Overbooked and Underpaid: Notes from a Yes-aholic

The Unraveling - The Tooth Fairy Is The Catalyst.....

 

The following is a piece I wrote for a book called "Pandora's Box", a collaborative project by artists and writers in Southeast Wisconsin, published by Southport Press. My Husband John did two wonderful illustrations for it that can only be seen if you buy the book.

The Unraveling

We begin when our children are small.

 
 (Too small to have any idea what we're talking about, really. How absurd to say to a six month old infant "Look what Santa Claus brought you!".)

 
And, though we know there can only be one ending to this little house of cards we are building, one of disappointment and disillusionment, we proceed with abandon. 

 
I’m not sure who it started with - I think it must have been Santa Claus because all our children were born after Easter. We stuck pretty much with the big three: Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, and handled it in the usual way, with  lots of subterfuge to maintain the illusion. 

We’d send the kids out to wait in  the car as we headed to Grandma's. Then there would be a few trips back into the house "for things we forgot", so that we could add the presents that “Santa” would bring.

There were the years of trying desperately to stay awake on  Christmas Eve until the children were safely asleep so that stockings could be filled. And hours spent removing price tags from the presents from “The North Pole” because Elves don’t use pricing guns. Not to mention the cookie and milk consuming martyrdom that led to our thickening waistlines.

And we did it well.

Until it all began to unravel.

And who unraveled it?

The Tooth Fairy.

Yes, the Tooth Fairy.

She was our undoing. And I suspect she is the undoing of parents everywhere because she is the weak link in the chain. 

First of all, there are the inconsistencies of pay scale. It is all very well and good to put a dollar under your child's pillow if he or she has no friends with which to compare notes. But, add even one other child into the mix, and a discussion of the pay rates will begin. 

Worse yet, is the tooth that is lost in the midst of a sleepover. Now you are smack up against it. Do you suddenly put two dollars under the pillow because the visiting child always gets two dollars?

You see, if we really want to make this work, we as parents should be a lot more organized. We should unionize the Tooth Fairy and firmly establish the rates. Is a molar worth more than a bicuspid? Is a broken tooth worth less than a whole one?

But I suspect the biggest downfall for parents is the sheer randomness of the losing of teeth. We all know when Santa and the Easter Bunny come. We are prepared. We have a plan. But the Tooth Fairy has to be there, at the ready, at all sorts of unexpected times. 

And, because we have not planned for this, we are not capable of holding on to the knowledge that we need to stay up late tonight and take care of it. This was our undoing with all three of our children. By the time we were ready for bed we had completely forgotten that we had a job to do.

So we went to sleep. And, in the morning, we remembered...

And we tried to, very carefully and quietly, slip the money under the pillow without wakening the child. 

Oops.

Or, we waited until the child got up and went to the bathroom. At which time we flew into their bedroom like lightening to do the deed.

Only to find out later that said child had checked under the pillow before leaving the room.

 
Before the bathroom - tooth, no money. 

After the bathroom - money, no tooth.

It doesn't take a future rocket scientist to figure that one out.

So then the suspicion begins to grow. And, with raised eyebrow and a manner the chief of police would admire, they grill us about all the other little fantasies we may have spun for them over the years.

And soon it is all over. And we have little grown ups living in our house where once there were innocent children.

And we plead with them not to give away the secret to their younger sister.

!@#% Tooth Fairy.

 

The Death Of The Christmas Newsletter?

 

I have an unhappy relationship with holiday greetings. I have not managed to send out a Christmas card - or holiday card of any kind, actually, since 2000.

That was the year I lost my address book.

My first reaction, upon learning I had lost all those addresses should have been one of despair, right?

It was unbridled relief.

Relief at the thought that I had a legitmate excuse for not sending out holiday cards that year.

Why? Why such distast for a time honored tradition loved by millions of people? I mean, who doesn't like to get Christmas cards? And, I must confess here that I eagerly await all the cards other people send me. (Which is, of course, completely unfair and hypocritical.)

I burned out on Chrstimas cards because of the new tradition - probably started in the 1990's - of the CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTER. 

Before the Christmas newsletter became such a staple of our lives, it was easy to divide my cards up into two piles.

