happy anniversary to me

today marks one year that my bookstore has been open at its current location.  basically, today is my one-year anniversary because i couldn’t do this full-time until this last move so i consider november 18, 2017 my opening day.  it went by uncelebrated and that’s okay because i knew.  i didn’t want to plan anything or have an event since it’s a holiday week.  i felt sure it would be a slow day and that would just depress me and add to my anxiety and frustration.

i had a good day though.  i had gotten in several books as part of a donation that i knew a customer would want to look at.  i texted and she came by and made a sizeable purchase.  i love doing what i do.  i love knowing my customers wants and interests and contacting them when books surface that they will like.  i had that happen one other time this past week as well and it reinforced why i do what i do.

the used book business is really hard.  i’m in constant competition with big warehouse stores and thrift shops and goodwill but i offer so much more than that.  you can’t walk into one of those places and ask for recommendations or spend literally hours talking about literature or politics or family or music or film or God or anything else.  i do that all day.  i know my customers and i do what i do for them – not just for me.

i don’t know that i will see another anniversary in this business unless something changes.  lots of things are happening in the book world and lots of things are happening in nashville.  it’s a source of pride for me that the store sustains itself but i must pay myself as well and that’s proving to be much more difficult. 

if i’m able to hang on i hope on my 2^nd anniversary then i can have a party!

grace and peace and books

left behind

i'm behind...behind on writing the blog, behind on my diet, behind on my bills, behind on writing the book, behind on everything.  it's not a new condition - i just thought i'd mention it. 

 

thanksgiving has come and gone and now i'm on the anti-Christmas warpath.  i give praise for the birth of Jesus but i despise what the "holiday" has become.  the consumerism disgusts me.  in my opinion, such as it is, we should aspire to want less stuff not more.  and this is not a post-flood "everything could be gone tomorrow" outlook.  i've been screaming this for 10 years or more.

 

yes, i do think that i've become even more outraged since the flood when i struggle every month to pay the bills (keep in mind most of them aren't paid) and yet continue to hear, "my family has a $50 limit for gifts."  guess what $50 could buy for me?  pet food for the month or gas for the month or my reduced school loan payment.  it's hard.  everything is hard!

 

i'm so tired of living this post-flood, hyper-vigilant, hourly-wage, no health insurance life.  i'm still waiting (2 weeks now) for my inhaler to combat my asthma but the red tape and phone calls and begging for generics, etc. is exhausting and demoralizing.  i have a college degree and i can navigate all this but i feel for those people who don't have the wherewithal to stand up for themselves and accept the first "no" they hear and do without.  this is a hard world for the poor and uninsured.

 

i'm as tired of dealing with this post-flood life as i've ever been.  i'm a different person while nothing around me is different.  things continue on and yet i stay the scared, shocked, angry, exhausted person i've been since may 2, 2010.  2 1/2 years of my life is gone and i have very few memories and even fewer memorable moments to cling to. 

 

i will keep on keeping on for lack of an alternative but i will do it while NOT observing Christmas. 

 

grace and peace



october surprise

i realize that i am in the minority in my hatred of holidays however i defy anyone to defend the following...

 

1.  a mustang i was following this afternoon had some sort of plastic (?) creature hanging from the back that was a white ghost on one side and black bat on the other; 

 

2.  a honda i saw only a minute later had a fake hand and foot hanging out of the back as if a body were stuffed in the trunk;

 

3.  and, of course, the hated hay bale is made up to look as if a witch has crash landed complete with a broom, witch's hat and various and sundry black cats roaming around. 

 

these things are NOT okay!  am i right?  who likes halloween enough to actually take the time to do any of this?  i cannot understand.  granted i think all holidays are overrated and would fine if we could just skip to march and avoid the whole charade. 

 

i am more moody than normal because i can't breath...but only a little more moody. 

 

grace and peace

memorials

i spent the day with the family - the visit that almost didn't happen.  the headache that i woke up with on friday hung on for days...and days.  finally able to get out today but i came home tired and jumpy.  i once again discovered, almost too late, that i have a dreaded doctor's appointment tomorrow...the nurse practitioner that prescribes my medications.  it takes no more than 15 minutes and involves no more than a dozen questions...the same questions that have been asked of me for the last year and that i have never failed to answer in the same uninspired, anxious tone.

Q:  "how are you feeling right now?" 

A:  "anxious."

Q:  "how is your sleep?" 

A:  "not good."

Q:  "how's the job search?" 

A:  "worse."

Q:  "how's the appetite?" 

A:  "elevated, i'm starving right now!  look at me i'm a house!"

Q:  "these medications all cause weight gain." 

