Smorgasbord

Sometimes I feel like a lot of things happen and inspire me to write, but I often feel like I can't throw out a whole bunch of words about most individual subjects, since I'm no real writer.  I'm also a new homeschooler, an entrepreneur, a Mom, a wife, and a person who likes time to myself, so my blogging is hardly a daily activity... :-/  Let's just call this a smorgasbord!

Standing up to the Bully and FOR "Big Phil"

The other day Jon and I went to a haunted house.  We went at the earlier, advised time to minimize our wait and were having a really good time.  While in line, we were in front of a moderately sized group of teenagers.  Overall they were good kids, but at one point, I overheard this: boy: "Oh shit, big Phil's here." girl: "Who's big Phil?" boy: "Dude he's like 400 fuckin pounds man and he's so fat.  He runs so slow and always makes us run more laps, he's fuckin fat."

This was clearly an athletic boy based on his conversation and his build.  He was very healthy, probably 6.5feet tall or so, and confident.  Reminder of this for you.  I'm the "bullied" not the bully.  But, it's true what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago.  It is the responsibility of the adults to change what's going on.  I didn't do exactly as I should have, but I did my best given the adrenaline-charged shaking I had going on: "Excuse me, boys..." boy: "Yeah?" me: "I'm sure you've heard of these teenagers who are literally killing themselves over words like that.  That shit hurts people, for real.  Find different words." boy: (With snide and embarrassed expression)"Okay" me: "Please" boy: (Same expression)"Okay" girl: (to me) "Thank You"

It wasn't *much*.  And I really think I could've empathized more with the boy.  But, again... I was actually shaking.  It was SO.SCARY. for me to say anything to the boy.  Terrifying.  I don't know if it's the general idea of standing up to someone or if it was because his words were so chilling in the first place, or if it was because I was standing up to things in my past as well, or if it was the "embarrassment" of acknowledging to myself that I am, in fact, the old lady who tells teenagers to "cool their jets" so to speak.  Whatever it was though, it was a rush.  I felt good, I felt proud, I felt accomplished, I felt hopeful.  I felt a little bit bad about calling him out in front of the others, but it's not quite like I could say, "Hey, come with me, please..."

I also felt like the girl who thanked me might feel more courage to do something similar in the future.  I don't know for sure, but it's like nursing in public.  Every time someone sees it for the first time it affects them and let's just hope she'll walk away from that feeling that it's better to speak up in the future.  I hope so.  I kinda' wish I could've given my phone number to the whole group of them and said, "If you ever need anyone safe to talk to...call, please."  But, yeah... not quite there yet.  :-P

It's kinda' chilly! Brrr.

I live in the mountains, ya know.  It's the time of year when it starts getting quite cold little by little.  Our house has a "no furnace till November" challenge.  If a blizzard comes we'll turn it in, but pretty much anything else won't warrant a change-of-plans here.  Why?  I can't really tell you...  I'm not certain.  Partially because I like the idea of allowing our bodies to move into the next season.  We must be a little chilly to recognize what's coming and I think internally, we expect it.  So, we let ourselves get a bit brisk.  Also, it's a good way to check what sweaters do and don't fit, who has enough socks for the winter, how everyone's stockpile of warm clothes is.  Even during the winter, we don't turn our furnace more than 62 degrees F so we need to keep our stuff in stock.  Currently, it's 59 in our house. Brr.  :-)  It's also a nice way to ring in the season with cuddling in front of the fireplace and embracing whatever kinda' lovin' comes next! ;-)  More than anything, I guess it's just a fun way to be in a little bit of denial that winter is really almost here.  Until we hear the furnace fire up, we can pretend it'll be 70 tomorrow (okay, Friday... but we'll make it!)

Have you ever thought of doing a furnace challenge?  Or, more so, an A/C challenge?  Tell me about it if you decide to join in the game.  If you've already turned your furnace on, it's okay.  Go turn it off and join us now.  Join the wintertime bandwagon and keep your furnace low all winter, too.  I'll touch back on that in several weeks.

Super-Great-Awesomely-Fun-Random-Neat Challenge for the CO Roots!!!!

I thought about it the other day and I'm so stoked!!!!!!!

We aren't going to be buying anything that's brand new (other than groceries, supplements, and the like) through the month of November.  If all goes well (which that is the goal) we'll continue this new way of shopping indefinitely.  You see... I was thinking the other day what big consumers we are.  Any of you who know us know that we are pretty modest folks.  We prefer it that way (aside from gizmos and gadgets).  Even with our modest ways of living, we buy a lot of stuff brand new that we don't actually need to buy brand new.  Can you imagine how many dishes are thrown away every day?  How many dishes are made in factories(not in America, either of course, but that's as far into politics as I'll get right now) every day?  How many bras are thrown out?  How many dog leashes?  Candles?  HAIR BANDS?????

We can find all of these things and a boatload more at second hand stores, on Craigslist, at garage sales, etc.  It's so easy for me to thrift store shop for clothes, but I rarely think about all those other things I "pick up" all the time.  So, I thought how fun it would be to change the way I think about getting what we need.  It all started with our need for a new dog leash.  Rootie eats through his every few months or so.  We're always getting new ones.  So far we've gotten the one we got with Rootie, a hand-me-down from Jon's parents, the freebie that came from the Humane Society when he gotten taken in by the doggie truck, and a lost-and-forgotten one we found at the off-leash dog park.  He just ate through the latest last week and we need to get him a new one.

The Universe hasn't plopped one in our lap yet, the way it has so far, so we went to the store to buy one.  As we moseyed around we were surprised at the price of a new leash (that Rootie will have eaten by spring, I'm sure) and we were equally surprised that Martha Stewart has a line of pet products.  But, anyway...  My eyes were also being drawn to every dog in there, both in puppy school and not.  I realized than... we've gotten all of these used leashes before...  We can EASILY get a used dog leash from someone on Craigslist or at a secondhand.  So, we looked at the silly things in Petsmart, had some fun, googly-eyed some puppies, and made our way on with our day.  As I was thinking about my whole train of thought I realized that there's a whole aspect of our lives that we're more wasteful than we give ourselves credit for being.  Yuck!  Thus, the idea was born.

Buy used.  Duh.  But, buy lots of stuff used.  Yay!  I'm really excited about it.  I'm going to search for an inner tube for my bike on CL now.  Keeping my fingers crossed for this one.  You wanna play too?  Think about how many things you bring in your house each week, each month that you could get just as good not straight from a package.  Play with me!!!  Tell me all about your good finds and your good sales, too!  :-D