1) Close friends and family who I see regularly - these are folks who completely don't mind if we just sign our name to the card and

2) People we almost never see (we may not have actually seen them in years) - these folks you have to write a little note to catching them up on your life and inquiring about theirs.

And that was the extent of it. 

Pile number one always went very quickly and pile number two went a little more slowly but it wasn't that bad because the note was a politeness. A mere 5 sentence summary of the state of our lives - maybe a little more, maybe a little less. The note was NOT a blow by blow description of every illness or every acheivement.

Now that they have been around a while, Chrismas letters have evolved somewhat in that there are a few people who do them very well. They strike just the right balance of chattiness and catching you up without beating you over the head with accomplishments that make you feel like chopped liver or depressing the daylights out of you with their litany of sorrows.

But is this all, now, a moot point? 

Because now we have Facebook. And Twitter. And Google+. And Blogs. 

We are awash in each other's news. 

I can now find out the almost day to day activities of anyone I've chosen to interact with via social networking and the internet. 

Does this mean the impending death of the Christmas newsletter?

Boy, I hope so! 

I have a new address book and my two piles of cards ready to go.

 

What Is It With Valentines?

I don't know if you've spent a lot of time in the greeting card aisle lately, but something odd is going on.

I first noticed it last year when I was trying to pick out a nice anniversary card for John. 

(I know, I know, artistic types like John and I are supposed to be whipping up beautiful homemade cards for each other - as I stated in a previous post, "Like we don't have enough to do.")

As I cruised through all the cards marked "Husband" I was having a tough time finding a nice one. Because so many of the cards had a sentiment like this "I know we haven't always had our fairytale ending, but we're still together and I love you anyway." 

I know you think I'm kidding but I'm not. Card after card said something similar. Then I found the cards that had about 6 paragraphs about true love - not expressing that this woman feels that her husband is her true love - simply stating the fact that, ifyou're lucky enough to find it, it's really, really wonderful. After reading all the previous cards, these cards now had the aura of faking it.

So I decided to check out the "Wife" cards and see if there was a similar trend.

Nope.

All those cards went on and on about "I can't imagine my life without you" or "You complete me". "I'm the luckiest man in the world."

What gives?

I can only deduce that there are a whole lot of crabby women out there who, for some reason, feel they could have done better, and a whole lot of men who feel at least they lucked out and someone said yes.

Or else there are a bunch of crabby women trying to send their husbands a message and a bunch of men just telling their wives what they want to hear.

Or else there is just one crabby woman writing all the cards and she is saying what she thinks everyone should be saying.

I forgot about it until the other day when I tried to find a nice Valentine and ran into the same thing all over again.

It's too late for you to check this theory on Valentines because at 12:01 on the dot all the Valentine cards were spirited away to be replaced with Easter cards (I know this because of the year I forgot to get a card and thought "No biggie, I'll just grab one tomorrow" - Ha!)

But, next time you're in the store, swing on over and check out the anniversary cards and let me know what you find.

In the meantime, I guess I'm back to making my own cards :-)

 

2011 Resolutions Part Two

I've had some time to think of more resolutions for 2011. They may get thrown under the bus in short order, but I can dream, can't I?

5) Do some Life Pruning. What is life pruning, you ask? (And well you may because I just made it up.) I was recently speaking with a harp colleague and we were catching up on our lives. I told her about all the new things I was doing - the blogs and, particularly, adding my teaching daughter's elementary music class into the mix - and she asked. "What did you drop?" 

Silence.

Because, of course, the answer was "Nothing".

She was stunned when I told her. She says she has a very strict rule about not adding something new to her schedule without eliminating something. 

Obviously this woman is not a yes-aholic.

And, obviously, she is onto something here. So I decided to take her advice and look for some things to get rid of in hopes of making my life more manageable . 

Hence, "Life Pruning".

6) Attain a better balance between cyber life and analog life. This is a little the same as the pruning thing but not exactly. It's so easy to get sucked into oodles of time at my computer and I need to make sure that I am monitoring the amount of time I spent looking at a screen (whether desktop or ipad) and limiting it. A) I'm sure it's horrible for my eyes and B) it's preventing me from spending quality time with family and friends . (see Analog Time for more on this)

Part of this resolution is going to involve reassessing all my websites and blogs and figuring out what goes, what stays, and what gets added. I can already tell you that the Bookings, Grades, and Shortfalls are leaving.  I'll be addressing their removal in a later post.

