No, this is not going to be a post about three things I like about smoking. With all the reasons to quit, I don't understand why I still smoke. And with all those well-published reasons to quit, here are the top three biggest benefits for me:
-a tremendous relief from the guilt I carry every day of my life.
-the return of my self-respect.
-knowing I am tougher than nicotine and can conquer the fear of not having cigarettes to manage my emotions.
Perhaps too simplified for some to undestand and OF COURSE my health and money and no longer disappointing The Kid and other loved ones are right up there on the list. I beat cancer - why can't I beat smoking? How weird this addiction is and how I hate it!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Collecting as a Hobby
Late last week, I became the proud owner (??) of about ten thousand lapel buttons. They were part of a number of collections of an elderly lady who passed away last year. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, and I certainly don't want them all. I've looked at about one-quarter of them and there are a few gems in there, but this is not something I want to try to find space for in my less than one thousand square foot condo.
I've been thinking about collections, hobbies, past-times, and especially collecting as a hobby over the past few days. Some people have turned their hobbies into lucrative businesses; others have turned their collections into their fifteen minutes of fame - like the lady on Letterman a few years ago that collected oddly shaped potato chips. It made me laugh at the time, but I did wonder if it was a staged performance. I wondered about taking someone's eccentricity or mental illness and splashing it all over national TV. There are occasional newpaper articles about someone's huge collection of something. Most often, these are just normal people who let something get out of hand. One thing about collecting something, anything, is that it gives others an instant idea for a gift. "Hazel collects Care Bears? Well, I know what I can give her for Christmas". Often collectors don't do the collecting themselves, but get pieces from well-meaning friends and family members.
I have fallen into the collection pit a few times. I enjoyed it for awhile and then I either lost interest or the collection became a chore.
Three things I've collected in my life:
-pens. In my early and mid-teen years, I collected company pens. I do have a very active stationery gene, and growing up in a poverty-stricken environment, the pens seemed a wonder to me. I could get FREE pens. Sometimes I used them, but they mostly just lived in a shoebox, and every so often, I would take them out and look at them, sort them, and see if they all still worked. I don't remember when I quit 'actively' collecting, but I remember throwing them away.
-elephants. All sorts of elephants - stuffed, brass, glass, pottery, wooden, small, large, trunk up, trunk down, Asian, Indian. I had received a stuffed blue elephant as a birthday present, and decided to collect them. I collected and displayed my elephants for about ten years. I don't think I ever counted them, but I had LOTS, and they were taking over my house. Eventually, I had too many. They didn't look good anymore, because they were everywhere. I got very tired of dusting them and taking care of them. Gradually, I started getting rid of some of the ones that had no meaning for me, and eventually was able to part with all of them, except three very little miniature ones that my sister bought for me in Hawaii.
-teapots. I still have about 30, but the collection did top 80 a few years ago. The ones I've kept have some meaning for me or are unusually shaped. Looking at them now, I could pare it down to about 15 that I would really want to keep. The work to clean them and donate them stops me from 'cutting down'. They live on the top of my kitchen cabinets, so aren't in my face every day, like the darn elephants were. My teapot collection started with two very special ones: one from my Mom, who got it when her sister Clara passed away. It was a wedding present Auntie Clara had gotten in 1923 (maybe from my Mom; I don't know). The second is a dark green china teapot, of the type used in many small restaurants. I was given this one by my Auntie Florence, from a hotel she and Uncle Art operated for a few years.
The teapot collection, coupled with my mother's death, started another collection. Old stuff. Things from my Mom's kitchen, and then the occasional garage sale find of something that reminded me of my Mom or my childhood. This collection right now is boxed away. I would like to have these old dishes and tools and implements out on display as part of my decor, but I have no room. Why? Because my hobbies of scrapbooking and family history have turned into collections of papers, tools, cutters, history books, and binders - I have no room left on my shelves.
I laugh at the button collection and at other huge collections and I wonder about my own desire to collect. Perhaps a part of human nature that can get out of control. And sometimes I regret having pitched the pens, the elephants, some of the teapots, Games magazines, and other various items I've saved and purged over the years. Mostly, though, I think I finished a stage in my life and had to move on. And it will happen again.
