Day 18/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

I have a confession to make.

Even though the subject of my 30 day blog is 'Things I Won't Be Buying Today', I've been buying everything that isn't nailed down.

In observance of Lent, I decided to restrict my food intake, from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, for the first two meals of each day. Wanting to be pious and at the same time lose some weight, Lent serves as a fine motivation for lots of Catholics. It's a jumping off point for better habits and more thoughtful consumption. 

Over the last two years, stress, cortisol and the pandemic have served as my regular excuses for the expansion of my waistline but if I'm being honest, I should be touting my fondness for tortilla chips, alcohol and abject laziness. The 'Lead me not into temptation' Lenten fasting was going well until about ten days in when I began panicking. I started overeating at night and I started buying things online to fill what was becoming a dark hollow inside of me.

It's a pattern one of my friends (a shopper beyond compare) and I talk about all the time. Why do we skimp in one area and then feel as though we need to splurge in another? Are we simply creatures craving balance or does it go deeper? 

For me, I think it's because perceived lack and I don't play well together. 

Here in my comfortable home I have what I need at any given moment, but there are some deeply sown seeds in me that make 'lack' almost unbearably uncomfortable, whether perceived or real. When I feel a deep emptiness, I overcompensate in other areas. Lately I have been overcompensating by shopping online. A spring jacket here, a craft project there, organic coffee here, a few books I've been wanting to read there. My mail carrier used to be able to simply put my mail in the box but the last few weeks she has been wearing down a path from her truck to my door, brown cardboard boxes balanced on both hips.

This consumption makes me feel bloated and gross. It is not pious. And I'm certainly not losing any weight.

Today, tortilla chips in hand because my Lenten eating plan lasted only two weeks, I'm cleaning out emails when a few pairs of high platform 70s style sandals come to my attention.

Be still my disco heart. These are my absolute favorite kind of footwear. And for a moment I forget about how my spending totally needs to be hog tied. I forget about Lent. I forget about Karen the mail carrier and her harried expression as she limps up my driveway laden with packages.

 

 

 

I begin picturing them lined up in my closet...in all three available colors. I picture skipping this month's car payment so that I may buy them all, painting my toenails bright coral and slipping into them to the funky sounds of KC and the Sunshine Band. I see myself boogieing out to the driveway in them and telling tired beleaguered Karen she's not going to be delivering any more packages. I have found Nirvana in these shoes. They are all I need.

But then I burp from the chips and wake myself up and ask, when am I ever going to wear these? 

Fifteen years ago I had sandals like this. I had them in four different hues and textures. Yes they were high but who cared? My balance was perfect. I was strong. I moved like a young and unencumbered woman. But now, I am indolent and my footwear reflects how boring I have become. I like sneakers, yes, I do. I like the walking variety that doesn't rub too hard on the backs of my soft heels. And I like clogs for the occasions when the sneakers betray me and I become bloody and blistered. I own lots of flip flops, but these days they have a supportive arch. I have a perfect pair of wool mules for when I am in the house, which, during the last twenty four months, has been an awful damn lot.

But these? Oh my God, these ivory platform Saturday Night Fever shoes are my siren song. I see myself in faded bell bottoms and a gray t-shirt sporting the faded name of a college I've never attended. I want to layer southwestern turquoise bracelets on my wrists and slide silver chunky rings on every finger. This is my look, right? I am most like me when wearing things like this, right? 

Let's be real. I haven't worn stuff like this in a couple of years. And I miss it. And that makes me really sad today.

Far too content in my black yoga pants, gray wool slippers and my ancient brown fleece jacket, I am not funkadellic. I'm not even presentable. And looking at these sandals, for the last five minutes, I ask myself why. Why have I decided that it's acceptable to feel less like me? Why have I decided that a cocoon spun of fleece, spandex and wool is my fate? It might be comfy but it's certainly not captivating.

So, I won't be buying these sandals today but I won't be buying tortilla chips either. What I will be investing in is myself and my well being. I'll take a long walk and listen to a motivational speaker, one who tells me I don't need more of anything to be satisfied. One who tells me what I am, who I am, and where I am, is enough. 

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Day 17/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

 

This is what I won't be buying today, but I can't promise I won't buy it in the future. I'm thinking it might be in everyone's best interest to learn a few more languages.

60 percent off? That's appealing, considering everything else we are buying costs at least 60 percent more right now.

Have you ever learned a second or third language? Do you still enjoy speaking it? I took great pleasure in and grew pretty proficient at French, having taken 6 years of it in school. I even began dreaming in French, which, people say, is an indication that you are becoming "fluent"... or maybe it means that you have eaten too much creme brulee before bed. Who knows?