7) Get more fit. I don't need to lose a bunch of weight but I do need to get more fit and healthy overall. I'll also be elaborating more on this in a later post.

 

And I think that does it. Seven is number that almost feels doable. 

 

We'll see.

2011 Resolutions Part One

Well, tis the season for resolutions and I'm making a few. Putting them down here just might keep me honest.

1) Make sure to get chores done every day before playing hooky doing art

2) Stop playing Solitaire on my ipad (goodness knows how much time I've wasted doing this since I got the thing) 

3) When I feel the urge to play Solitaire, to pick up something to read instead. I've really missed reading this year. I literally have over 100 NYer magazines to catch up on and several books.

4) Figure out how to be funny when I don't feel like it. This is a biggie but the last couple of days I've hit on some triggers that may help.

More as I think of them.....

Produce Drawer of Death or "I Need A New Fridge"!

Produce Drawer of Death or "I Need a New Fridge"

So it's the holiday season and that means guests. 

And that means cleaning. 

Not just cleaning. 

CLEANING. 

As in everything.

Everything as in all three bathrooms - including the medicine cabinets (you knowpeople open your medicine cabinets), all the mold and mildew in the shower (you know they look at that too - I don't know why, but they do), the toilets (including under the lid - a place the boys in my life should understand some people will see), behind the toilets and the pedestal sinks (ugh!.. my very least favorite - it's where all the dog hair not only gathers but somehow congeals), and the ritual placing of the fake towels (you know the ones - the ones no one in the family ever uses so they'll look nice for company - and the "company" thinks they are also too nice to use and so they sneakily wipe their hands on the shower curtain).

Everything as in moving all the furniture when you vacuum because someone might actually change the position of something and discover what's lurking under there much of the year.

Everything as in all the doors and door frames and light switches and kitchen cabinet knobs that apparently have not been cleaned since last Christmas. It's amazing how much grime builds up in these places without me noticing it. When I suddenly become aware of it about, oh.. Dec 6th, I am stunned at its obviousness and our slovenliness. For a brief moment, I worry that this grime will have been obvious to any and all other guests we may have had throughout the course of the year. Then, like the blissful forgetfulness that follows labor pains, I put it out of my mind until next December.

Everything as in the stovetop (never, I repeat never get a black enamel rangetop - shows every last water spot and grease speck) and the oven door and the dishwasher door (goddamned stainless steel). 

And, finally.... everything as in the inside of the fridge. Yes the inside of the fridge. Because not only is this the time of year for many guests, it's the time of year for many guests to help you. They will be in the kitchen helping get food on the table and fetching things in and out of the fridge for you and JUDGING YOU.

Which brings me to why I need a new fridge. Because not only is my fridge of an unknown age (it came with the house 12 years ago and it was probably at least 15 years old then), my fridge is frightening. Frightening because it makes a variety of unsettling noises  - hisses and pops and growls and grumblings - it's like something out of the Shining. When I open the door, I expect to hear "Redrum!" or else see those animal things from the fridge in Ghostbuters.

And frightening because of all the death it contains. Dead soup, dead bowls of spagetti, dead half eaten yogurts, dead jars of crystalized jam, dead chinese food, and dead produce. 

Now the produce is in a different category of death. Most of the dead items in my fridge consist of optimistically placed leftovers. (You'd think after 24 years John and I would know which types of leftovers will actually get eaten and which ones are doomed to become a ritualistic sacrifice to the refrigerator gods. Yet we continue to put all supper leftovers in there blithely assuming they'll turn into lunches.) These I at least have no problem eventually throwing away - they never taste as good as when they were new anyway and they grow fascinating varieties of mold.

But the produce represents a bigger failure. The produce represents a quest for healthy eating. Salads never made, vegetables never served for dinner, oranges that, while they looked juicy at the store, have turned out to be little rind covered balls of sawdust.

I try, I really do. Every trip to the grocery store I buy all these healthy fresh foods with every intention of consuming every bit of them. So where does it all break down? Why are these foods not getting eaten? It's not that we are junk food junkies - we love to cook and these  are foods we actually like to eat. 