I've been thinking about collections, hobbies, past-times, and especially collecting as a hobby over the past few days. Some people have turned their hobbies into lucrative businesses; others have turned their collections into their fifteen minutes of fame - like the lady on Letterman a few years ago that collected oddly shaped potato chips. It made me laugh at the time, but I did wonder if it was a staged performance. I wondered about taking someone's eccentricity or mental illness and splashing it all over national TV. There are occasional newpaper articles about someone's huge collection of something. Most often, these are just normal people who let something get out of hand. One thing about collecting something, anything, is that it gives others an instant idea for a gift. "Hazel collects Care Bears? Well, I know what I can give her for Christmas". Often collectors don't do the collecting themselves, but get pieces from well-meaning friends and family members.
I have fallen into the collection pit a few times. I enjoyed it for awhile and then I either lost interest or the collection became a chore.
Three things I've collected in my life:
-pens. In my early and mid-teen years, I collected company pens. I do have a very active stationery gene, and growing up in a poverty-stricken environment, the pens seemed a wonder to me. I could get FREE pens. Sometimes I used them, but they mostly just lived in a shoebox, and every so often, I would take them out and look at them, sort them, and see if they all still worked. I don't remember when I quit 'actively' collecting, but I remember throwing them away.
-elephants. All sorts of elephants - stuffed, brass, glass, pottery, wooden, small, large, trunk up, trunk down, Asian, Indian. I had received a stuffed blue elephant as a birthday present, and decided to collect them. I collected and displayed my elephants for about ten years. I don't think I ever counted them, but I had LOTS, and they were taking over my house. Eventually, I had too many. They didn't look good anymore, because they were everywhere. I got very tired of dusting them and taking care of them. Gradually, I started getting rid of some of the ones that had no meaning for me, and eventually was able to part with all of them, except three very little miniature ones that my sister bought for me in Hawaii.
-teapots. I still have about 30, but the collection did top 80 a few years ago. The ones I've kept have some meaning for me or are unusually shaped. Looking at them now, I could pare it down to about 15 that I would really want to keep. The work to clean them and donate them stops me from 'cutting down'. They live on the top of my kitchen cabinets, so aren't in my face every day, like the darn elephants were. My teapot collection started with two very special ones: one from my Mom, who got it when her sister Clara passed away. It was a wedding present Auntie Clara had gotten in 1923 (maybe from my Mom; I don't know). The second is a dark green china teapot, of the type used in many small restaurants. I was given this one by my Auntie Florence, from a hotel she and Uncle Art operated for a few years.
The teapot collection, coupled with my mother's death, started another collection. Old stuff. Things from my Mom's kitchen, and then the occasional garage sale find of something that reminded me of my Mom or my childhood. This collection right now is boxed away. I would like to have these old dishes and tools and implements out on display as part of my decor, but I have no room. Why? Because my hobbies of scrapbooking and family history have turned into collections of papers, tools, cutters, history books, and binders - I have no room left on my shelves.
I laugh at the button collection and at other huge collections and I wonder about my own desire to collect. Perhaps a part of human nature that can get out of control. And sometimes I regret having pitched the pens, the elephants, some of the teapots, Games magazines, and other various items I've saved and purged over the years. Mostly, though, I think I finished a stage in my life and had to move on. And it will happen again.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Diversity
I started this week on vacation, in a gorgeous mountain area, hundreds of miles from my home and am ending this week in my own house, with the same old views out my windows. And in between these two days was a week filled with diversity. Time spent with many family members, a visit to Heritage Park, a movie, good (and bad) restaurant meals, back to the work routine and home-chores routines like grocery shopping and laundry and housework, contacts with people at work that were sometimes trying and sometimes satisfying, contacts with friends and aquaintances in a number of ways, an emergency visit to the hearing aid clinic to try to solve a 'howling aid' problem, time with The Kid, being asked for advice from some people, asking others for advice, time with others, time alone. Each week is almost as diverse, and I often forget how much I do or how many I people I talk to or how much time there really is in any given week. I'm lucky to have this.
