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I’m up to my eyeballs in rhinos. No, not real ones. Seems as though I’ve inadvertently volunteered to paint a canvas for my daughter’s class to be auctioned off to raise money for the PTA. (Wow–that sentence was chock full of prepositional phrases, huh?) It’s due Friday. (Actually, it was due Monday, but I’m a temperamental artist so they’re just gonna have to deal with it.) I’ve copied the kids’ artwork and still need to finish painting. No time to write something brilliant and life changing, so here’s some leftovers for y’all. Sorry/you’re welcome:

Oh, gentle reader! It’s been too long since my last Sky Mall post! Oh sure, I’m all for the occasional serious post and random ridiculousness…

But I have neglected you, dearest Sky Mall! How could I go so long without paying homage to you: Giant book of overpriced, unnecessary crap practically begging me to make fun of you? Here it is the middle of the summer, and there’s no doubt piles of disposal income just lying around waiting to be spent! Right? Right? Okay, maybe not…whatever…

Hair is an amazing thing. (Nice segue, huh?) As mammals, we all have varying degrees of it. But we never seem content. We have too much in some places and not enough in others. This has not escaped the attention of the fine folks at the Sky Mall.

R.E.M. Spring Hair Remover $19.95

Do I really need to explain what this thing is? It’s basically a really tightly coiled spring that rips your facial hair out in a completely “pain free” manner. Yeee–aaah. Sure it does. Does it work? Just ask this satisfied Sky Mall customer:

“Wonderful gadget/tool. I’ve told many friends about this and they each plan to purchase one. I’ll be giving them for holidays gifts this year!”

Merry Christmas Aunt Margaret! Thought you might enjoy this as you are beginning to look like Uncle Phil!

And speaking of Uncle Phil, perhaps he might enjoy:

The Hairmax Laser Comb $495.00

“In a clinical study, HairMax treated hair loss and regrew hair for 93% of those who used it. HairMax users also report improved quality, shine and manageability.”

Don’t believe me? Check out THESE results!:

M’kay…I suppose that’s worth 500 bucks plus shipping and handling. Dear menfolk losing your hair: Keep your hair short. If you have a nice looking head, trying shaving it. Just say no to the comb over. Please?

“But katdish! You don’t understand! You have thick, wonderful hair! How can you stand in judgement?” Because I’m katdish…that’s what I do. Okay, okay…check this out:

Toppik Hair Building Fibers $21.95

Toppik Makes Thin Hair Look Thick and Natural in 30 Seconds over 2 Million People Use It. Doctors Recommend it. Celebrities Won’t go on Without it. Now you can instantly eliminate the appearance of baldness and thinning hair. Toppik gives you greater coverage and a thick, full looking head of hair all in about 30 seconds!

I’m no scientist or chemist, but I’m pretty sure this is similar to the “sea monkey principle”. (Don’t ask…I just know these things.)

By now you have a great head of hair. So you are no longer self-conscious about getting that hair wet! Time to hit the pool and get some exercise!

Endless Pool $20,900.00

“Our signature product, the Original Endless Pool is designed to fit just about anywhere, indoors or outside…This flexibility has allowed more than 12,000 customers to realize the dream of swimming at home in an Original Endless Pool.”

Wow! Twelve thousand customers? If I had a dollar for every satisfied customer, I still wouldn’t have enough money to buy that pool! I’m guessing you don’t either. No worries, you can still enjoy the cardiovascular benefits of swimming with this next product:

The AquaVee Portable Swim System Kit $84.90


“An easy to install system that turns any pool into a lap pool. The AquaVee installation time takes about 60 seconds and can be used anytime anywhere! The AquaVee is extremely portable and will fit any pool no matter the size.”

Now, I realize to the untrained eye, this looks like some surgical tubing, suction cups and a tube of silicon, but trust me….That’s exactly what it is.

