Hand Out Hope

Why do I donate?

One word.  Hope.

Hope that the sweater I cull from my collection, a sweater I have not worn in well over a year, will once again serve its purpose and warm somebody during a cold winter evening.

Hope that the frying pan I barely ever use can find its way into the home of someone needing to prepare a nice meal for their hungry family.

New Clothes to Someone

Hope that the still-useful pants my ever-growing boy has already outgrown will help complete a wardrobe for a kid returning to school this fall.

Hope that the T-shirt with the silly slogan will bring amusement and a welcome new addition to that school wardrobe.

Hope that the extra coffee maker I really never ended up even unboxing after last Christmas will brew many a pot for someone needing that morning fix like me.

Hope that the dresser I outgrew once again finds a home and a nice way to store life’s essentials for someone setting up their first household.

Hope that those seemingly ten-million crayons that my son no longer needs provides hours of coloring fun to another young artist.

Hope that the bike my son recently replaced with his newer birthday bike finds its way into the hands of an eager youngster yearning to hit the road.

Do One Good Deed Today

Hope that those picture frames I never really got around to using end up holding memories for another nice family.

Hope that the suit my husband has let sit in his closet for what seems like millennia, can provide the means for someone to have the opportunity to secure a job and thus restore some sense of dignity.

Hope that those darling children’s books, now so-babyish to my almost-teenager, can yet again open the pages to wonder for another scholar.

Hope that through these donations I don’t contribute to the already burgeoning local landfills.

Hope that through my donations, I can help someone with barriers to employment find the way to overcome this obstacle.

Hope that with the money I may potentially save a buyer will in turn be used for something productive, and thus my donations’ value will multiply in both monetary and intrinsic ways.

Hope that by recycling rather than turning to producing new items for everyday use, Mother Earth will benefit as well.

Hope that I have done my part to show just even the smallest token of love to my fellow man.

And selfishly,

Hope that my son will see my efforts and continue the tradition.

Give a little Hope

 “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” – Walter Winchell, American newspaper and radio commentator.

Donate to Goodwill

Hamlin's Wizard Oil

Check this cool bottle out.  The detail is amazing, the slightly cloudy glass still holding mysteries within. The raised letters provide a combination of sensory intrigue as well as an air of mystery.

Whatever can it mean and where did I find it?  Well let me tell you a simple story, one I have put together by speculating on this and other fascinating items I recently had the opportunity to examine…..

…It was a hot summer day with the bright sunlight beating down on the fields, trees, and dusty streets of the small town. The muggy air, cloying and unrelenting, made cooling off even more difficult.

Inside the dwelling, the lady of the farmhouse fanned herself, hoping to catch even the slightest breeze to cut the steamy heat of the day.  Her husband, a hardworking farmer, was out tending their fields and she was alone in the house with her two children, whose exuberance perhaps seemed an outcropping of their own struggles with the heat of the day.  They ran around, darted up and down the stairs, shrieking and giggling. 

Suddenly, a loud smash echoed from the kitchen. 

The shouting and giggling stopped. 

One small voice called, “Mama! We broke a plate!”

Sighing, the lady rose from the cane chair upon which she had sat for what felt like the briefest of breaks from her seemingly never-ending chores.

She approached the younger of her two children, now pointing at the pieces of a child’s plate on the wide plank floor.  The red and white intricately painted detail now lay in disarray.  The child began to cry. 

“I am sorry, Mama! It was an accident!”  Tears flowing down cherub-like cheeks, the little boy rushed, clutching his mother’s cotton apron, burying his tiny face and wailing.

The lady crouched down, took his face in both hands, and smiled, “don’t worry, sweetie.  Accidents happen.  Help me pick these pieces up.” Together they worked and they swept the pieces into a small pile.  Gingerly retrieving them, the older child, a solemn, green-eyed girl of about eight years of age, added, “I’ll go put them outside, Mama.”

Rising from her crouched position, the lady patted the girl gently, “thank you, honey.”  She gathered her son in her arms, kissed his tear-stained cheeks, and brought him to his room for a nap. When her daughter returned from the backyard, she sent her upstairs as well.  It was too hot for fun and games.  Time to rest and calm her nerves.

