Free-for all Friday: Why I love Goodwill!

I love Goodwill. It has been appropriately named because it has been very good to me :) Here are just a few of my awesome finds:

Dansko clogs for 4.99(!!!),

Noah's ark wooden toy chest,

a nearly complete set of The Family Creative Workshop,

this solid wood, ginormous,  handmade (I like to believe) cradle,

this gorgeous, handmade plate,

and all these mugs in the front row (this is just a sample, I have a thing for handmade mugs). But I digress. It's like they know me! So, when I needed something to alter for a friend for her birthday, guess where I headed. And look what they had...

Eight nesting boxes! I was thrilled. Not only a box for this project, but for seven more, too! So nice :)

This is what the first box has become...

It is so gratifying to make something out of nothing. I felt this the most when throwing pottery. Taking a handful of mud and making something beautiful and useful is incredible. But it is the same with altering. That box was, um.... not the prettiest and with just mod podge and paper it becomes a treasure. Kind of like Goodwill, too. Taking someone else's throwaway, bringing it home and it feeling like Christmas. Creative energy, in all it's forms, is so life giving.

Project Monday? Reading time...

This week is all about reading...and a little bit of writing. Before I had to quit my job, I taught freshman writing at the University of Kentucky. I used an overall theme of food to give our class something to read, discuss, and write about that we all could relate to. Since I had to quit teaching, I am keeping myself busy doing some writing of my own and reading a lot. Not surprisingly, I am drawn to essays by women. Lately, I've been excited to see so many moms writing about food such as Emily Franklin in Too Many Cooks.

I just started two collections of award winning food writing looking for more varied perspectives on food and I'm doing some writing myself about my relationship to food and having cancer. (Stay tuned for more on tapping into our creative writing selves in the coming months). Right now, I'm writing about donuts--for me, writing about food can be anything from humorous to critical, but always, always nostalgic. My own mama has a blog showcasing all of her wonderful baked goods, but of course, her posts often turn from recipes to memories like this one.

Oh, I am nostalgic this week. All of this reading and writing has made me wish I was back in high school sharing a cinnamon bun with my sister and mom. I had to take out my old recipe boxes and spend some time going through the worn, handwritten cards and torn out magazine recipes. I really don't know how I got a hold of these collections--that's my childhood crayon box below, but why is it holding recipes torn out by my mom and handwritten by my grandmother Helen--or maybe they're written by her mother?

If my computer was cooperating, you'd see that I couldn't just put these recipes away (Jellied Tomato Soup anyone?)! I took a handful of my favorite and color copied them onto cardstock. I then cut them out and simply glued them onto contrasting scrap cardstock, adding some simple embellishments like ribbon and buttons. Now, I have bookmarks that inspire me as I read and write and remind me of meals from the past and the women in my family that I love so much.

Free-for-All Friday: Lent

As you may know, Wednesday began the season of Lent. Peace and Solitude have now taken a deeper meaning, as I embark on a spiritual journey, breaking the unhealthy attachments, habits I have picked up during the year to prepare myself for Easter. I love this time and it begins so appropriately during these last days of Winter.

As a family, we use this time to remember what we mean to one another. To focus especially on treating each other with respect, to love one another as we have been loved. It entails doing small sacrifices and acts of kindness and mercy, spiritually "giving" them to God for another (by a random draw, each child picked a sibling to specially pray for during lent). Purple, the color of waiting, adorns the house again, as during Advent but, this time, without the joyful expectation. Our Lenten days are a bit more solemn as we focus on the ways we need to grow.

As we all need tangible things to help us understand the spiritual, this bowl of beans represent our deeds. The children place them in a jar as they carry out good deeds of their own or witness those of another. On Easter morning the beans are "miraculously" changed to jellybeans. This mirrors what God does with our kindnesses, turning them into grace.

It is easy to start with focusing on how to love each other better, but this naturally extends to our greater family - the others (not in a scary Lost way) outside our home. We use this box to collect money that will be given to a chosen charity at the end of these 40 days.  Purging the things we do not need and giving it to those less fortune is a large part of our journey. We have also committed to making lunches for a local homeless shelter.

I so look forward to this time, especially after the holidays. For though these are things we should do all year long, inevitably life steps in and distracts us. During these 40 days we reorient ourselves to what is truly important and carry the good habits we have formed into and beyond Easter season.