This next catalog item I chose for a couple of reasons. First, the picture is pretty freaky, and second, I’m wondering why that guy didn’t buy the Hairmax Laser Comb. Don’t you think he could afford it? Me thinks, yes…

Executive Health Evaluation: $3,495.00

Experience a day-long, 5-star treatment at one of our beautiful contemporary Centers…(blah, blah, blah….)

Benefits may include: (may include? Craptastic!)

Decreased risk of age-related disease
Improved muscle tone
Decreased body fat
Increased energy
Increased libido (wink, wink!)
Sharper thinking (so maybe you won’t spend 3500 bucks on a fancy doctor’s appointment!)

The final item up for review has nothing to do with anything really. It just made me giggle:

Giddyup! Core Exerciser – Dual Motor $469.00

“The Giddyup! Core Exerciser is the latest innovation in core strength training! This core exerciser benefits posture, improves balance, builds core strength and has up to 25 speed combinations.”

“The trotting and galloping action of a horse helps strengthen the rider’s spine and pelvic muscles, improves posture and stimulates seldom-used core muscles, in the dorsal and abdominal regions. This product also invigorates the body, promotes good blood flow, and an increased metabolism.”

I’m going to be honest. If they could get Debra Winger to reprise her role as Sissy in Urban Cowboy, mount that thing with a cowboy hat and a Lone Star Beer, I’d have my Visa card out right now…

Seriously…am I the only one giggling? Okay…whatever…

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about “collectibles”. It was his observation that anything marketed as collectible rarely ever increases substantially in value if at all. Commemorative coins, beanie babies, Cabbage Patch dolls, Swatch watches. Should I continue? I’ve said here before that I’m anti-crap. Which is not to say I don’t have way too much of it. I think most of us do. I suppose there’s an up side to people collecting things they don’t need and only think they want. Thanks to sites like E-bay and Craig’s List, we can sell all that crap in order to have money to buy someone else’s crap because theirs looks pretty good in the pictures. Which is awesome, especially if you can get something for less than it’s worth.

Ah, but that leads me to a question: Who or what determines something’s worth?

My mom has several Madame Alexander dolls from the early 70’s. She has a Scarlett O’Hara doll in mint condition which she said several years ago was valued at over $800. But that doll is only worth $800 if you find someone willing to pay $800 for it. Well, that’s not entirely true. I suppose she could commit insurance fraud and report the doll stolen, but that’s very unlikely to happen.

I used to collect a few things. I still have a case full of ceramic Disney characters from years ago. Some I bought and some were gifts. By the way, if you find yourself becoming too obsessed with collecting any sort of themed item, just tell your friends and family how much you like said theme. I had a friend that liked hippos. She received so much hippo paraphernalia that she had to plead with people to stop buying her anything hippo related. I used to like to remind her what incredibly vicious, violent animals hippos were, and that a real hippo would just as soon kill her as look at her, but I digress…

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Who or what determines something’s worth and what makes some things more valuable to us than other things? For me, certain things I consider treasures because they evoke special memories. Many of the objects I cherish are of very small monetary value.

I have a jar of shells sitting in a prominent place in the family room. The jar itself is special because it was given to me by a dear friend as a housewarming gift. I’ve kept different things in it over the years, but I think the plain, white shells will stay in there. Nothing fancy, but these are the shells my daughter and I collected on her first visit to the beach. It was just the two of us and we had a wonderful day.

I also have a Wedgewood covered dish given to me by my in-laws. They have given us many wonderful gifts over the years, but this dish is special because of the story behind it.

My husband is the youngest of four kids. His dad was a science teacher then later a school principal. His mother was also a teacher. They worked hard, raised 4 kids on modest salaries and still managed to save and invest money. I don’t think either would mind me saying that they are frugal. They buy things on sale when they can, rarely if ever spend extravagantly on themselves and they both love a great bargain.

After they retired, they traveled extensively in the United States and abroad. In 1996, one of their vacations brought them to Copenhagen, Denmark. They were shopping for mementos and souvenirs when they saw some items in the window of an antique shop. They picked out a few gifts and brought them to the sales clerk. My father-in-law had been converting Kroner to U.S. dollars in his head, figured they had approximately $90-$100 worth of items and felt like they had found some good deals. My mother-in-law sensed that the sales lady was very pleased by their purchases as she filled out their tax free shopping cheque.

