(I'm Hoping) One Woman's Junk is Another Woman's Treasure

JP and the Furber kids left for Olympia yesterday, and I have decided to fill my time by preparing for our upcoming tag sale. This morning was spent in my garage going through every cupboard, shelf and box looking for items we no longer need, want, or remember why we ever acquired in the first place.

I found many items in all categories, but most in the last one. I also found some interesting things that have me wondering:

• Eight baseball gloves. We don't play baseball.
• A box of hoses. All kinds. With no instructions, identification, or clues at all to what they're for.
• At least 100 tiny cans of tomato juice. Yuck.
• A tarp of some sort that smells like vomit.
• All kinds of food. That's either JP hiding snacks from Jack so he won't eat them all in one day or Jack hiding the snacks he's found from JP. Either way, they're mine now.

In addition to all the strange and puzzling discoveries, I've amassed a big pile of treasures to sell, found a few things I thought I'd lost and had the best workout I've had all week. All in all, a good morning.

Now I just have to figure out how to get JP's fourth set of golf clubs, box of beer steins, and two big boxes of paper coasters into the sale without him noticing they're gone.

When You Thought I Wasn't Paying Attention, I Was

When I write about my parents in Suburban Zen, I usually write about my mom. I've been hearing from readers lately though, how much they love it when my dad pipes with his frequent, lengthy, sometimes even relevant commentary. Father's Day seems like a good day to give my dad his very own post.

Mark Twain once said that when he was 17 he couldn't believe how foolish his father was, and when he turned 21 he was amazed at how much his father had learned in the short course of four years.

As I reflect on my adult life, I realize many of the lessons I learned from my dad are from my childhood, and not lessons he actively tried to teach me. He just lived them and they somehow penetrated and stuck. Lessons like:

• Work hard so you can play hard.
• Take responsibility for yourself and your actions.
• You can be fun and funny, and still be in charge. Nobody can make me laugh like my dad can, but my sister and I always knew when it was time to be serious and listen. Not that we always did, but we knew we were supposed to.
• It's OK to make a mess, in fact it's good for you. As long as you clean up after yourself when you're done.
• Value people more than things. The only time dad got really mad at my sister and me was when we fought with each other, or hurt our mom's feelings. (Sorry, mom. we didn't mean it.)
• When you pass by a Dairy Queen, always stop for an ice cream cone unless you have one in your hand already.
• Always take pride in the house you live in. Even in the early days when we rented a house behind a gas station, my dad was proud of and grateful for what we had.
• If you feel like wearing an orange leisure suit, wear it. And let people take all the pictures they want.

Thanks, dad. I hope Andie, Jack and Katie are soaking up some of that second-hand wisdom from me. I know for sure they've picked up on the one about Dairy Queen.

I'm Still Working on That

There are many projects in my life that are unfinished. In fact, I'd say most of them are in various stages of completion because real life often interferes with my plans to complete something from start to finish. A project that takes more than 60 minutes is destined to be spread over multiple days, sometimes weeks, and on occasion, years. Rather than think of my to do list as incomplete, think of it as a constant state of progress.

One project that feeds into that constant state of progress is the inspiration board that hangs over my desk. When my family created my little office corner (see post Let the Inspiration Begin!) my husband hung a huge linen board over the desk for all the various photos, tear sheets, swatches, and other ephemera that I tend to collect.

That board is now an ever-evolving compilation of things I think are beautiful, things that inspire me, and things that may evolve into a project of some sort in the future (when I find the time.) In my opinion, a good inspiration board is never done: I'll always be adding and sometimes subtracting as my sources of inspiration, tastes and interests evolve. My children have even gotten in on the action: Andie has a board in her room where she compiles inspiration for her wardrobe.

And a project that doesn't have a defined end and is satisfying anyway? I highly recommend it.