No, the fault lies with my fridge and the produce drawer of death. My theory is that it is all the fault of the design of my "freezer on top - fridge on the bottom" refrigerator. First of all there are two produce drawers - one that says "moist cold" and one that says "vegetables and fruit" and the fact that I cannot for the life of me figure out what is supposed to go into the "moist cold" one if it isn't vegetables and fruit.

Second is the fact that the drawers are tinted like sunglasses and you cannot see what is in them without opening them. This, of course, means that, unless you open them constantly, stuff is pretty sure to be going bad in there. Thirdly, and here is where we get to the new fridge part, the produce drawers are all the way at the bottom of the fridge. I practically have to get down on my hands and knees to even get access to them. Talk about out of sight out of mind. So what I need is... drumroll please... one of those new refrigerators that has the freezer on the bottom and the fridge on the top with the lovely french doors and the produce drawers right smack dab at eye level. With clear plastic that I can see through to boot. 

I am absolutely, stupendously sure that this will solve all of my fridge death problems and we will eat healthy evermore. And, I won't have to clean the fridge this year for company :-)

Are you listening, John?

Epilogue:

A year has come and gone since I wrote that and I still have my cruddy old fridge and yes, I still plan to clean it before my big Christmas Party. I got started in a small way tonight. When I opened my produce drawers, this is what I found:

Tonight, funeral services were conducted for two heads of lettuce, some grapes, green onions and a desiccated lemon.

These grapes are both dried up and moldy - pick your poison...

I assure you, this lettuce smells every bit as delicious as it looks.....

This poor lettuce never even made it out of the plastic wrap....

John swears that, as I stroll through the produce aisle at the store, all the fruits and vegetables recoil in horror when they see me coming. Like that little fish killing girl in "Finding Nemo" 

Sigh.

New Years' Resolution number one: stopping killing lettuces.

Ornaments Ahoy!

In my previous post I talked about all the decorating I do for the holidays and alluded to the vast quantity of Christmas ornaments I possess. 

I don't really know how to make clear to you the scope of the number of ornaments we are talking about. I guess the best way is in terms of Christmas trees. If you take your average 6 to 7 foot tree and decorated it modestly - you know, so that there is actual space between ornaments - I probably have enough ornaments to fill 5-7 trees. Needless to say, the 3 trees I do decorate each year (1 large, 1 medium and 1 small) are way overfilled and a number of ornaments just flat out stay in their boxes. I try to rotate who makes the tree each year, but, let's face it - some ornaments are stars and some are bench warmers.

It's not as though I have an ornament addiction - I have probably only purchased 25 or fewer ornaments since I got married and started actually setting up Christmas trees. No, the answer lies in heirlooms and the handing down of things and melding of households.

Ornament category 1: ornaments from my husband's childhood. 

Probable total: 35-45

These ornaments range from the classics handed down through the family since easily the 1940's......

to some of those golden oldie wooden ones everyone had in the 1960's (I had one too - John's is the Santa, mine is the two little children) ..............

                   

to some, ahem, "classics" of the 1970's...............

 

Ornament category 2: Ornaments crocheted or otherwise handmade by John's late grandmother

Probable total: 75-100

These have always been particularly special. She began giving them to us when we first got married and continued right up until her death. Some of the crocheted ones have been stiffened with a sugar mixture (which apparently makes them an irresistible treat for certain dogs - one of my sisters-in-law lost several of hers in a sordid cocker spaniel snack attack) and the ones she made after she moved into the nursing home are pretty floppy. Victims of my "some day I'll get to starching those" lifestyle.

starched

unstarched

 

Ornament category 3: homemade by my kids

Probable total: 15-20

I adore these - it was sad when my children migrated into public school where such things do not get made for mothers and fathers at holiday time. 

Ornament category 4: homemade by my mother

Probable total: 10 or so

These are also quite special but sporadic. My mother's life is even more hectic than mine so the time she has to sit down and embroider any more is rare. 

 

You can tell she had only two children when she made this one - imagine having enough time to find cute things to cut out of magazines, mounting them, cutting them out on the scroll saw and decorating them. Starting to see where I get my overbooked gene?