They went to another shop where my father-in-law tried to purchase two items. When he handed the clerk a $10 bill expecting change, the man asked him if he wanted to put the rest of the balance on a credit card. At this point they discovered that the conversion rate was about 10 times higher than what they had been figuring. He declined to purchase the items and proceeded to the Tax Free Shopping Office, both with a sinking feeling.

The items they had figured to be between $90-$100 came to a grand total of $900.

That box is special to me because they probably could have explained their miscalculation to the antique shop and selected less expensive items. Instead, they choose to keep them. Which, knowing them, probably went against every fiber of their being.

So my covered Wedgewood dish is a treasure because the story behind it is a testimony to my wonderful in-laws, who are living proof that you can be both very frugal and very generous all at once. And if my husband is reading this, I’d just like to point out that I’ve got the generous part down, just not so much the frugal part…

***

This post is part of the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival: Treasure hosted by my friend Peter Pollock. To read more posts on the topic of Treasure, please visit him at PeterPollock.com

As suburban sprawl continues, the view from my back patio has changed from a wooded area full of wildlife and a 100 acres of grazing pasture for cattle to a view of subdivision fences and construction equipment installing the infrastructure for yet another new subdivision.

I don’t begrudge my new and soon to be new neighbors. Young families continue to flood into our little town seeking good, safe schools in which to send their children. That’s the very reason we moved here from Houston 9 years ago. We also knew when we bought this property that it was only a matter of time before the old gentlemen who owned the grazing land would concede to his grown children’s wishes and sell the property to a development company. I’m also grateful there is a neighborhood going up behind us instead of a shopping mall.

Still, I miss my view.

A few months ago, a representative came and talked to us about some drainage issues and installing fencing along the property line. Once our neighbor and we agreed, a sloped area was created to allow for proper drainage. When the lots are sold which back up to our property, a 6 foot fence will be built on the property line. With the grading and the slope, we’ll essentially have a view of a 9 foot fence along the back of our property. Oh, well…

Part of what the developer agreed to was to sod the slope. In this part of the country, the grass of choice is St. Augustine. It withstands the brutal heat we have in the summertime and only completely dies out for 2 or 3 months out of the year, depending on how cold it gets in the winter. Which is why I was surprised to see them spraying the slope with a rye grass mixture a couple of months ago. A week later, I figured there was a mix up about what type of grass to plant because I came home to find workers installing squares of St. Augustine over the rye grass seed.

Then I guess they had more important matters to attend to because no one watered the newly sodded grass and it died out. When they finally got around to watering the now dead St. Augustine, here’s what happened:

If the St. Augustine had been watered properly when it was first installed, it would have rooted and choked off the rye grass. I imagine once the spring rains come, along with the higher temps and humidity, the rye will wither and the St. Augustine will overtake the slope.

But for now, a view out my back door serves as a reminder that we can change our minds and our circumstances, but sometimes the things we plant then choose to replace or abandon may find their way back whether we want them or not. And sometimes we think winter is over, but it was only taking a few days off.

(I’m sorry if this post is vague. I’m processing some things that are weighing heavily on my heart and I just can’t discuss them publicly. They don’t involve anyone in my immediate family–we are all okay, and for that and so much more I am extremely grateful. So even though writing helps me sort through some things, sometimes I have to not write about some things. Clear as mud, huh? My hope is that if you can relate this to something in your own life it might serve as some measure of encouragement. If not, I’m really sorry you just read 600 words about what kind of grass I have in my back yard.)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Yesterday at Billy Coffey’s site was a post called The luckiest boy in the world.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Mr. Coffey’s writing, but that particular post struck a nerve with me. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s the sad and all too real story of how children are often made to suffer for the poor choices their parents make. And while I’m sure it wasn’t Billy’s intention to paint all children of divorce as irrevocably damaged, as a child of divorce myself, I took it very personally. In the comments I wrote the following:

I was one of those lucky kids, too. Fortunately not lucky enough to have 3 bedrooms. I had one room, at my mom’s house. The divorce was difficult for everyone but in my case, I think I’m a better person for having been raised by a mother who showed me how to choose to live with honor and dignity, to do the right thing even when others around you choose not to.

