Juggling Life

Trading Spaces: Social Butterfly Style

I think I might have mentioned that SB’s Christmas present last year was a room makeover. Since she’s been in this bedroom—the pre-remodel master—she’d had a Hawaiian/Tropical theme. It was very cute, but she was ready for a change and a little more sophistication. And how much do she and I both love that IKEA makes that possible for a reasonable price?

The Queen size bed was the biggest expense, but it is true that on any given weekend night, and nightly during summer, you can find three or four girls sprawled on the bed, snoozing away—and sometimes a few more on the floor. That’s how she talked us into the big bed anyway.

She went with gray walls, cranberry curtains and a rather old-fashioned looking floral duvet that doesn’t look too old-fashioned because of the modern bed frame.

Because she inherited her Mama’s love of photos, one wall is used to stick photos on with that tacky stuff that doesn’t take off paint. It’s a constantly morphing art piece. She and I both love the Gustav Klimt piece over the bed—and since it’s just canvas over a light frame it’s not going to kill her if it falls off the wall during an earthquake!

The flower pics are left over from the last room and we’re keeping our eyes peeled for something to replace them.

Her room pretty much always looks like this because she’s also got a little bit of her mama’s neat freak in her. Like me, she’s okay with one place in the room for piles—but only one.

We had a lot of fun shopping together and she and her dad and brother painted it together one day over winter break. She really does appreciate having the big room, and we like seeing her and a passel of friends have a great space to laugh, talk, sleep and put on makeup.

Boy, this wasn’t very wordless, was it?!

Blogging, Helpful

I wasn’t going to post more about the demise of my friendship, but, WOW, you all DID make me feel better—mostly because so many of you have been through the same thing and absolutely get the place I am, and have been, in over the past few months.

I believe I’ve written before about how often books echo what’s going on in my life and resonate with me deeply. This passage from Jodi Picoult’s, “Handle with Care,” was one such example:

Besides the obvious difference, there was not much distinction between losing a best friend and losing a lover: it was all about intimacy. One moment, you had someone to share your biggest triumphs and fatal flaws with; the next minute, you had to keep them bottled inside. One moment, you’d start to call her to tell her a snippet of news or to vent about your awful day before realizing you did not have the right anymore; the next, you could not remember the digits of her phone number.

There is nothing I could ever write that would come close to nailing it the way Jodi Picoult did—it really took my breath away when I came across it. The book blurb didn’t even give a hint that this book was about friendship, so it was almost eery.

Some of the things I learned from this experience are:

Not everything is about me—what happened in this instance was not about anything I did or said or didn’t do or didn’t say. For someone who never stops trying to make things right, this was a huge lesson.

A lot of people think it’s okay to walk away from a friendship without communicating why. I gleaned this from the comments at The Women’s Colony. I still don’t agree with or understand this sentiment; it’s not something I would be able to do, but I have a little more understanding of why people do this. That said, if you are inclined to do this, I think you should ask yourself if you’re doing it from fear of confrontation—if you are, perhaps it would be good for your personal growth to do the hard thing and share your thoughts—even if it’s just via email.

My family really does have my back. They were all very supportive as I worked through this—even though it did mean they listened to me say the same things over and over as I tried to understand why this was happening.

Not that I ever doubted it, but I am made of tough stuff—I get knocked down, but I always get up again!

In honor of all your awesome support, I’m going to give away that Jodi Picoult book—because it was a great book about friendship and I really treasure my blog friends. Next Monday I’ll pick from the comments on yesterday’s post.

Speaking of giving books away, the winners from last week’s post on 29 are commenters #7 and #16:

How about 17...that was a turning point for me, I would try a bit harder and make some better choices!!!!
I love cupcakes.

Posted by: busy bee suz | June 21, 2010 at 01:09 PM

I'd be 22. No wait. That was the year I taught high school and (no offense) was miserable. Okay, 20.

Pick me. :)

and my brother worked in the Magnolia bakery for several years. He had an Engineering degree but worked as a cupcake froster. We joked he was the best educated cupcake froster ever!