My first foray into French was a well meaning sixth grade teacher who gave us all French names and taught us a vocabulary of about ten words like porte, chat, chien, and bonjour. Then, junior high French class was basically a room of thirty pre-teens giggling for forty minutes every other day about words that sounded strange and dirty, or actually were strange and dirty. Merde, coque, defoncer, and my favorite word, fourchette. My four foot four, late bloomer of a seatmate used to whisper, "full [of] shit!" every time we had to say the word for fork, eyes darting side to side with his chin planted surreptitiously upon his chest, shoulders heaving up and down with the witty weight of his cleverness. Madame Certain would glare as we, seated left and right, tittered into our fists and elbows, tears welling in our eyes either because we were trying so hard not to squeal aloud at this munchkin child saying "shit" (it was a different time, swearing in class could get you thrown out or worse) or owing to the fact that we were sitting squarely on our heels planted in just the right spot so we didn't wet ourselves holding back belly laughs after having drunk multiple cartons of chocolate milk at lunch.

Either way, watery eyes. 

And good times.

As we moved into high school, the teachers got stricter and the lessons got harder. It was sentence structure, past, present and future tenses, thick-ass textbooks, and real conversations. But, it all sort of rolled off the tongue with me, without a lot of study time, almost like music. Remarkably, I was also excelling at Algebra and Geometry, and I began believing in the notion of left brain/right brain balance and stimulation.  And wouldn't you know? Once I stopped the "real" math in favor of a guidance counselor-recommended "how to work the computer" Math class, the French wasn't as easily grasped, either. Weird how that happens.

So, would you like to revisit French with me? Should we grab a few Russian lessons, too? I definitely need some Italian. I'd like to travel and order mortadella on an aereo without it sounding like more-duh-del-uh on an air-ee-o. 

And, because our world appears to be getting smaller it might be nice to have the ability to say, "We are all in this together" in a variety of ways.

Just not today, friends. Today we buy groceries and gasoline...and we make charitable donations if we can and where we're able, to those who are feeling the pinch even greater than ourselves. 

Au revoir. Ostavat'sya v bezopasnosti. Alla prossima!

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Day 16/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

With the way this world is right now, I haven't been able to think of a single shitty thing I wouldn't be buying in the last week or so. But today, I saw this and decided this is the single shitty thing I won't be buying today.

Pun intended.

 

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Day 15/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

 

"We share the same biology, regardless of ideology. What might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too." (Russians, 1985.)

 

I'm not buying Dream of the Blue Turtles today but I've been playing the album a lot since Russian forces started surrounding Ukraine last Fall. The military strategies, the rhetoric, the frantic diplomatic efforts, the threat. It all reminded me of when Reagan and Gorbachev and Thatcher were part of our daily kitchen table conversations and permeated the smog of uncertainty which I walked through during my childhood; raised in a household where I was included in all political conversations during a time of significant geopolitical tension. 

 

 

DOTBT is my favorite Sting album. My father got it for me for my birthday in 1985 and when something was said on the news or words were spoken by my adult relatives that I didn't quite understand, like glasnost and perestroika, and INF treaty, I'd play the song "Russians" for some comfort. We didn't have the internet to quickly reference current events. We also only had three television channels. It's not the most uplifting tune, but it does offer a little resistance-type hope. Resistance-type hope might be all we have some days.

 

I still have and cherish my original copy of DOTBT and I humbly suggest you buy one if you don't.  There's some fantastic music on there.

 

 

 

This morning as I listened, I mused, 'Wouldn't it be interesting if STING remade his song, "Russians" today, appropriate for 2022, sold it for 99 cents a download and gave the money to legitimate Ukrainian charities?'

 

I'd download the hell out of that.

 

Just a thought.

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Day 14/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

 

When I was thinking of items for my list of 30 things I won't be buying today, menthols immediately sprung to mind, which is weird because I am not a smoker of cigarettes, but the FDA's proposed ban on menthols a while back really tweaked my sensibilities. Smoking is a choice (apparently about 15 percent of adults in the US smoke) and although it's not a healthy choice, take a look around. How many people in this country are choosing wisely from day to day? 

We're hearing, either on the news or firsthand, about new or worsening addictions of all kinds, whether it be alcohol, sex, electronics, social media, food, opioids, gambling, or gross consumption (online shopping). Most people I know, especially after being cooped up for 2 years, are riding in at least one car on the hot mess express. 

And it's not the minty fresh menthol car. 