I spent the day with my mother on Thursday. This woman of small stature and enormous strength. By today’s standards she might be considered old fashioned. Her marriage did not end because of “irreconcilable differences” or some other fancy term that means two people don’t love each other anymore. My father left her.

If a single mother of four who had spent the previous 17 years raising children and being a housewife doesn’t paint a grim enough picture, consider that 18 years earlier, when she announced to her family her plans to marry an American serviceman, they completely disowned her. She has had no contact with any of them since. With the exception of the four of us kids, she was completely and utterly alone, with no job and no hope for the future.

As a woman from a very proud family richly steeped in Japanese tradition, honor and dignity are written into her DNA. She would never remarry. By her way of thinking, you marry once. She had been dishonored by one failed marriage, she would not dishonor her family and herself by choosing badly again.

This is the woman that is my mother. A woman who worked first as a waitress in a high end Japanese restaurant and later as a deli manager at two major grocery chains. She never took food stamps or any kind of government aid, even though I’m quite sure she qualified for it. I never remember being in want. She worked long hours on her feet all day then sewed and altered clothing to make ends meet. She’s suffered heart break that she didn’t share with us so as to not speak poorly of our father.

So when she tells me (as she did today) that she’s proud of who I’ve become, it is the ultimate compliment. I am who I am because of who she is. And I pray I can be the kind of mother she was and is to me to my own children.

Not all children of divorce live their lives as victims. Some of us are stronger for it, because we had a parent who didn’t allow their circumstances to dictate whether or not they did the right thing. They did right thing despite their circumstances.

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I was going to begin this post by saying something like “I’m certainly no expert”, or “I’m not an authority on what constitutes a great blog”, but let’s just put all that nauseating false modesty aside, shall we?

I am an Internet tornado.

Don’t believe me? Google “katdish”. You will find multiple pages of links to this blog and others. Compare that to just three short years ago when googling “katdish” would prompt Google to ask, “Did you mean kaddish?”

With this in mind, I provide the following hard and fast rules of successful blogging with all the confidence and authority my status of Internet tornado affords me. You’re welcome:

1. Decide on a posting schedule and stick to it. Whether that means daily, weekly or somewhere in between. Consistent posting retains your audience because they know when and how often to expect a new post from you.
2. Only post when you have something to say. Forcing yourself to write a post just for the sake of posting something–anything–is a waste of your time and energy. You also run the risk of wasting your reader’s time with a substandard post.
3. Reply to every comment on your blog. If someone takes the time to read and comment on your site, it’s common courtesy to acknowledge them and thank them for visiting.
4. Don’t reply to every comment. You started the conversation, allow your readers to input their thoughts without you jumping in and interrupting the flow of conversation.
5. Write about current events and hot topics on the interwebs. Inject your unique perspective and opinions about controversial subjects. Be sure to use tags and categories on your post so people can find your blog post via search engines. Controversy = more hits to your site.
6. Write what’s on your heart and/or mind. Writing a post about a current event just because everyone else is writing about it may come off looking like a desperate attempt to attract a bigger audience to your blog. Especially if you don’t have anything significant or valuable to add to the conversation.
7. If you’re a writer seeking to expand your platform, write helpful posts about your journey into publishing. Share helpful tips and strategies you’ve learned along the way with fellow writers. The mere fact that you’ve landed an agent and secured a contract for your upcoming book is proof enough that you have valuable insights to share. Other writers will flock to your blog and will appreciate you generously sharing all that you have learned.
8. If you’re a writer seeking to expand your platform, write helpful posts about your journey into publishing occasionally, but not all the time. All writers are readers, but not all readers are writers. By only writing about writing, you greatly limit your audience. Give your audience a sample of the type of writing they can expect to see in your upcoming books. You’ll build brand loyalty that way–from both writers and readers.
9. Determine who your audience is and write for that particular niche. If you’re a mommy blogger, write for other mommy bloggers. If you’re a big fan of LOL Cats, write for other LOL Cat enthusiasts, and so on.
10. Write about an array of topics. Some posts may get more traffic than others, but good, consistent writing will bring people back to your site.

