Lacy underthings

slips, teddies, lacy underthings

Coming to terms with what I *really* look like vs what my mind tells me--what no longer fits, both physically and in my imagination.  These lacy things I' been gifted or bought as a gift for someone else to enjoy seeing me in.  They made me feel pretty, the silky full slip creating visions of Stella in "Streetcar Named Desire", the teddy's either Victoria's Secret model or Rocky Horror Picture show, take your pick. 

Desktop Detris

Desktop Detris

I've been lax on posting about items I've gotten rid of over the past.  I have several pictures to catch up on.

This group of items were in my home office and have now gone on to better adventures.  The saying about work was a picture given me by an employee I supervised in the 80's.  She was quiet spoken and recognized I was living at work.  Unfortunately, I struggled to get my priorities straight and lived at work until I was laid off.

The Creative Whack Pack was a clever deck of cards to inspire innovative thinking and problem solving.  I think I might have used it to inspire writing but more importantly it helped expand my thinking about what I could do and how to do it.  The Maxine button was a little giggle that always made me smile!  The aqua mermaid was a gift from a work friend that was given one Christmas to honor the feminine side and the little hands clip a way of lightening up those stacks of papers everywhere. 

The picture of sandhill cranes I picked up on my first visit to the fields in Wilcox, Arizona with my girlfriend and my nieces. A special memory of a trip we took before I met my future husband.  It still confounds me how little pieces of my past persist into the present.

Sears Box

I'd had this old Sears gift box for years.  It held cards and notices and pictures from long ago.  I'd brought it with me from my mother's house when I left for college and shortly thereafter when I got married.  I'd been organizing pictures and this was at the bottom of a cedar chest.  I don't remember all that was in it...probably letters and cards from those early years; some of my school papers from high school I think.  I kept those and tossed the box.

Memories from Spain

Back in the 90's I attended a meeting of the International Standards Organization in Madrid, Spain.  I was the editor of the ISO 8583 standard that defines how to exchange credit card messages for authorizing and settling transactions.  The meetings lasted a week and as was my practice, I would fly in the weekend before to do some touristing.  This trip I traveled to Toledo (Toe-Lay-Doe) where I wandered narrow cobbled side streets of tiny shops.   

I bought a set of steak knives that I still have, as Toledo was supposedly known for its cutlery; I would never have been able to bring those home on the plane today.  I paid a pretty penny for some saffron spice too. There's a frilly fan on my bookcase and the usual bookmark and thimble I would collect when I traveled.  We toured the Prado Museum in Madrid where I saw original El Greco and Picasso paintings in brilliant colors and have the book to remember them by.  

I picked up the sunny blue and white sundial tile in the picture because I liked the message, Carpe Diem, and the colors and the multi-purpose use as a decoration and a sundial. I put it in my courtyard out front and it eventually ended up by the backyard fountain.  It was trampled a couple of times and is rusted and cracked and is being trashed.  Goodbye good memory.

Run, Run, Run

5K race bibs

A few years ago I ran in several 5ks.  The passage of time and lack of activity had packed on the pounds and I had to do something to chase them away.

I've never been able to do something without a purpose; there had to be a goal in mind and it had to contribute to something more than just the activity itself.  Thus, 5ks, an activity that would contribute to weight loss and provided measurable benchmarks of improvement.

The best I did in any of the races was 41 minutes.  Since a 5K is 3.1 miles, I managed to do about a 13 minute mile.  Not stellar by any means, but an achievement for me, someone that spent my required time in P.E. classes volunteering to keep score to avoid any exertion.

In June of  2012 I took a trip to Aravaipa Canyon to a B and B with my BFF.  We hiked the canyon and I remember feeling strong and confident as a result of those races.  I'd been wearing a step tracker for a long time and tracking my food intake.  On that trip I was unable to connect to the tracker and broke a streak of consecutive days of tracking. Funny, it was incredibly frustrating and demoralizing. I ran a couple more races the next year and then gave up, adding back some pounds and losing flexibility in my back.