She reached into her pantry and brought out the new medicine bottle her husband had brought home last week.  Maybe this would help, she thought.  The man who rolled into town had said it would cure all nervous problems.  It might work; her husband’s fig juice had helped with his problem recently. 

That night, feeling much calmer, she prepared for bed, taking time to clean her face and straighten her perfume bottle which had tipped over.  Can’t let that spill!  That was all the way from France!  She tucked her children in, kissed her work-weary husband, and settled in for the night. She had canning to do tomorrow, and had to make sure to find that breast pump for her sister….

….it was a cold morning, and the sun could barely warm the backs of the small gathered crowd, all peering into the newly-dug hole near the squirrel-planted maple tree in the far northwest corner of the yard. 

The lady of the house, pausing for a moment from her work, wandered over to take a look.  An untidy pile of broken, dirty crockery and glassware met her eye, sitting jumbled on a tarp just adjacent to the hole.  A man’s head could just barely be seen as he tossed out random bits and pieces of what seemed like archeological relics onto the tarp and grass.

As the day wore on, eventually the dig produced an amazing collection of remnants.  Now soaking in soapy water, sunlight touching their surfaces for the first time in over a hundred years, they hinted at stories long untold.

The lady of the house set to scrubbing and washing the many bottles, plates, a crock, and even a breast pump, removing decades of what the diggers had referred to as “night dirt,” in an effort to restore a sparkle once again. 

Finally she set them into her own primitive cabinet for display once again.

They had come home.

Who was it in that hole and why on earth would anyone voluntarily want to dig in century’s old poo?

Two words.  Privy Digging.

And what, you may ask is a privy?

Privy Time Machine

A privy is simply an outhouse used long before the advent of indoor plumbing. One hundred years ago if you had to go, it was a trip outside, and hopefully the weather was cooperative!

And it was not just the obvious that got deposited there.

Long before the days of curbside trash pickup, before recycling, before super glue, things that had become broken, obsolete, or simply emptied also found their way down the privy hole.

As one privy got filled, another hole was dug, the structure above was deposited atop, and so on.  It is typical for most old houses built prior to the late 1800s to have as many as four privy pits on their property, veritable time capsules, holding secrets deep within the earth.

And so a hobby is born.

I can dig it

There are folks all around the world, amateur archeologists in their own right, history buffs, and trivia masters who spend their idle time going down these old holes in search of treasure.

What a Crock!

My particular privy digger, a robust man called Tom Majewski, is a local Chicago western suburbs practitioner of this messy activity.  He’s an unassuming man who, after thirty-plus years of excavating local history, still exudes excitement at hitting that first crunch of glass as an ancient privy is discovered.  He’s the go-to man for anything you may want to know about your house, town, or artifact that may make its way back from the depths. He’s so good at this hobby that he’s even had a children’s book written about him and his treasures,  Dig It! Privy Artifacts A-Z by Sharon Weber and Marcia Mackenbrock.  If you’re lucky, you’ll come away from this experience with some cool household stuff, a story or two, and even an autographed copy of this book. 

Privy diggers do this for fun and their only payment is the option to have first dibs on the most interesting article they find at a dig.  Some they keep, some they sell online or at auctions. 

His most curious find?  An intact egg.

They’re preserving history one privy at a time.

And they help return antiques to the very homes that once housed them well over a hundred years ago.
For my particular dig, what had they uncovered? 

A broken bottle of Hamlin’s Wizard Oil. 

Hamlin's Wizard Oil

According to Wikipedia,  

It  was an American patent medicine sold as a cure-all under the slogan “There is no Sore it will Not Heal, No Pain it will not Subdue.” First produced in 1861 in Chicago^[1] by former magician John Austen Hamlin and his brother Lysander B. Hamlin, it was primarily sold and used as a liniment for rheumatic pain and sore muscles, but was advertised as a treatment for pneumonia, cancer, diphtheria, earache, toothache, headache and hydrophobia.^[1][2] It was made of 50%-70% alcohol containing camphor, ammonia, chloroform, sassafras, cloves, and turpentine, and could be taken internally as well as topically.^[2]

Traveling performance troupes advertised the product in medicine shows across the Midwest… with runs as long as six weeks in a town. They used horse-drawn wagons and dressed in silk top hats, frock coats, pinstriped trousers, and patent leather shoes—with spats.^[5] They distributed song books at the shows and in druggists.^[6][7] Performers included James Whitcomb Riley, singer and composer Paul Dresser from Indiana,^[8] and southern gospel music progenitor Charles Davis Tillman.