Three things I learned in this week of diversity:
-vacations are fantastic, no matter what I do or what the circumstances. Vacations, for me, exist to get a break from my real life and the time off and away always helps me to refocus on my day to day life. Often I dread the end of a holiday and having to go back to reality. Coming home this time re-emphasized to me that I can create a vacation attitude every day. I don't do that as often as I could, and my moods and attitudes suffer for it. It re-taught me that I need to plan something to look forward to: large vacations, small moments with family, time out for fun, and this week, even cleaning house and getting my physical space back in order. Re-organizing my living space is one more small way that I am reclaiming my life.
-the people in my life are there for a reason. There are people I have chosen to have in my life and there are others that have to be there, through the choices of others. One example of this is some colleagues at work who are particulary difficult for me to deal with. My lesson this week is that they are not just going to go away, and I have to interact with them. I can keep my sanity and lower my stress level by remembering I can't change the situation or the person. I can only work on my reactions and emotions during my contacts with these people. It sounds so easy, but is so hard to do in reality. The lesson is to look at myself and analyze my own reactions, and to take pride in myself when I can walk away without being frustrated, angry, or giving up. There will be some successes and some failures for me in working this way. And they're just people.
-I am lucky to live in an age where technology and medical advances make my life easier. And have allowed me to HAVE life. I thought I'd go stark raving mad when I had problems with my hearing aid this week - continual howling if it was in and a very marked decrease in hearing if it was out. My visit to the hearing aid clinic did not solve my problem, but did make it somewhat better. I have some areas of strangeness with my body - calcified ear bones than create hearing loss, high protein producing eyes, blood that is too 'thick' and clots for no known reason, a recent meet-and-greet with cancer that has left me with an ostomy and a bag for elimination, areas in my breasts that are being monitored due to calcification. I had a little fat cyst removed from my shoulder a number of years ago, and no one knows why it grew. Very strange things, these bodies of ours, but also they are the most amazing and fascinating things on Earth. I can hear better, keep my blood from clotting, monitor the calcification, and eat, breathe, and LIVE thanks to being born in this age, where these medical advances are available, and often taken for granted.
I hope to have just as diverse a week coming up and pray I can find the good stuff.
Three things I learned in this week of diversity:
-vacations are fantastic, no matter what I do or what the circumstances. Vacations, for me, exist to get a break from my real life and the time off and away always helps me to refocus on my day to day life. Often I dread the end of a holiday and having to go back to reality. Coming home this time re-emphasized to me that I can create a vacation attitude every day. I don't do that as often as I could, and my moods and attitudes suffer for it. It re-taught me that I need to plan something to look forward to: large vacations, small moments with family, time out for fun, and this week, even cleaning house and getting my physical space back in order. Re-organizing my living space is one more small way that I am reclaiming my life.
-the people in my life are there for a reason. There are people I have chosen to have in my life and there are others that have to be there, through the choices of others. One example of this is some colleagues at work who are particulary difficult for me to deal with. My lesson this week is that they are not just going to go away, and I have to interact with them. I can keep my sanity and lower my stress level by remembering I can't change the situation or the person. I can only work on my reactions and emotions during my contacts with these people. It sounds so easy, but is so hard to do in reality. The lesson is to look at myself and analyze my own reactions, and to take pride in myself when I can walk away without being frustrated, angry, or giving up. There will be some successes and some failures for me in working this way. And they're just people.
-I am lucky to live in an age where technology and medical advances make my life easier. And have allowed me to HAVE life. I thought I'd go stark raving mad when I had problems with my hearing aid this week - continual howling if it was in and a very marked decrease in hearing if it was out. My visit to the hearing aid clinic did not solve my problem, but did make it somewhat better. I have some areas of strangeness with my body - calcified ear bones than create hearing loss, high protein producing eyes, blood that is too 'thick' and clots for no known reason, a recent meet-and-greet with cancer that has left me with an ostomy and a bag for elimination, areas in my breasts that are being monitored due to calcification. I had a little fat cyst removed from my shoulder a number of years ago, and no one knows why it grew. Very strange things, these bodies of ours, but also they are the most amazing and fascinating things on Earth. I can hear better, keep my blood from clotting, monitor the calcification, and eat, breathe, and LIVE thanks to being born in this age, where these medical advances are available, and often taken for granted.
I hope to have just as diverse a week coming up and pray I can find the good stuff.
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