Presbyfruit

Patching my pants

There's a commercial currently running on the boob tube with Dennis Haysbert.  I think it's for an insurance company.  There's a a bit where he narrates something like, "Will this be known as the Great Recession?  or the recession that made us great?"  I love that ad.  I'm very curious about how people respond to tragedy and difficult times.  Do they get irretrievably broken, or stronger? 

I know my spending habits have been forever changed by this recession.  I will never spend as recklessly as I have in the past.  I had already stopped using my credit cards for retail therapy by the time I lost my job, using them infrequently and paying off the balances every month.

After I found out about the job loss, I drew in and stopped spending on frivolous things.  I cook dinner almost every night and we go out to eat perhaps once a week.  I stopped buying DVD's and books and downloading whatever I wanted from iTunes.  

In November, during which I lost enough weight to necessitate the purchase of a pair of jeans, I bought a cheap pair from Kohl's.  Generally, I buy my church clothes at Talbot's and my casual clothing from L.L. Bean or Lands End.  Almost without fail, the clothes from these places last.  I still have the first turtleneck I bought from L.L. Bean back in 1986. That was in the days when you would fill out an order form, write a check and snail mail it to the company.  I still wear that turtleneck.

Well, my jeans from Kohl's already---already!--have two holes on the backside.  

So, I'm going to do what I've never done before:  patch them.  

I just can't bring myself to toss them.  I'm living in a new kind of austerity, so those jeans will be patched, probably very badly, since I'm no Suzy Homemaker, and worn for many more months.  

Until I lose more weight.  Then, I might just spring for some L.L. Bean mom jeans.  

Keeping the blog

Every time I think about deep-sixing Presbyfruit, I get mesmerized by the shiny baubles of Typepad's capabilities.  I don't know why I feel I need a web presence that costs $4.95 a month and that causes me some stress.  I went to Typepad this afternoon determined to cancel and get rid of this blog and there were so many cool new features---well, I'm still here. And doing another blog post.

I self-censor too much to get the emotional benefits that a hardcore, no-holds-barred private journal would provide.  I bore myself sometimes with thinking about what to write.  I really have no purpose, or focus.  And did I say I bore myself?  

Oh, well.  

What's happening with me:  I finished my first semester in court reporting, where I earned my very first 4.0.  Yeah, it's a community college and I already have my bachelor's degree and 36 hours toward a master's.  Still, I haven't been in school for 20-some years and I was full of anxiety most of the semester.  I had to meditate in my car before EVERY SINGLE class.  Plus, I  protein-loaded on class days for optimum intellectual performance.  In other words, I took it real serious [sic].  Unlike most of my very young classmates.  There is a definite generational gap going on.  But that's for another post.

I also was determined to have the best damn Christmas ever.  We erected a tree for the first time in nine years, played Christmas music non-stop, carefully planned the time we would spend with family.  Kari made a standing rib roast and Yorkshire pudding on Christmas day.  I ushered at the late Christmas Eve service.  While I don't subscribe to much of what we Presbyterians are supposed to subscribe to, I do believe most whole-heartedly in the Light.  That's what it's all about for me:  the Light in the darkness, the Light that heals, the Light that saves, the Light that transforms. 

I had a wonderful sense of that light this year, and I'm still holding on to it for dear life.  My natural (and probably chemical) depression is a daily threat to that light, but I'm still trying.  

You won't see me take the tree down---or turn off the music---for another week.  Or longer.