Grinnell College research points out that the Hamlin’s claimed efficacy for Wizard Oil on not only human beings but also horses and cattle, one poster displaying an elephant drinking the stuff by lifting the bottle with the trunk. Bottles came in 35¢ and 75¢ sizes.^[9] Carl Sandburg inserted two versions of lyrics titled “Wizard Oil” together with a tune into his American Songbag (1927).^[10]  In 1916, Lysander’s son Lawrence B. Hamlin of Elgin, by then manager of the firm, was fined under the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act for advertising that Hamlin’s Wizard Oil could “check the growth and permanently kill cancer.”^[1]

A Consolidated Fruit Jar lid.

Child's plates and other artifacts

According to antiquebottles.net,

In 1859, Mason sold five of his early patents, including the Mason jar, to Lewis R. Boyd and Boyd’s company – The Sheet Metal Screw Company. Boyd is most famous for patenting a white “milk-glass” insert for zinc screw lids to theoretically lessen the chances that food would come in contact with metal. In 1871, for a brief period of time, Mason became a partner with Boyd in the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company. Consolidated hired other glass makers to blow their jars, including the Clyde Glass Works, Clyde, New York, the Whitney Glass Works of Glassboro, New Jersey, and the A. & D. H. Chambers Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Even after Mason’s patents expired, the manufacture of these jars continued for well over half a century.

 Mason jars, still in use today, have a long and rich history.  There were many types.  Early ones were square which broke too easily.  The angles were softened.  Glass liners followed, and eventually the Mason patent expired in the mid 1870’s.  Then they started to be mass produced.  Lids and gaskets were very easy to come by. 

According to antiquebottles.net,

Two companies would come to dominate the canning jar market in the 1860-1890 time periods; the first to do so was the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company, located in New York City, also known simply as CFJ.  

Antique Mason jars still remain collectible. Depending on the vintage, you could spend very little all the way up many hundreds of dollars for these old household jars.

Lubin perfume bottle. 

Sweet French Perfume

According to nstperfume.com,  

Lubin was established in Paris in 1798. According to Edwin Morris, the perfume house, “…which began under Napoléon and became linked with the name of his sister Princess Borghese, was the first to solicit the North American market, aiming particularly at the plantation culture of the southern United States” (Scents of Time, p. 87) Morris reports that Lubin was still a “major perfume house” in 1940s Paris. They continued to release new fragrances into the early 1980s before slowly disappearing from the scene. You can read more about the history of Lubin here. The house was purchased by Gilles Thévenin from Wella in the early 2000s.

Website: Lubin

 Modjeska Cold Cream

This ain't Ponds!

According to worthpoint.com, this was from the Larkin Soap Co., established in 1875 from Buffalo, NY.  It was billed as a “A Perfect Emollient, soothes heals and beautifies the skin, cures chapped hands, lips and all skin irritations”

 If you’ve got an old house, there may be treasures just waiting for you to unearth.  If you don’t mind a bit of excavating and some scrubbing, you may want to find yourself a privy digger. 

THERE ARE STORIES IN THE DIRT

Some great resources:

Eddie’s Privy Page

Art’s Privy Digging Pages

Vintage Bottles.org

Will I ever sell these items on eBay? 

One word. 

Never.

Unlike anonymous antiques; lovely, intricate, strange, unusual, or primitive found at any one of a half-dozen antique stores in my Fair City, these recently unearthed items now adorning my home

WERE HERE A HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE ME

As for that child’s plate?

For A Good Child

 It’s come full-circle.

Pelican before the spill

There are no words.

Bird after the spill

Pelican in the oil

Live video feed of the gushing oil

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.  ~Cree Indian Proverb

Shall We Dance?