Seriously.

So, although I won't be buying menthol cigarettes today I can one hundred percent promise you there are cigrapreneurs out there who are buying them by the carton and stuffing them in chest freezers in anticipation of a "run" on these popular nic sticks. 

And whatever...this is what happens when things people want and have always been allowed to possess suddenly become banned in this country. 

But, hey, as long as we're proposing a ban on ingestible substances that aren't great for us, I have some ideas for the FDA. Can we please ban farm raised salmon with its red dye, rBST and rBGH laden dairy products, flame retardants in our soda (take a look at BVO if you aren't familiar), the chlorine wash our chicken gets during processing, hormone injections in our beef to make them leaner and faster growing, whitening agents in our bread, preservatives like BHA and BHT, soybean oil in our coffee creamer, genetically engineered foods, fake fats, and high fructose corn syrup? 

Should I continue?

I'd really, really like to tell you I won't be buying any of those franken-foods today either, but, like most Americans just trying to get through the day, I probably will. 

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Day 13/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

 www.hoponhome.org

I won't be buying a rabbit but I also won't be buying what I went to get at the Wilton Mall in Saratoga today because we swiftly and willingly gave my spending money to a rabbit rescue sanctuary called Hop On Home. 

Hop on Home operates in a mall store. They provide shelter and care to abandoned, relinquished, aged and ill rabbits. 

The competent, kind, and rightfully cautious person in charge let us in and once we were there a bit, showed us plans on paper for a freestanding barn style facility in the works that will allow this amazing rescue organization to continue to operate in an even greater capacity. 

If you go to the link at the top of this entry you can browse the adoptable rabbits, orphaned but warm and fed, thanks to these good people. You can also make a donation or buy a tshirt. As cliche' as it sounds, every little bit helps. If you have the capacity to offer volunteer hours, they need those, too. 

There is information at the end of this entry which will allow you to select Hop on Home as an entity permitted to receive charity from your Amazon (Smile Amazon) purchases. Again, every little bit will offer them some hope.

I can't tell you how much of a sobering experience this was for us and how much of a shoestring budget this group appears to be working from. It was the kind of visit where I kept focusing on my breath as I sat on the floor speaking softly to some of the more social among the approximately 50 rabbits in their cages. Breath work is hard for me but worthwhile for moments like this otherwise I would have completely lost my shit and wept uncontrollably. 

They have 10 more rabbits coming in tonight and they are driving around the state to rescue 30 more this weekend. 

My heart breaks for the animals and for the rescuers. Please share this blog or the link on your Facebook pages if you can. I pray we can raise some money for the dozens upon dozens of needy critters in their care.  

Lastly, and in keeping with the giving nature of this place, there are yoga classes offered there on Tuesday mornings and early evenings.  A class is 20 dollars and half the cost of the class is donated back to the sanctuary. The benevolent yoga teacher's name is Jamie and she can be reached at yogafromtheyinside.com (broken down that is 'yoga from the yin side') for exact times. 

I played the lottery on the way home today (I needed the help of the clerk behind the gas station counter because I had no idea how to do this). If by some miracle I win, that barn will be my first mission. 

 

 AMAZON SMILE

Want to help make a difference while you shop in the Amazon app, at no extra cost to you? Simply follow the instructions below to select "Hop On Home Rabbit Sanctuary Inc" as your charity and activate AmazonSmile in the app. They'll donate a portion of your eligible mobile app purchases to Hop on Home.

How it works:
1. Open the Amazon app on your phone
2. Select the main menu (=) & tap on "AmazonSmile" within Programs & Features
3. Select "Hop On Home Rabbit Sanctuary Inc" as your charity
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to activate AmazonSmile in the mobile app

 

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Day 12/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

 

I won't be buying this Scooby Doo sweatshirt today, even though it comes complete with a decal of the Mystery Machine (such a dreamy vehicle), Daphne, Fred, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby along with some really neat retro flowers, not because I don't love it, but because it is only available in TODDLER sizes.

Unisex toddler, BTW.

Come ON...what unisex toddler in 2022 knows anything about Scooby Doo?

I think the world is in need of a designer of affordable clothing outfitting middle aged women who would rather dress like eleven year olds. Well, like eleven year olds dressed back in the '70s. Eleven year olds today dress like I did at age twenty-six only they are slightly more provocative than I was at age twenty-six. For example, I never painted the word "juicy" on my butt. 

Gross. 

Maybe I should go to design school. There just has to be a middle aged market for these kids of things.

Is there anything made for kids that you wish you could find in your adult size?

 

 

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