A:  "no kidding!"

i've been resisting picking up the phone and leaving a message that i need to reschedule.  i see them for free so it's not like they would be losing any money if i don't show up but i keep telling myself to go and get it over with because i won't want to do it in a weeks time either.  i don't even remember a time when leaving the house was easy.  so many things are difficult now that it's a wonder i ever manage to show up somewhere.  i'll try in the morning. 

i am thankful for all of the soldiers who have served, past and present, and those who gave their lives so that we might have our freedoms (even those that allow me to sit and complain and worry about if i will be able to drive the 12 miles to the doctor tomorrow!)  God bless all our heroes!

grace and peace

Happy Easter

when i reflect on the last year, as one is want to do at birthday time, i’m reminded of how hard it was.  at the time of my birthday i was spending nearly every day at a local rehab center where both my grandmothers were recovering, one from a fall and one from complications due to pneumonia.  neither of them was able to be alone.  my mother’s mother, then 84, was watched over by my mother, my aunt and me.  my father’s mother, then 93, was watched over by my dad, 2 of his sisters and me.  there were times when i was the only one able to be there and i had to run back and forth from room to room.  luckily for me they were on the same floor.  my paternal grandmother was there for 4 weeks and my maternal grandmother there for 6.  in the meantime i was traveling back and forth, 180 miles round trip; to be with my dad’s other sister who was in the last stages of cancer.  she would die before either of my grandmothers’ left the center.  My 93 year old grandmother would not be able to attend her daughter’s funeral.  i was tired and frazzled beyond what i thought was possible.  after surviving 2010 and the bronchitis, the pneumonia, the firing, the flood, the loss of my house, car, my possessions and possibly my life i didn’t think i would ever recover.  i would soon lose a 17 year old dog as well.  i was one big, raw nerve.

when i think of the last 2 years i cannot remember a day that i didn’t feel exhausted, a day when i didn’t feel helpless in some way, a day when i wasn’t terrified of the next catastrophe awaiting me.  i still feel that way, but i am grateful that this birthday was spent in a more peaceful place, every little bit helps.  my life is still in limbo as i await the changes yet to come, the completion of the house, the inevitability of a new job or school, the subsequent plan to escape this anxiety-inducing heap of a house and go somewhere else—anywhere else; a place where i can relax, a place where i can leave the house and not have to see this wretched river that is now my arch-enemy, a place without torturous memories.

so i experienced my birthday as not much more than the marking of time.  one big red “X” on the 37^th year of my life.  then i woke up this morning, Easter—day 2 of my 38^th year—and was reminded that i was to celebrate the best thing to have ever happened in human history:  the resurrection of Jesus.  the thing that makes all that we suffer in this world worth it.  the thing that gives us Christians hope in the painless and tearless Heaven that awaits us.  the thing that proves to me that the pain is not the end of the story but a necessary means to an end that is greater than anything we can imagine in this fallen, sinful world.  praise be to God for being bigger, better, kinder, more merciful and more loving than our human minds can comprehend. 

Happy Easter!

grace and peace

Good Friday/Passover

the plan for today was:  family function, walk, shower, church for Good Friday service tonight at 7:00. 

the reality of today was:  family function...

i've been struck with a monstrous headache, whether from allergies, as a result of being outside all day, or from going too long between my breakfast of 2 homemade pancakes and my supper of leftover pasta i'm not sure.  probably a combination of both.

by the time i got home and walked winston i was too hungry and in too much pain to do anything but eat a bite and lie down.  now it's too cool and dark for me to start a walk and it's 5 till 7:00.  and my head still hurts! 

i think i will turn off this computer, read the crucifixion story in all 4 Gospels and spend some time in prayer in lieu of church.  then it doesn't really matter what else the night brings.  i will be ready to celebrate Easter on sunday. 

He is risen!

grace and peace

not just scrooge at Christmas

i live 8 miles from downtown nashville but, of course, it used to be the country and there are still a few old family farms around.  this is the scene a mile from my house on one of the said farms.

the hay bail appears october 1 decorated with broom, witch's hat, black cat, etc.  then he becomes a turkey (which is rather quite cute,) then santa's hat, boots, sack of presents, etc. appear.  this is the first year in my 7 years in this neighborhood that it's decorated for valentine's day!!  i'm sure next month it will announce the coming of st. patrick's day and then Easter!  what?!   

now if you don't know this about me already, it probably won't surprise you to know, that i hate holidays.  all of them!  the little ones, the big ones, the made up ones.  i fantasize on many occasions about pulling my car over and kicking the hell out of this thing!  luckily it sits on a busy road in a sharp curve and there is nowhere to pull over.  i was amazed that i was even able to slow down enough to take this picture.

with my anxiety i exist in such a vacuum.  the months since the flood have been both eternal and fleeting.  save for this hated hay bale there is a chance i would have no idea what month it is.  perhaps that one sad fact has saved it from my wrath.

grace and peace