If you’re like most Americans, you can hum the tune to many songs; some newer than others, probably all catchy in their own way and holding special meaning to the listener.   Yet the tunes enjoyed by today’s youth often leave the delicate ears of their elders ringing in protest.  Concurrently, those gentle wisps of music trailing through Grandma’s parlor probably result in the kids heading for the hills.  It seems that there is a perennial generation gap when it comes to music appreciation. 

I can recall blasting my latest Kiss album in my basement room only to hear moments later the order from my parents to “turn that garbage off!”  Insulted at their lack of coolness, I’d comply but secretly wish them to eternal Perry Como Hades wherein they’d be buried in stacks of vintage LPs.

Fast forward 35 years and now it’s me plugging my ears as my son insists on turning up the bass and shaking my van’s rocker panels with the cacophony of whatever’s on his beloved Top-40 station. 

And then it’s me retreating to the quiet of my living room, popping in a CD of Dean Martin and realizing many years later how cool my parents actually were!

It seems that the generations are destined to live outside each other’s sphere of musical influence.  Gone are the days when a family would sit together by the radio listening to boogie-woogie tunes and laughing as Grandpa took a turn on the carpet,  keeping time with the song.  Nowadays, kids have their iTunes, instantly downloadable and mostly forgettable offerings from the studios, plugged in, oblivious to the sounds around them, their relentless boom-boom-boom emanating from the tiny ear bud speakers. 

Yet, all is not lost.  You only really need to go back about 150 years to find some songs that I’d be willing to bet that everybody in the family would enjoy and most likely end up tapping a toe or two!  

How is this possible?  Two words.  Stephen Foster. 

You may ask, “Who the heck is Stephen Foster?”   While you may not necessarily recognize the name, you do know some of his work… 

“Oh! Susanna”

“Camptown Races”

 ”Old Folks at Home” (“Swanee River”)

“My Old Kentucky Home”

“Beautiful Dreamer”

“Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair”

….see!  I caught you humming to yourself!  These old-time song still hold sway a century and a half after Stephen Foster created them.

And who exactly was Stephen Foster?

According to Wikipedia,

 “Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known as the ‘father of American music’, was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century.”

 He wrote these songs in what was known as the blackface minstrel show tradition” which folks enjoyed around that time. 

The Father of American Folk Music

Yet was he a racist? Not at all!  According to Wikipedia, he “sought, in his own words, to ‘build up taste…among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order.’ He instructed Caucasian performers of his songs not to mock slaves but to get their audiences to feel compassion for them.”

 The interesting thing about Stephen Foster is that while many of his songs’ themes centered on the South, he actually never lived there and visited it only once. 

 He idealized essentially the down-home lifestyle of pre-Civil War America, and sought to bring this type of music to many different audiences. 

 Now I know what you’re thinking, “where can I hear this music now performed live?”

 Well I have the answer, (at least for those living here in Illinois). 

 I recently had the joy of listening to these tunes at my local library when they hosted the string-wind ensemble, Century Air Minstrels.   Headed up by Dr. Steven Smunt, a local St. Charles dentist and founded in 1999, according to their website,

 “The band’s focus is antebellum and civil war era folk and minstrel music for dancing, entertaining, and educating.  Wearing period attire, the group performs with a variety of wind and string instruments in a style typical of the mid-nineteenth century.  Examples of the march, reel, jig, polka, waltz, schottische, hymn, and ballad are all part of their program.”

The Century Air Minstrels

I sat, mesmerized, watching Dr Smunt and his ensemble transport our small audience back to a time when there was no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing, no air conditioning, no modern kitchen conveniences, no internet, multimedia, or, Heaven forbid, no iTunes.  A time when gathering with others in the enjoyment of simple, cheerful, sometimes mournful, tunes would for at least a short time bring joy and a sense of community to an often-challenged group of folks. 

They came to our Sandwich District Library to give us a taste of not only the tunes of Stephen Foster but also to introduce us to music played by fife and drum units as they would have performed for soldiers not only in the Civil War but the Revolutionary War.