Ornament category 5: given by friends or ornament exchange parties

Probable total: 25-30

I won't bother with pictures of the ones from my students - they are pretty much all variations on the theme of harps - but I really like this porcelain gingerbread house from an ornament exchange - tremendously heavy though,

Ornament category 6: ornaments gifted to my children by my mother in law

Total: 43

There is absolutely no guesswork on this number as my mother in law has faithfully given each of my children a special ornament for every Christmas they have been alive.

Unfortunately, many of them are gone or in pieces in storage because for the first 5 - 8 years she bought adorable ornaments from Hallmark that turned out to be incredibly poorly made. Contrary to the longevity of ornaments purchased in my childhood that are still going strong, these usually did not last more than one season. For years John had a plethora of disembodied hands, heads, toys, you name it,  in his basement workshop waiting to be reassembled. But plastic does not take to being glued all that well and he eventually gave up. Luckily, my mother in law decided enough was enough and started investing in a different kind of ornament entirely. I am happy to say, all those have survived beautifully.

This one stays in its box - it's what holds the pieces together.

virtually unbreakable!

Ornament category 7: ornaments from my childhood or ornaments thrust upon me by my mother the year she swore off Christmas trees for the rest of her life.

Probable total: Lord knows

I cannot even begin to count them. To be fair, they are all wonderful and I am happy to have them - it's just there are so many!

My favorites are the glass ornaments that survived the great tree crash of '74. That was the year our favorite pug, Phoebe, got herself tangled in something at the base of the tree and brought the whole thing down on herself. As that tree was easily as full as my current tree, the loss of ornaments was considerable. It makes those that I have all the more special. It also gave my mother an excuse to go out scrounging tag sales for replacements, boosting the ornament count even higher. Here are some of my personal favorites - I'd be curious if anyone out there has similar ones.....

I've never seen this duck anywhere else.

There were several of these jointed 2-piece ones - this is the only survivor. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hang it, the paint is starting to crackle on the inside.

This one I have seen in collectable books

I love the three dimensionality of this one.

I love bells. Notice the length of the stem on this one.......

versus the length of the stem on this one.

Explanation: the green bell lost some of its stem in the great crash. My mother resourcefully just put a cap and hook on it anyway.

So that's a little journey through my ornament madness.

Next post: storing more ornaments than you know what to do with.

Deck The House From Top To Bottom - Fa La La La La........

Thanksgiving is our kickoff for the Christmas season. We used to wait until the middle of December or later to put up our Christmas tree until we discovered that A) all the trees on the lot are cut at the same time and the longer you wait, the dryer and deader the tree is by the time you put it up, B) the trees by us don't get any cheaper as the season goes on so we weren't saving any money, and C) Thanksgiving is our only weekend off before December madness. As a harpist, December is the month where I earn my income for January and February as well.

Plus, we never go out and shop on black Friday and choosing the tree and putting up the decorations is some nice post turkey stupor family time. And now that we have a son in college that we see 3 times a year, it feels even more important to spend that time bonding over something traditional.

But, the tree is only the beginning. As I mentioned last week (or the week before that..... or some time before today - my days are all smooshing together) we have a big Christmas party that ranges all over our house. So Thanksgiving weekend has sort of evolved into "decorat-a-palooza"

For some of it I cheat. I have a number of embellished fake evergreen garlands above doorways and, about 5 years ago, I got fed up with all the embellishments falling out and getting lost every time I took the garlands down (I just stick stuff in there, I never take the time to wire things in or anything) and I started just leaving them up there year round.

Which works pretty well in that, A) most people don't look up there very often anyway and B) my social life has dwindled to such a trickle that I don't have anyone over the rest of the year. And I don't think my students care that much.

This one really only gets noticed when I plug the lights in.

And this one is particularly sneaky as it is surrounded by some stenciling I started several years ago because I liked the look of the garland. The unfinished painting around the door frame is a tale for another post.

Then there are the three, yes three, Christmas trees. 

Tree number one is the main tree in the living room. This is the live one we shop for on Friday and holds all the glass ornaments. A word about ornaments - I have so many ornaments, I have to do a completely separate post about them!

Tree number two is a small fake tree in the family room that holds primarily home made ornaments.