Follow these rules and rest assured, your blog will attract a vast audience and you will become a rock star of the interwebs.

“But katdish, that’s ridiculous! These rules contradict themselves. You can’t follow all of them!”

Well, of course not, Silly. That’s because I have no idea what the hard and fast rules of successful blogging are, and neither does anyone else. I can only tell you why I read certain blogs on a regular basis.

Some inform, some challenge, some make me laugh and/or cry.
Some do all of the above.

But the one trait they all share is this:

A unique, honest voice all their own.

So, how do you write the best possible blog you can write?

Do you remember that scene from the movie “The Breakfast Club” where Anthony Michael Hall’s character writes a collective essay for the members of The Breakfast Club? The detention teacher, Mr. Vernon instructed each of them to write about who they thought they were. After he’s finished writing, he smiles, sets down his pen and gives himself a “Way to go” slug in the arm. He didn’t seem to care if Mr. Vernon (or anyone else, for that matter) thought it would be a great essay. He knew that it expressed concisely and exactly what he wanted to say.

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Write more posts like that.

(Oh, grumble…”embedding disabled”. Oh, well, you can watch it on Youtube.)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

How do you explain the color red to a blind person? Or any color, really? There’s much the other senses can compensate for when it comes to grasping the essence of something–how something feels, tastes, smells, etc. But how do you describe the essence of color to someone who has no concept of it?

What if I asked you to describe a lion to a person who had never seen a lion? Now take it a step further. What if you gave the hide of a lion to that person and asked him to taxidermy said lion to be put on display? The results might be akin to something like this:

image courtesy of thedailywh.at

According to Neatorama.com, the story goes as follows:

“In 1731, King Frederick I of Sweden received a lion as a gift from the Bejen of Algiers, but after it died, the pelt and bones were presented to a taxidermist who had never seen a lion. You see the result looks more like a cartoon character than the king of beasts.

Doesn’t exactly capture the essence of what you understand a lion to be, now does it?

image of taxidermy lion courtesy of photobucket.com

Nope. Not even a little bit. I find myself feeling bad for everyone involved. Mostly the lion, though. This beautiful, majestic creature living out its last days in captivity, then to add insult to injury, having its body turned into a horrible caricature put on display for centuries after its death.

And I wonder if we’ve done that with the Word of God.

Under ordinary circumstances, my mind wouldn’t have made the leap from a bad taxidermy job to scripture. It just so happens that I had a rather interesting conversation with a family member on Friday night, thought about it most of the weekend, then received the link to the above story via email from my friend Dorothea.

Before I share the conversation, I need to provide a little back story:

This person grew up going to church every Sunday. Got married and had children, who also went to church every Sunday. By this time, he was more of a Christmas and Easter Christian, but their mother took them every week because that’s what good people did. I’ve known this person my entire life. I’ve spent lots of time with him. I don’t ever recall seeing him read a bible. Not even in church when the preacher says “Turn to Matthew, chapter 3”. He’s like hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people who come to church on Sunday, get their fill of God and think they know Him based on what some guy behind a pulpit tells them. They don’t need to read the bible because the good parts–the important parts–are preached on Sunday morning. The “need to knows”, if you will. I’m pretty sure if I attributed the quote “God helps those who help themselves” to the bible instead of Benjamin Franklin, he wouldn’t bat an eye. He likes to watch Joel Osteen on the Sunday mornings when he misses the service at his church, because that counts, right?