According to Dr Smunt, music is a passion for him.  He says,

“I started playing civil war period music on the clarinet about 1996, but I could not find any local musicians interested in forming a period band.  Then I witnessed a fife & drum unit at a Revolutionary War reenactment, and decided to get into reenacting as a field musician.  In 1997, I purchased both a folk and a military fife from the Sweetheart Flute Co….. I joined up and began diligently learning, practicing, and memorizing.  I continued to meet new musicians at reenactments and living history programs, so we formed the Mississippi Valley Fife & Drum corps.”

 Dr Smunt and his band not only entertain with folk or minstrel music but also they participate in various reenactment companies.   As lead musician, Dr Smunt has, over the past almost 15 years provided not only simple ditties for audiences to enjoy, but more importantly, a learning experience for students young and old seeking to learn more about the early history of the United States.

 According to their website,

“Popular Music of the American Civil War Era and mid-nineteenth century, 1835 – 1865, can be divided into three distinct genres:  military fife and drum, brass band, and folk & minstrel.”  

 This tradition of fife & drum genre goes back hundreds of years, starting with the Swiss Army.  The military music was brought to colonial America from Europe.  

 Dr. Smunt says, “During the early republic, fife & drum thrives with the growing popularity of pre-war militias, and continues its traditions within the regular army.  During the Civil War, field music regulates the camp duties and fulfills its destiny in parade music, but fife & drum proves impractical as a means to communicate in battle due to the evolution of modern tactics and technologies.  Field signals become increasingly performed by the bugle.”

 After spending an evening listening to this lovely, fascinating, historical music, peppered throughout by historical anecdotes and illustration of various instruments used by the Century Air Minstrels, I was hooked. 

 I had to learn more.  I soon discovered that the soldier playing in the field would then bring his music to campfires.   Other musicians would share their craft in churches and minstrel shows.  The most common instruments were violin, banjos, bass, fifes, flutes, drums, tambourines, spoons, jaw harps, harmonicas, concertinas, and accordions.   Virtually any instrument available could be utilized to provide hours of entertainment for the soldiers or civilian audiences.

 Dr Smunt and his ensemble have done other concerts since visiting my Fair City. They recently performed at Farnsworth House, a local historical site nearby for a Civil War Ball, and they also are scheduled to appear in two Fourth of July parades this year; in Hinsdale, IL  at 9:30 a.m. and then at Downers Grove, IL  at 1:30 p.m.  They are also tentatively scheduled to appear at the Lakewood Forest Preserve Civil War Days in Wauconda, IL on July 10 for another Civil War Dance from 9:00-11:00 p.m., accompanied by John and Elaine Mesciale, Dancemasters.  Contact Lake County Discovery Museum in Illinois

So the next time you’re wanting to explore something outside of Ryan Seacrest’s countdown with your kids, it’s well worth your while to check out the Century Air Minstrels.

By the way, I knew I had bridged the generation gap with my son, who accompanied me and my husband that evening to the Sandwich District Library to enjoy the Century Air Minstrels.

His toes were tapping.

London Calling

After you’ve walked into that wireless store, checked out the cool phones, and after careful consideration, walked out with a fabulous new device, do you ever think about your old cell phone?

Rather than tossing it into the trash, like 130 million of its hapless compatriots, it might be worth your time to recycle it.  According to Elizabeth Shogran of NPR, in her article, “EPA: Don’t Trash or Stash, Recycle Old Cell Phones,” the agency is encouraging folks to bring in their old phones to their local wireless stores, hoping to keep them out of the landfills and potentially saving several thousand pounds of copper, not to mention silver, and even gold.

National Cell Phone Recycling Week runs from April 5-11 this year.  According to the EPA site by recycling the phones, “enough energy would be saved to power 10, 690 homes for a year.”

Sounds impressive doesn’t it?  And recycling your old phone is virtually painless.  You can bring the phone, as mentioned, to your wireless store, or even to places like Best Buy,  or participate in a program like Samsung’s March to a Million in School Recycling Program, which aims to collect 1 million phones through middle and high schools throughout the country, with an incentive for schools to participate in a sweepstakes to win either a VIP concert by alternative rock band Hey Monday, or “one of 50 $1,000 ‘Green Grants,’ to help their school become more environmentally friendly.”

Or you could mail in your phone to the Wireless Foundation’s Call to Protect Program,  which helps fund annually over $3 million dollars to help end domestic violence.