Posted by: CC | June 21, 2010 at 05:23 PM

Oh—to answer my own question, I think I might pick 32—nobody in diapers, but lots of kids running around having a great time. Summer meant the beach, the club, the neighbor’s pool, lots of games of long toss and nothing much more than that.

Friendship, Lost

I have struggled with what to say about a big event in my life. I did post something at The Women’s Colony, but have not talked about it here.

Several of my long-time readers have noticed that I don’t mention OMomK, my long-time bff, any more and the family is removed from my sidebar. To go through losing my best friend without blogging about it has been tough. In fact, my husband has said, “Blog about it! You’ll feel better.”

                   Our two families in Mammoth July ‘09.

The biggest struggle was how to tell the story without giving out private information that was only tangentially mine. So I’ve decided to skip the part about how it became that we no longer speak. I do still occasionally see her eldest daughter (who is best friends with my son). It’s enough to say that we don’t talk. And we haven’t for 6 months. I doubt we ever will.

This was not my choice.

Still, it is what it is.

It is hard for me not to have a best, best friend. I always have—ever since I was little. I don’t have a long friendship from childhood because we moved when I was too young to really keep in touch. I’d say I’ve had several very close friendships as an adult.

Still, OMomK and I went through more together than I had with any other friend. Her father-in-law’s death, my mother’s death, my sister’s death and her husband’s death. We knew crisis. We knew sadness. We were really there for one another. And we laughed. A lot.

And now, we’re not and we don’t. It’s hard.

It’s Full Confessional Friday . . .

               Put down your pail and sit a spell.

                  Photo courtesy of Flickr/Commons

             [Native girls, Marken Island, Holland]
                  [between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900].

Hit Me in the Pocketbook--Please

I’m not the first, or most well-known, person to say it, but I hope that Americans will not go back to business-as-usual when/if ever in our lifetime the oil spill off the Gulf Coast is resolved.

Still, I’m going to say it.

We need to get a grip on our oil consumption. In fact, we need to get a grip on the use of all our resources.

The low cost of our resources—oil, energy, water—is seen by many Americans as our birthright. Cheap gas, power and water costs us tremendously in terms of depleting our resources, polluting the Earth and endangering our national security. We’re paying for our addiction to cheap gas with military lives and oil-soaked pelicans.

I vote for every gas/energy tax increase I can because I know from personal experience that most people get serious about cutting back only when the financial incentive to do so is sufficient.

It never occurred to me to look for a carpool when I was attending a university 30 miles away from my home—until gas hit $4 a gallon. It was no more difficult than giving a shout out to the rest of my teaching cohort for me to find someone who also wanted to carpool, had a similar schedule and lived close by. We met at a park-and-ride and cut both our financial cost and energy expenditure with very little effort or inconvenience.

I grew up in Southern California during a drought, so water conservation is embedded in my psyche. When San Diego started talking mandatory water rationing people started comparing water usage. Several of us were looking over our bills and my families’ usage was about half that of other families—even though we had more people at our house. The people that rented and didn’t pay their own bills were the worst. Water didn’t equal money for them, so they had no incentive to conserve.

While some people have complained about cutting back their water use my position has been to bring the mandatory rationing on—I know that it’s not that hard to be a careful shepherd of your water consumption. What a difference it would make if everyone cut their usage by 25%. It would be huge—and probably not that hard.

I will say that as good as my family is about our water we are a huge part of the problem with our gas consumption. Six people driving five cars—and not sub-compacts either (one Toyota Sienna, one Toyota Four-Runner, two Ford Explorers (long story there) and a Honda Accord).

Part of the problem is our general frugality and that we drive cars until they have hundreds of thousands of miles on them (280,000 on my husband’s Explorer)—and way back in the day when we acquired most of these cars they made sense.

Plus, public transportation in San Diego is pretty much non-existent.

Still, I bet if you hit us with $5 a gallon gas both San Diego and the Juggling Family would start developing some alternatives in very short order.