Imagine my surprise when he told me he was attending a bible study.

Imagine my horror when I found out it was a study of the Book of Revelation:

“We started this bible study about the Book of Revelations. It’s pretty scary stuff. I never knew that Catholicism would become the One World religion and that a current member of the Vatican is the Anti-Christ.”

To which my response was, “Whaaaa?”

Followed immediately by me saying that Revelation is subject to many different interpretations, and that it is very often misinterpreted. I may have some doctrinal disagreements with my Catholic friends, but I don’t doubt for a moment that we serve the same God. That they believe in the same Jesus I do. My husband then asked him if this was being taught as truth or simply as the teacher’s opinion. “The teacher’s opinion”, was the response.

But, you see? For a person who trusts what other, seemingly more biblically knowledgable people say about the Word of God rather than the Word of God itself, opinion often become truth.

Just like the unfortunate taxidermist who didn’t see with his own eyes what a lion is, he creates this incomplete, often horrible misinterpretation of its essence.

I know there are a few pastors who read this blog on a regular basis. I’m urging you, if you don’t do so already, to please encourage your congregations not to take your word for what God says, but to confirm what you teach them by studying the bible.

The most effective way to train a person how to spot counterfeit $20 bills is to have them intensely study real $20 bills. The same principal applies to God’s Word.

There’s something cathartic about getting dirty.
Something uniquely satisfying about tackling a project you’ve never done before.

Last week, I shared some pictures of my newly improved front porch.

I’ve spent every morning since enjoying the new space. Some evenings, too. In the above picture, you can see part of the sidewalk leading to our front porch from the driveway. What you can’t see is its length.

You may have noticed all that beautiful, black mulch in the flower beds on either side of the sidewalk. You may have also noticed that the sidewalk is black. That’s because every time it rains or the sprinklers come on, that black mulch washes onto the sidewalk. Since I’ve been spending time on the front porch, I’ve grown tired of looking at the black sidewalk. Which is why I decided it was high time I installed some edging to keep the mulch where it’s supposed to be.

The installation instructions weren’t complicated: Dig a 4″ trench the length of the area you wish to install the edging (which was two 60 foot trenches), cut the edging to length using a hacksaw, place the edging into the trench, drive metal edging spikes in every 4 feet plus at the beginning and end of the flower bed, then compact the dirt around the edging.

You wanna know what’s more cathartic than getting dirty?

Driving 9″ metal spikes into the ground with a sledgehammer.

Actually, hitting pretty much anything with a sledgehammer is extremely gratifying.

Next on the agenda is firing up the pressure washer and cleaning up that nasty sidewalk. That should be awesome.

And here’s a picture of one of my new Gerber daisies:

Just like me: A delicate flower…

What’d y’all do this weekend? Do you like digging in the dirt?

People are ridiculous.

We do and say stupid things on a regular basis.

I once thought it would be a really good idea to remove the ledges on my office windows with a high powered reciprocal saw.

In retrospect, not such a bright idea. Not bright at all. But no one got hurt, I was able to laugh at myself, and it made for some great blog fodder.

I’ve been seen on more than one occasion walking my kids to the bus stop wearing fuzzy polka-dot pajama pants and a “Who’s your Daddy?” t-shirt. And again, I was able to laugh at myself for doing so.

But in both of the above instances, I choose to share my pictures and my story here. I invited you to laugh. I gave you permission to laugh at me and to do so openly.

I have a confession to make. There are a few websites I used to frequent on a somewhat regular basis because they posted pictures of people looking ridiculous. It was sort of my guilty pleasure. It never occurred to me (because I never gave it much thought) that these pictures were being taken by strangers and submitted to these websites without the consent of the person or persons being photographed. It wasn’t until I heard a news story about one such website that I realized that a what I considered “harmless fun” wasn’t so harmless after all.