Whatever you do, if you do decide to donate your phone, be sure to erase all personal data.  Don’t worry about being charged for any airtime; it’s likely that your old phone won’t be activated any more, but to be safe before you leave the wireless store with your new phone, double-check to make sure the old one has been deactivated.

This ain't no smartphone!

We all have an old phone or two lying around the house collecting dust, when a simple act of recycling could do wonders.  Leave the world a little nicer than when you found it and blaze a trail for goodness.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us,

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Michelle Vandepas of Talking Books TV

Well if you have not already seen it, here’s my latest interview with Michelle Vandepas of Talking Books TV!

Michelle recognizes that authors need all the exposure they can after they get their books published and she has facilitated a new, fabulous way to help with book promotion.

I had a great time; Michelle was easy to interact with, made me feel relaxed, put my mind at ease, and asked questions that were fun to answer.  I for one am so grateful for the opportunity to be featured on the web via Michelle’s site and would highly recommend Talking Books TV for any author wishing to see their work exposed to as many potential readers around the world as possible.

Here’s my interview.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Second Hand Roses on Talking Books TV

Treasures this way

Whether you’re a seasoned thrift store veteran or a newbie, it’s always a thrill to walk into one of your local thrift shops on a lazy afternoon and discover treasures within.

For deep within the shelves or hiding on one of the many racks of clothes hide potentially amazing finds just waiting to be discovered.

Looking for a pair of jeans?  Look no further than the denim section of your local Goodwill or Salvation Army.  If you’ve got the time and even a tiny bit of patience, chances are you’ll find at least five pairs in your size just waiting to adorn your body.  According to “The Thrifty Chicks,” jeans shopping is one of the more sublime adventures in thrift store land.

Looking for a photograph frame?  Well I guess you could go to a retail store and shell out at least $10 or more for a simple wooden frame, or you could head over to  your local thrift shop or even visit a rummage sale or garage sale and possibly even bring home an instant ancestor or two.  Some of those secondhand frames are better made and have much more attention to detail than the mass-produced ones you will find in a mass merchandiser.

What if you’re needing some new cookware?  You could go to Williams-Sonoma and go into hock for a fine piece of crockery or you may want to venture into Goodwill, like I did, and find a perfectly good pan for your next meal preparation.  Now those clever Thrifty Chicks do mention something I had not also considered,

it made me realize that it’s former owner loved this dish and used it to create wonderful edibles for the people that mattered to her or him. It made me feel like this dish had an inherited knowledge of how to care for the items placed in it once it goes into the oven

How cool is that?  They call this haunted cookware.   I think that’s a fabulous term and really stirs the imagination (even as one stirs a pot of soup!) about the previous owner and the love they imbued into their dishes they served their families.

Now if you’re not the type to venture into a thrift store, there’s even a lady who’ll do that for you.  Just click on Esty.com’s Recessionista Vintage and you can shop to your heart’s content for cool retro clothes without ever having to step into a secondhand shop.

See, the more mass-produced items become, I think more folks are realizing the benefit in turning to the old, the familiar, and the reliable to outfit their homes, bodies, and lives.  It’s truly the ultimate in green, too, to buy second hand, and with a little imagination, thrift store treasures can be unearthed to bring joy and contentment to our lives once again.

Let’s think about what Napoleon Bonaparte once said about treasures:

“Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them.”

Domestic Goddess Gear

Ok so now I am an officially published author.  I get it.  Now while I am waiting for the fame and fortune, something continues to plague my existence.

Dust bunnies.

Now with all my newfound “specialness” I should have been able to immediately go out and hire a crew of maids to handle such mundane household tasks.  I mean, honestly, does Sarah Palin REALLY pick up a Swiffer these days? 

However, apparently until I hit that New York Times Bestseller List, I still find myself remanded to the drudgery of the same old housework I battled even as I brought the book to light.  So much so that yesterday while I was vacuuming, I missed a call from a local newspaper reporter asking me about my book.

Fame apparently waits for no one, including those recently published authors still needing to do housework.