In 2014 I tossed all my bibs, thinking I'd still remember those accomplishments but in reality I think I was getting rid of the evidence of having given up.  See, running in races is not like taking a college course or completing a project.  It's a continuing test of your abilities and it can be a celebration of just living, without a goal, without judgment, without an end.  It might be time to revisit the outdoors on foot.

World Travels

When I worked during the 80's, 90's and up until 2001, I got to travel internationally - a lot.  It started when my company wanted to install ATM machines in airports all over the world and later wanted to have banks sell their product.  I was lucky enough to be the person that explained how it was done to the bank's business and technical personnel.  Then, the financial industry wanted a standard way of talking to the ATMs and sending transactions so I met with international banking organizations and we hammered out standards.  Of course, this worked best face to face so I racked up thousands of airline miles, meeting up in a different host county once or twice a year.

So here I am years later digging through memorabilia and I find my foreign currency change purse. Back before the Euro, each country in Europe issued its own currency.  When I travelled, I would buy some of the local currency when I arrived in a new country and try to spend it all before I left.  What didn't get spent ended up in my stash at home. I spent a couple of hours sorting out the coins by country of origin, including a little surfing to identify some of the tricky ones.  Here's the list of countries:

coins from my travels

• Austria
• Belgium
• British Caribbean
• Canada
• Costa Rica
• Denmark
• England
• France
• Germany
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Portugal
• Singapore
• Spain
• Taiwan
• Thailand

Okay, some of those were vacations (British Caribbean, Costa Rica, Mexico) and there's some missing (Australia, why don't I have any from there?)

My son has a coin collection so these will go to him with the countries identified.  Time for this traveler to make new trips!

Letting go of dreams

Many, many years ago I designed a sewing room in my house.  I worked with a carpenter and specified all sorts of nooks and features for my sewing.  Back then, I made most of my own clothes and outfits for my toddler.  When it was installed I bought this wallpaper to put up around the room. I loved this pattern.  I imagined it in the room, complimenting the paint of the cabinets.  I dreamed of making curtain tiebacks in the pale green and accent pillows in the peach colors.  I didn't get the wallpaper up in that house, but I stubbornly removed the built-ins and had them re-installed in my present home.  And the wallpaper came with me.

These rolls have sat on various shelves or been stashed in closets now for over 25 years.  I still love this wallpaper.  It wouldn't go anywhere now, even in my office/sewing room where it would clash with my closet shades.  It's a lot of work as I recall, to put up wallpaper and like any decorating project, it spawns a cascading wave of other changes.  And yet, I have a very hard time letting them go.  See, they represent a life I once had, a life I wanted at the time.  Keeping them around gave me the feeling I could still have that life if I would just put up the wallpaper.  And keeping the rolls said that some day I'd have the time to put it up, to realize the dream.  Getting rid of it is admitting to what feels like failure, a lack of will to finish something I started.  It says to me that I can still do what I said I would do and I would experience the pleasure of accomplishment and be able to enjoy something I thought was beautiful and reflected who I was.  I was someone who surrounded herself with delicate prints in muted colors that reflected a calm demeanor and feminine sensibilities.

Here's the truth - who I am is someone who dreams and has a hard time letting go of those dreams when they are no longer necessary or applicable.  And the harder truth, holding on to old dreams takes up space in the here and now and none of the dreams are realized, not yesterday's or today's.

I've thought of seeing if someone I knew would want them, giving me a chance to have them put to good purpose and maybe even see the wallpaper installed, thought not in my home.  Passing on the dream, so to speak.  But that doesn't work either.  Everyone has their own dreams waiting.

So, they are going to Goodwill, part of my purging my surroundings of things that no longer serve me.  It will free up some new shelf space that I'll use for genealogy files, my newer passion.  It feels like a weight off of my shoulders though there is a tug in my heart.