It seems a woman recognized a picture of her mother on the website and was quite upset. The website removed the picture, and will remove any such picture upon request, but thanks to search engines and the ability to download virtually any picture from the internet, they’re all still out there somewhere. Besides, the damage has already been done. Someone provided an opportunity for thousands of people to have a good, hearty laugh at someone else’s expense. Someone’s mother’s expense. I wonder how hard they would laugh if they were to find their picture displayed without their permission looking like a hot mess?

Oh, but that would never happen. Because they have more class than to go to Walmart dressed like a dirty pirate hooker.

Just not enough class not to laugh at someone else’s expense.

Editor’s Note: I don’t mean to imply that any website or television program which depicts people being funny unintentionally (whether it be by actions or by their outward appearance) is wrong. America’s Funniest Videos and Candid Camera did that successfully for years. But they did so with the permission of those who were the subjects of said videos. That’s vastly different from what’s happening now. When I find myself laughing at a picture of someone who probably wouldn’t laugh along with me, it shames me. It makes me feel like an anonymous bully. Because basically, that’s what I’ve become.

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Monday marked the first day of FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOM!!!! the kids going back to school after their week long spring break. It was nice to have everyone home last week, but I must confess that towards the end of the week all that togetherness was starting to harsh my mellow. Me likes my alone time.

Since it’s now officially springtime and whatnot, I decided it was high time to spruce up the front porch. I’ve been wanting to get some rocking chairs to put out there since we moved into this house. And since we’ve lived here for 8 or 9 years, I thought I would find some over the weekend, thereby missing the official 10 year procrastination mark. Besides, I figured I could enjoy my morning coffee out there for the next couple of weeks before temperatures and humidity rise to levels capable of melting my face off.

After two unsuccessful shopping ventures Friday and Saturday, I finally found two black arirondack rockers at Garden Ridge Pottery on Sunday afternoon. If y’all don’t have a Garden Ridge Pottery in your neighborhood, I suppose the best way to describe it would be Hobby Lobby meets Pier One meet Oriental Trading Company. Sort of. They sell furniture, plants, silk flowers, housewares and “miscellaneous”.

"miscellaneous"

Once we got the chairs home, assembled and out on the porch, it became evident that the new addition didn’t really complete the look I was after. The term “putting lipstick on a pig” comes to mind.

The front door needed refinishing, the windows were dirty, the large pot of dirt out there needed filling and the impulse buy of two ferns from the grocery store needed to be hung. An ambitious project, but I was ready, willing and able to accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish on Monday. I went to bed Sunday night with every intention of getting to work on my project bright and early Monday (mid) morning.

Yeah…

That was before I woke up in-explicitly at midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep. I tried reading. That seemed to work until I turned off my book light, set down my kindle and shut my eyes. Wide awake again. I eventually got up and went to the couch, figuring I would fall asleep watching the television. Three and a half hours later, I was exhausted and a little perplexed why Animal Planet would devote a 30 minute time slot to Mike Tyson and his dream of pigeon racing. But I digress…

from nypost.com

My point is (and I do have one), what I wanted to do was get the kids off to school and go back to bed. I was tired, grumpy and completely out of sorts. I didn’t feel like going to Walmart, buying hooks, potting soil and something to put in the pot of dirt. I didn’t feel like doing all that stuff I told myself I was going to do. And honestly, my world wasn’t going to come crashing down if I chose to go back to bed and leave all that stuff for another day.

But you know what?

I went to Walmart.

I refinished the door.

I potted a fern in the pot of dirt.

I hung the ferns.

I even dragged the spring wreath out of the garage.

I did all the things I set out to do. And yes, I was even more exhausted when all was said and done. But sometimes you have to suck it up and do the things you set out to do. You keep your promises and follow through with what you said you were going to do. Even if those promises are made to no one else but you.

Now, to get some flowers planted!

Sometimes especially then.

My first new visitor.

This post is part of the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival: Goals, hosted by my friend Peter Pollock. To read more posts on the topic, please visit him at PeterPollock.com

Buddy Love the Dog

Captions welcomed and encouraged.

Or, just enjoy a good laugh at my dog’s expense. I often do.