And tree number three is a teeny, tiny tree from John's childhood that we move from place to place. This year it is in residence on the ugly avocado green piano in hopes that folks will look at the charming decorations on top of said piano and fail to notice that it is, in fact, avocado green. What were people thinking in 1947? Who ever thought this was a good color for furniture or instruments?

(I also have these charming little village bits that I keep out year round (except for the Santa) for my students to fiddle with while waiting for their lessons)

Other attempts to divert attention from the color of the piano include the Angel Chimes  from both John's and my childhoods - you can tell we're children of the 60's - I know of practically no one that grew up at a certain time in the midwest who did not have a set of these......

(Thank goodness for the directions - every year I forget how to put the thing together.)

 

 - and, a relic of the 70's - John's Charlie Brown Christmas pop-up.

Which is probably worth something, nowdays. If you wait long enough, your entire childhood becomes collectible.

Next post: Ornaments Ahoy!

 

A Slightly Preachy Thanksgiving Message

 

I hope this Thanksgiving finds you celebrating with friends or family or both over a lovely home cooked meal.

And, if so, please consider all the folks who will be unable to celebrate in kind, but will be dependent on the local food pantry for their holiday meal. I know there are many, many food drives at this time of year - I hope you have been able to donate. If not, there's still time.

Below is a piece I wrote about our experience giving to the food pantry. I don't know if we'll be in a position to do quite as much this year, but we're going to try.

Excuse me, it's Sunday and I'm going to take a little time to Sermonize.

I don't know about where you live, but here it's cold. Bitterly cold. 

And we have homeless people - many of them families with young children. 

We have several programs for the homeless in our community, both for food and temporary shelter and round about November and December, every time I turn around it seems there is a food or clothing drive for the food pantry and the shelter.

This is a good thing.

But now it's January and the time of year that the eyes of the public tend to stray from such drives. Especially with the crisis of Haiti to take up the media's attention.

Don't get me wrong - I am in no way suggesting that we should not be reaching out to the Haiti earthquake victims in their time of such great need - I am just reminding you that you probably have many many people who need your compassion as well in your own back yard.

 

We are regular contributers to our local food pantry. For years, my oldest son used to have  a carnival in our yard for all our friends and neighbors. He started it when he was 5 with the express purpose of donating the proceeds to the pantry. (I think he got the idea when I told him how, in my childhood, we were always having carnivals for MS) Anyway, every year, he and John would build a contraption for the carnival - there was a complicated "sucker push"  (I can't remember how that one worked exactly), a skeeball, a sponge throw (with a face cut out for the willing victim) among others, as well as a variety of games. 

By the time we shelled out the $ for all the prizes and game materials, I think we were usually about $75 in the hole, but that was beside the point. The neighborhood turned out and had a good time and the pride my son took in taking the proceeds to the pantry was immeasurable.

We stopped the carnivals when he was about 14, I think, and took to just sending a check every November and food to all the church and school drives. And we felt we were doing our part.

But something was missing. That engagement  our kids got from doing something themselves was lacking.

So, a couple of weeks ago, while Alex was still back from college, I took all three kids down to the local grocery store, gave them each a set amount and a calculator, and challenged them to see how much food for the pantry they could each buy. To the winner would go a homemade apple pie. (My kids kill for these pies).

It was interesting to see the choices they made - and how much they've learned from me over the years when it comes to stretching a dollar. While the oldest, had the largest number of items by far - 158 - the youngest easily made the most nutritious choices and the middle one probably won the most points for food homeless kids would like most to eat. Because I set the prize on the amount of food, the oldest won - but I may have to rethink my definition of winning for next time and include healthfulness.

I devised a system where, each kid got their own cart and, as they checked their groceries through and they were bagged, I took a sharpie and put their intitials on the bag so we would be able to compare it all later. I also used the grocery receipts. 

My mother, who was visiting, also got into the act and bought 25 can openers to donate. I would never have thought of this, but she works regularly at the pantry in her town and she said they never have enough can openers.

It was a terrific experience. Not only did my kids get into it, but, as we hit the checkout the employees got really into it. The next time I came in shopping, several people came up to me to ask who won :-)

The thing that astonished me as we did this, was the real amount of food we were able to amass for roughly what I would pay for two weeks of my regular grocery budget. The kids dropped off 399 items in over 70 bags. My van was full to overflowing.