Whiteboard and Dry Erase Markers

It doesn’t matter how old you are—it’s still fun.

                    Doodlings from the last day of school.

Thank You . . .

On the last day of school I handed out Thank You cards to all my students. They were all so welcoming when I took over the class at the beginning of their second semester.

A sampling:

_________,

I really enjoyed having you in class—you’re a smart girl. Don’t let yourself go down the wrong path—the future is yours to make the most of our throw away.

Choose wisely!

Mrs. Juggling

__________,

It was great to get to have you in class and get to know you—you truly impress me.

I hope the internship* works out—I know you will be great.

Mrs. Juggling

___________,

I am so proud of what you accomplished this year**. You have really shown what you are capable of—and if you can do it freshman year I know you can do it from now on.

Call me when it’s time to pick a college, okay?

Mrs. Juggling

___________,

What to say? You broke my hear a little bit. You have soooooo much potential. Please use all your gifts next year***—be the comeback kid—from “F”s to “A”s.

Please?

Mrs. Juggling

___________,

It was great to have you in class. I appreciate your hard work and attention to detail.

Also, I get a kick out of your competitive spirit—winning may not be everything, but it is better than losing!

Mrs. Juggling

*My wonderful BIL has agreed to let him intern for his business.

**1.0 first semester to 2.7 second semester.

***She’s got the attracting boys thing down, but she’s totally neglected the using her brains thing to get good grades.

A Cupcake of a Book

This book—both review and giveaway copies—were given to me by Touchstone/Fireside Publicity, Simon and Schuster.

Most of the time we try to eat well—veggies, lean protein, whole grains. Sometimes, though, you just need a cupcake.

I feel the same way about books. I read a lot of “literature.” Lately I’ve been on a Jhumpa Lahiri kick. It’s great stuff—and good for me, too. But every once in a while you need a cupcake read—something light, fluffy and just for fun.

If Adena Halpern’s novel, 29, were a cupcake it would have been made by Magnolia bakery and devoured by Carrie and friends on an episode of Sex and the City.

It is that light, that fluffy and that delicious.

It’s a bit of a Freaky Friday with a twist—79-year old Ellie Jerome makes a birthday wish that has her waking up as her 29-year old self. Not unexpectedly,  hilarity ensues. Followed by a little heartbreak. Soul-searching is involved. There’s family drama, friend drama and romantic drama. Plus, clothes!

As the book blurb states, “Fresh, funny and delightful, 29, is an enchanting adventure about families, love, and the real lessons of youth.”

One of the things I really liked about this is that sometimes books that are a little lighter in subject matter and are a little too light for me in length—I like to be able to savor a cupcake read. This book is the perfect length for a little savoring.

I liked this book so much that I asked the publicist for another copy to give away—so you’ve got two chances to win. I’ll give my review copy as well as the giveaway copy—lucky you!

Leave me a comment and tell me what age you would be if you got the chance to do it over for a day and I’ll pick a winner next Monday.

Guilty confession—I just got the last three winners books sent off (Hi Janet! Hi Stephanie! Hi Nancye! The book is in the mail!). I did stock up on padded mailers and school is over, so I promise to get these books sent off post-haste.

I’ve Got Something in my Pocket, It Belongs Upon my Face . . .

I was a Girl Scout for close to half my life. Social Butterfly was a Girl Scout for 8 years. So what was our response to the news that the truck Mr. Fix-it was driving had a broken axle and tie rod from the collision?

We looked at each other, smiled and burst into song:

You can’t ride in my Little Red Wagon!

Front seat’s broken and the axle’s draggin’!

It must be a regional thing though—we always sang “chugga, chugga, chugga chugga choo-choo” while the videos I found mostly do an “Oompah” thing.

What camp song will you never forget?

Full Confessional Friday . . .

                                                       the journey continues.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.com/commons

 

The Colony may be gone, but the Community lives on (I hope). Have at it, ladies (and Gary). 

 

 

If anyone finds a photo or thinks of a tagline that would be perfect for future Fridays, please email me at Jennatjugglinglife@gmail.com.