And my 11-year-old son also reminds me that regardless of the fact that now my book can be found listed on Amazon.com

I am still expected to pick up his dirty laundry, haul it to the basement, wash it, dry it, haul it back upstairs, fold it, and put it away for him.  He’s not alone.   Even non-author moms find that the old-fashioned views on “women’s work” carries on even a few generations past the burning-bra period of the 1970s. 

According to Lisa Belkin of the New York Times Magazine, in her article Kids See Housework as Women’s Domain, there seems to be a direct correlation between the amount of time dear old dad is away at work and the time spent by kids doing chores.  Not so with mom.  Apparently regardless of mom’s other hats she wears, at home she’s still expected to bear the larger burden of housework.

This simply has to stop! 

But before I get all huffy and naggy, I have found recent solace in a book I picked up the other day.  In To Love, Honor, and Vacuum, author Sheila Wray Gregoire (a fellow Canadian!) discusses the challenges of women she says often, according to the subtitle, “feel more like a maid than a mother.”   

With humor, dashed with a peppering of good old Christian values (even useful to me as a non-Christian) Gregoire empowers women to find their strength to recruit help from the other household members, do it gently, with love, and actually get results and reap the rewards of a happier, more peaceful home all around.

I’ve just started reading the book but I’ve already picked up some great tips.   I especially enjoyed the section on asking appropriately; to get the kids or dad to help out more without resorting to what all women seem to be so good at…nagging (or so that’s what it’s called when they’re at the end of their ropes).

So armed with this great book, feather duster in hand, and sporting a new attitude, I plan to balance my burgeoning amazingness as an author with the knowledge that I am more than a scrubber of dirty toilets or sorter of socks. 

I might even have the time to sit down and read a good book  from time to time!

Amen.

Second Hand Roses: The Junktiquing Road

Are you a thrift store junkie? Do you find yourself drawn to all things second hand?  Can you barely pass by an antique store without feeling the urge to stop in for just a moment (or hour) or two? 

Are you intrigued by the backstory of some of life’s castoffs? 

Join me as I venture down the Junktiquing Road and consider the story behind the trinkets I discover and learn valuable life lessons from seemingly nondescript everyday items.

The book, Second Hand Roses: The Junktiquing Road is here!  For anybody having picked up an old mysterious implement, gazed across time into the faces of hundred-year-gone “instant” ancestors, opened the dusty pages of a venerable book, or marvelled at ancient (read: no batteries required) toys, this book is for you.

Consider purchasing the book for yourself or someone you love who is also a “junker,” “picker,” or general all-around second-hand aficionado.

Now available on Amazon!  You can buy it by clicking on this link.

SECOND HAND ROSES

You can also buy it at Barnes and Noble by clicking here:

Dawn Edwards is a 43-year-old writer, medical transcriptionist, blogger, work-at-home mom, and a long time self-professed thrift store “junkie.”

Published in various magazines, books, and on websites, Dawn brings her special literary skills to new heights in her first book. She lives in a tiny town west of Chicago with her husband, Alexander, and her beautiful son, Julius.  An avid second-hand shopper, Dawn is always looking for inspiration.

To listen to her interview on Blog Talk Radio with Michelle Vandepas

Just one of the many victims

Now is not the time to discuss banalities.  People are dying, many unnecessarily, some for the want of such basic life-sustaining requirements of clean water, food, shelter, and medical care.

We all have so much here our society.  Even those of us barely scraping by here in the USA have the chance at least of somewhere to sleep protected from the elements, something to eat, water to sip, and (heavens!) a bandage if we are cut.

This poor country, just 681 miles from Miami, has suffered enough over it’s tumultuous history.  No one should endure a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, but it’s made all that more devastating due to the crushing poverty of these proud, beautiful people.

Remember how we all felt after we saw the towers fall?  After Katrina?  Feel that love for your fellow man now and contribute.  Even $5, the cost of a footlong sub at a famous restaurant, will go farther than you could imagine

RIGHT NOW

Resources:

http://tinyurl.com/unicefhaiti

1-800-UNICEF

http://clintonbushhaitifund.org

http://google.com/relief/haitiearthquake

OR TEXT “HAITI” TO 90999

Thank you and remember what Dr King said not too long ago:

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.