up” with a funny box clipped to my pants and wires running up through my shirt.  I felt more like I was working for the feds, about to secretly get someone to confess to racketeering, than preparing to talk about the real estate market.  The “director,” and I use that term loosely, kept giving me suggestions on how to play up what was happening with the market, how bad things were, etc., and I kept thinking, “That’s not really what’s going on here buddy, but you’re the boss.”

We had just done a run through our first take when they cut the cameras and microphone and the sound guy says, “Can we do something to cut off the noise of that air conditioner blowing overhead?”

“Let me see what I can do.”  I holler down to the receptionist, who obliging comes upstairs to tell me that she has no idea how to change anything on the air conditioning system.  Awesome.  I find a thermostat in the office across the hall and we start pushing buttons, flipping switches and silently cursing inside ourselves, as if that will get the thing to shut down.  It sounds as if something cuts off and one of the guys yells, “It’s off!”

So, we start again.  My lines, my lines…oh yeah, market gloom and doom.  Three quarters of the way through…rumble, rumble, woosh…and the air conditioning comes back on again.  “Well for the love of God,” I think.  So, I’m hollering back down to the receptionist again, who comes up and says, “We’re just going to have to call A.”  A. is our broker.

“Guys, we’re just going to have to take five here,” I cutely quip, before turning and rolling my eyes at the situation as I pace down the hall.  A. arrives rather quickly (I’m hoping that I didn’t pull him away from an important bridge match…this guy is like a national champion bridge player), and he informs us that the master thermostat for that section of the building is in his locked office.  With the turn of a key and the flip of a switch, he solves our problem.  Go A.!

Now that we have the environment just so, I know my lines, and my hair has certainly fully fallen at this point, we shoot the last few takes of that segment.  One down, who knows how many to go.

Next is the segment shooting me and L. in the conference room.  I am to bring in the papers on his house that he is supposed to sign and then we are to discuss his move.  It will be the first time that he is in front of the camera, and I can already see little beads of sweat forming on his brow.  Is that nerves or the fact that we have no AC upstairs now?  They give us some direction, a call to “Action!,” I walk in and sit down to get us started, and then he starts in.  Before you know it I have no idea where this is going.  He is off on a rabbit trail that I didn’t even know there were rabbits on, and I’m pretty sure it has been seven minutes of him moving his mouth without taking a breath (okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it was a long time).  I feel like he ended up talking about taking his dog to the groomers.  That’s how crazy the dialogue had gotten.  While my brain scrambled on the inside, I graciously tried to smile and break back in to the conversation when he throws up a hand, stares at the camera and cries, “Okay, stop!”  He starts nervously laughing, in order to regain his composure, and proclaims, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”  I’m thinking, “No &%$# Sherlock!”  We have laughed about that ever since.

Despite the rocky start, the remaining takes were great and L. eased into a very believable persona of “normal” in front of the camera.  I thought I did too.

The shoot finishes and L. reminds me that they will be filming a little family party at his house that afternoon.  I’m up for that, so I head home to quickly figure out a wardrobe change, make a salad, and hop back in the car for my 20 minute trek north.

All the Garcias are there and our good friend J. W.  The party was great and it was a blast filming with everyone.  We were laughing and having such a good time.  Nothing too scripted, just keeping it simple.

Before long the film crew was done and we were left to enjoy dinner, wine and conversation about L.’s upcoming and exciting move to Taipei.  I realized as we sat around that circle table enjoying one another’s company that this would be the last time we would do this all together in this place, or maybe even ever.  L. was moving on to another life, his mother (our favorite Mama G., as we call her) was continuing to experience health complications and I was beginning to hear the whispers of changes in my own life that I knew would have to come to pass.  What I was so thankful of was that I recognized this reality in that moment and made it a moment to treasure in my heart right then and there.  L. was someone I had first met by showing him a home for sale with god awful tile floors, and he had become my friend for life.  How strange and wonderful life is.

Months pass and we’re all gearing up for the big show that I write about in The Oddity of Being on T.V. (Part I).  It’s a few minutes prior to the show starting and Facebook® is already a chatterin’.  I have this really weird yet calm feeling as I think about the several hundred people that are about to watch us on television.  The show starts and there’s L. and they’re saying his name…right there on television!  Marvelous!

J. and I watch the first couple of minutes, and the first words that I remember coming out of my mouth were, “There’s my salad!  I made that salad!”  There she was.  That beautiful harvested garden so artistically placed in layers of color in my MOST favorite glass bowl that looks like a sunflower.

 

Nearly instantly I thought, “How ridiculous?  Getting all worked up over a salad.”  But, I kid you not, I was so proud of that salad’s appearance on film that you would have thought it was my child starring in a role on broadway.  And that salad got a lot of play.  There were like three or four shots of it in the segment.  I secretly thought, “Man, if that salad got so much play, just imagine how my scripted scenes are going to turn out.”

We watched another few minutes, the party scene passed, and the next thing you know they are in Taipei talking to some agent named Mindy.  This is starting to have striking similarities to my role in Selena (see again The Oddity of Being on T.V. (Part I)).

I look down at my phone and my brother has just texted me saying, “Shocker.  8 seconds in and already enjoying a cocktail.”  That’s because this was my sole claim to fame…

 

Ah, yes.  Me sipping a cosmo.  That’s it people.  That’s what you get for plane tickets, pressed suits and professional opinions.  I told my one friend M. C. that they must have said something like, “Forget scenes with her giving anyone advice on real estate.  She clearly sucks at that.  Let’s just keep her on film drinking.”  Which makes me wonder if I might be a good candidate for the Real Housewives.  Aha!  Could be a promising future there.  Of course that means I FIRST have to be a housewife.  Oh bother.

I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the show, watching L. in his newfound home of Taipei, and participating with everyone on Facebook® posting supportive thoughts and funny comments.  How fun it was to see fame in proximity.  But I had to muse at me.  I had gotten my inner self gussied up all day long to go to a ball where someone had forgotten to hire the orchestra.

It was then that I realized that this experience is just like 90% of the rest of experiences in life.  They aren’t really about me.  I think the moment you take hold of that reality and adopt it as your own is the moment you begin to truly know yourself and begin to understand life.  And it’s the moment that you begin to be a better person for others.

The moment that was about me had nothing to do with film footage that made the cut or didn’t make the cut in some editing room out in California.  My moment wasn’t me talking about markets or NOT talking about markets or sipping cosmos or making salads.  The moment that was about me was the moment I sat around a circular table with two friends and a family that I have come to call my own and appreciated that never again would we replicate that.

That moment was 100% about me.

- Amanda

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