So I'm asking you today to take a little time and remember those in your community who need your help. I know that, in our area, the job losses have more than tripled the number of folks who are using our food bank and related services. 

If you have old coats, gloves and mittens, and you live in a cold climate, take a minute to drop those items off at the appropriate collection site. If you can see your way clear, pick up 10 extra items when you buy groceries and set them aside for a monthly drop off to your local food pantry.

And, if you happen to be a cartoonist, find out if your local shelter needs any artwork for their fundraiser. John currently does not sell original strips but he has donated some to charitable organizations.

Hunger knows no holiday - it doesn't disappear after Christmas.

 

 

 

The Ghost of Christmas (Parties) Past pt 2

This is a rug I gave away at last year's Christmas Party - I thought I'd give you the low down on how I made it. (The following post originally appeared on my Edison Blog.)

My oldest son left for college this year. This resulted in our observance of the ritual known as "The Giving Up Of The Room". A ritual observed in households all across America - you oldest children know what I'm talking about. As an oldest child myself, I remember well the months of clearing through crap and the sound of my sister taking possession of my room with whoops of glee.  I don't think the ink was dry on my college acceptance letter before she began hatching her plans for the takeover. 

This summer, our house was no exception. Son #2 spent months regaling son #1 with his grand visions for his new space. The part of the ritual I was not familiar with is the role of the mom, or as I came to see myself, "she who must clean up the mess and figure out what to keep in storage, what to send to Goodwill, and what to pitch".

Which brings us to the blue jeans.  Lots of blue jeans. Years of blue jeans.

Blue jeans that were too small to wear anymore as well as too crappy to give to Goodwill. And somehow, there were too many to throw away. Looking at the enormous pile, I felt a surge of guilt at the thought of adding that much bulk to a landfill.

So I started looking around the internet. I knew I remembered hearing about companies making insulation or something out of old blue jeans and, sure enough, I found a lot of sites that claimed to accept old blue jeans for recycling. 

I say "claimed" because every site I found said something to the effect "Don't send us anymore blue jeans - we're full!!!!!"

Which isn't all that surprising if you think about it. Take a look around you the next time you are out in public anywhere. There are a lot of people wearing blue jeans. They're practically a national uniform.

So now what?!

Well, it just so happened, I had a book checked out of the library at that time called "Eco-craft" that had a suggestion for making a rug out of old sweaters. I thought, "Why not a rug out of blue jeans?".

So here I offer you, for anyone who is interested in a useful thing to do with old blue jeans, my journey to a rug. 

This rug is knit using garter stitch (the very simplest knitting stitch) on size 15 needles with a long plastic extension in the middle so you can handle the width.

So, to start, you have to take apart the jeans. I found it best to take off the pockets first. You'll need a good strong seam ripper.

 

Next, comes deconstructing the legs. Most jeans have extra thick reinforced double stitched seams everywhere so the best thing I found was to just cut the jeans up and skip trying to undo the seams. This will leave you with a "jean skeleton" that looks like this:

and jean pieces that look like this:

I experimented with a couple different ways of cutting and finally settled on a spiral starting from the outside edge of each piece. This gives the longest possible piece for knitting up later. Don't make the piece too thick (it will be difficult to handle) or too thin (due to the way denim frays, pieces that are too thin will eventually separate and break, making a hole in the rug).

When you've finished cutting, wind it into a ball like this.

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Once you have all your jeans cut up and wound into balls, decide how wide you want the rug to be and cast on as many stitches as you need for that width. Then just knit back and forth in garter stitch until the rug is as long as you want it to be. (Or you run out of material :-)).

As you get to the end of each ball of "yarn" you'll need to add the new ball. I found the best method was to sort of overlap about 6-8 inches of the tails (so that you are briefly knitting two strands at once) rather than tying the strips in knots. The knots had a tendency to show and also to make bumps in the rug. Some of them also frayed and fell apart.  Once the rug is finished, you can trim down any of the overlapped bits that are sticking out.

 

Good luck - here's to keeping old clothes out of landfills. I think I may try this with other old clothes I don't know what to do with.

A follow up note: The family that got this rug cherished it until their dog peed on it. When they put it in their washing machine, it sustained some damage. If you make a rug like this, I would suggest washing it in the bathtub rather than a regular washer.