When the internet gets me down and my blogging is in a funk, I go old school and make something with my hands...in three dimensions.
Yesterday, I made two skirts for myself and this:
I have never had the kind of body that fits easily into off the rack clothes. When I was very skinny, I simply wore whatever fit clung to my hip bones and I worked the adorably slack look. Now that my body has enjoyed the journey of motherhood, I find that I am too voluptuous for clothes that hang from my hip bones, because my hip bones no longer protrude. I have no waist and uneven hips. I also have enormous boobs. I know, I can hear the Itty-Bitty Titty Commitee boo me from their AA conference right now. I have offered on numerous occasions to donate my mammaries to anyone who is willing to pay for the surgery, but I've had no takers. They give me back aches and neck aches and cost me a fortune in equipment. My bazooms also make it hard to find clothes that fit. Oxfords and blouses? I look as if I may blind passersby with my straining buttons. Fitted shirts and tees? My heaving bosoms take up all the extra room that was intended for tummy coverage. I found myself wearing my old maternity clothes, well after the acceptable transition period had passed. Because, as you may recall, maternity clothes have a little extra room for swollen breasts. No one was the wiser. When I would pass the maternity section in stores I would look longingly at all the cute clothes that I didn't wear when I was expecting, because I became allergic to cute clothes and could only bring myself to wear a shapeless brown dress and a pair maternity sweat pants. Seams of any kind were my enemy and my belly was so vast in comparison to my hips that I could scarcely keep a pair of panties up. So, as I was wandering out of the dressing room at Old Navy, feeling defeated by the simple t-shirts I had just tried on, I fondled a few maternity tees. They were the same fabric and style as the shirts my boobs had just tried to eat, but they had a very subtle A-Line cut. The light bulb appeared above my head and I ran back into the dressing room, feeling like I had just invented calorie free chocolate. The maternity tee fit perfectly. There was room for my chest and the shirt didn't cling unflatteringly to my lumpy midsection. I regularly buy maternity clothes for myself now. Especially at Old Navy, the clothes are virtually the same as non-pregnancy clothes and they don't cost that much more. Today, I bought two beautiful wrap dresses off the clearance rack and once I remove the giant tag that says Maternity, no one will ever know. I feel like a special kind of genius.
I believe in karma. I know that all the energy I put out into the universe is reflected back on me and that means the more good I do, the more good I get. I have a great generosity of spirit. Really, I know that sounds like bullshit, but I like to do nice things for other people. I do not however strive to MAKE people happy, but that is a different session on the couch. As I was saying, I have a generous spirit, but I am also extremely selfish with my time. I have always found volunteering hard to fit into my life. I don't have the motivation to create an unpaid scheduled event in my life. I don't even like having a paid job. I've tried volunteering and I always end up disappointing people. I have always given to charity, but we rarely have any money, so it doesn't feel like it makes much of a difference. Taking things to the Goodwill is wholly unsatisfying, especially if the attendant acts as if you've just brought him a steaming pile of dogshit. Also, the mark up at thrift stores really benefits the charity, not the people who are looking for used goods. Psst, just a little clue for you -- Goodwill and The Salvation Army end up throwing away stuff that won't sell,unless they can foist it upon yet another charitable organization. Don't think that you are saving that 50 year collection of National Geographics from the landfill, just because you donated it to your favorite thrift store. At some point, every piece of junk takes it's place in the garbage heap, unless someone actually wants it. This has always been the problem with stuff. Stuff is actually junk, until someone covets it and then it is worth 500% of it's original value on eBay. There are only so many forgotten "treasures" that people are willing to pay for, so what do we do with the rest of it? After you have schlepped your unwanteds to Once Upon a Child, Play-it-Again Sports and Half-Price Books, what do you do with what they deem unsellable? Give it away? No, you jest? When I discovered Freecycle, I immediately had dreams of finding marvelous free stuff just waiting for me to pick up. Freecycle is a community of like minded folks who would prefer to keep their junk out of the landfill, you know to protect our earth's precious resources. The reality is, Freecycle.org is a local network of people either desperately looking for the things that might make their life just a bit more comfortable or people who are desperately trying to get some junk out of their lives before it consumes all of their living space. It is the most perfect symbiotic relationship. Of course, there are those people who post Wanted messages for things like xBox 360s and cell phones of a specific color and brand, but those people never get what they are after and quickly move on. I am addicted to Freecycle and I have only received ONE freebie in six months of participating. The freebie I did get was so fantastically generous (from my perspective) that I couldn't wait to pay it forward. So now, instead of hording a pile of clothes and what-not for a future trip to the ungrateful Goodwill, I cut out the middle man and hand my goods directly to someone who will be ecstatic to get them. I get the added benefit of never needing to haul stuff to a donation site. The process is an incredibly powerful reminder of how fortunate I am. I know, cue the sappy music, but when I release my daughter's second hand clothes to a mother of 12, who actually has a naked child at home waiting for new pants; I feel wealthy indeed. You know an item has much more value in use than it does in resale (consider what happens when your 1986 Cavalier gets totalled and they hand you a check for a $100 to replace it), so keep the ball in play. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.
