The STUFF Sisters

Polished

I visited museums. This is never a hardship for me. I delight in wandering through and wondering at what is placed in front of me.

Every winter, my hands suffer. My dear friend, Susan, always surprises me at some point in the chilly season with yet another balm that will make all the breakage end, the cuts heal, and the dryness disappear. I use it religiously, and still I cannot be mistaken for a hand model.

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Pumpkin Spice

The picturesque mascot of all things fall makes me abundantly happy.

Truth: I do not like pumpkin spice anything. Except I do like the spices I mix into the pumpkin pies I make from scratch at Thanksgiving. I like pumpkin pie. I like pumpkin pie with whipped cream, to be precise.

Larger Truth: I love pumpkins. Un-spiced. Big Love. This fruit of the gourd family and the picturesque mascot of all things fall makes me abundantly happy. That’s saying something, because I am a summer person through and through.

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I Miss Snow

I do. I miss snow. Writing those three words, I can only imagine what the polar bears would write if they had a blog.

There. I said it. I miss snow. In addition, I have missed the sun for many days in a row this past week. But that’s another subject and slotted for another session.

In pinpointing what I miss most about snow, I landed on one constant: the quiet beauty it brings. The snow muffles the sounds of my neighborhood, and I am unable to hear cars moving slowly at the bottom of my hill. A favorite. When I walk my dog, the sounds that are closest to my ears – and which are usually drowned out by the environment – become sweet retreats for my mind.The brush of my arms against my quilted coat and the dog’s paws lifting off the pavement are two of my favorites.

In addition, the Midwest is not at its loveliest in winter. But our sloping hills, stark trees, and structured landscapes become magical with even the slightest snowfall. Quiet beauty. This region needs snow to brighten the brown that overtakes the ground. Not being a scientist, I can only imagine this region needs the snow for a myriad of reasons, water tables and probably makes for nature first pest control for rat,mice and other vermin much less chemicals needed, probably, I don’t know but those are my two guesses.

I do. I miss snow. Writing those three words, I can only imagine what the polar bears would write if they had a blog….

p.s. This photo is of my niece almost three years ago. Time has flown, but she clearly embraces in this photo how I feel about snow.

Why We Host Wings of Hope

Every day, someone enters a treatment center for cancer. Every day, good news is handed out. Every day, bad news is received. But for two days a year we childishly imagine cancer takes a break so we can celebrate a wonderful season full of hope and renewal. Join us this weekend. Help us raise money. Help us make this season bright. We thank you for your business. Every day.

Every day, someone enters a treatment center for cancer. Every day, good news is handed out. Every day, bad news is received.

“Every days” have happened to the people in these pictures. Our family. Our friends. Their family and their friends. It seems never-ending.

But for two days a year we childishly imagine cancer takes a break so we can celebrate a wonderful season full of hope and renewal. Those two days are when we open our store wide to our customers and our city and put on a great party, Wings of Hope. It is a holiday open house, and it is a crowning moment in our year. We take a breath right before our season kicks it into high gear to laugh, tell stories, and shop for friends and family.

As in years past, we are donating 20% of every purchase this Saturday and Sunday to a cancer research fund named for our friend Susan Henke Miller. She will be with us again this year – so many years after we thought we would lose her to her cancer.

Join us for an “every day” this weekend. Help us raise money. Help us consume great drinks, delicious snacks, and STUFF’s signature party food: peanut M&Ms.

Help us make this season bright.

We thank you for your business.

Every day.

p.s. These pictures from previous Wings of Hope parties remind us of our fantastic past. What wonderful days they all were.

Love/Hate

I have entered into an unhealthy relationship with a plant. Two plants, really. Both geraniums. Almost co-dependent, this relationship is.

I have entered into an unhealthy relationship with a plant. Two plants, really. Both geraniums. Almost co-dependent, this relationship is. I provide water and shelter; they provide color and joy.

This photo was taken on Valentine’s Day. These blooms were not there on the 13th of February but were bright and cheerful when I came downstairs on the 14th. Full of love for me, and smiling in the weak sun.

I do love these plants. All summer long, they live on my deck and are more gorgeous every day. They get huge and bloom constantly. They are the two colors I love most in geraniums – red and hot pink. Both of these colors were grown by my maternal grandmother, and therefore I have placed a value on them higher than the 99-cent plants they grew from.

I do hate these plants when I bring them in every winter to the only window in the house that can hold them – the south-facing one in the kitchen. Our busiest room in the entire home. Already overfull with our active lives. I get to enjoy them, true. But I have never enjoyed house plants – in any variety – and I’ve tried to trick myself into thinking they are just “visiting for the winter,” not staying in the house permanently. True, again, but winter is long.

Just when I reach my winter peak of wanting them out of the house, they give me a show of color. I don’t talk to plants or listen to them if they are talking, but I know a plea for a few more months of patience when it is silently offered.

So they will stay.

p.s. I have written of geraniums before. Feel free to read more here and here.

Dancing

I watched as the leaves truly curled their way to the limestone steps, the vine, the hosta leaves. They came down slowly in light that was just beginning to brighten.

I can’t dance. Never really been able to. Tried. Failed. Tried again.

The word, however, holds me in its grace. Dance. Begins strong and ends softly. Two days ago I used “dance” in a small speech at a charity luncheon. I used it to draw a picture of my involvement with this charity. A slow, almost cautious interchange that grew rich over time.

Today I spoke it silently in my mind when I walked outside and our maple tree was beginning her fall. The leaves have been tipped with yellow for about a week – the cooler temperatures and rain usually bring it on – but very few had fallen. Now light brown was waltzing into the yellow ever so slightly.

I stood there entranced, again, at the majesty of this tree in our front yard. It is over three stories tall and shades us brilliantly all spring and summer from the western sun. She is older and lovely, shapely and arching.

I watched as the leaves truly curled their way to the limestone steps, the vine, the hosta leaves. They came down slowly in light that was just beginning to brighten.

They danced through the air in no great rush before landing silently. I was held in their sway until I just had to go to work. I was late. I believe I would have sat there all day watching. Yearning to fall into a dance that gorgeous.

Someday. Someday I will dance.

Crying Mercy

Two days ago, I cried mercy. This blog has started a little more dramatically than I intended. It was two days ago when I realized that my dual-self-employed-only-child-in-his-junior-year household was not going to get its spring yard work done.

Two days ago, I cried mercy.

This blog has started a little more dramatically than I intended. It was two days ago when I realized that my dual-self-employed-only-child-in-his-junior-year household was not going to get its spring yard work done. My husband and I don’t have green thumbs, and, with the side-effects of three very large old growth trees on our little patch of heaven, hostas, perennial vines and plantings are our friends. These choices we made twenty-plus years ago make for very little annual yard work. We had spent hours here and there over the past three weeks doing the very small amount of things that needed to be done in the warming weather, but there was about three hours of work left to do on one side of the house that was languishing. Undone. Messy.

And for the first time ever – besides lawn mowing – I called in a professional to finish our yardwork. I had never hired anyone to remove the winter’s leaves from all they were protecting. That is actually a job I adore, because I can say hello to my green friends that have been resting over the long winter. Their little, pale, white-ish shoots are usually found reaching for the sun and fresh air. And my gentle words of welcome.

harl & scotty — My husband and our friend Scotty last year. Obviously not in the yard….

Today, my friend – and professional self-employed yard genius – stepped in and took us to the finish line. I really struggled with reaching out for help this time. Not that I am opposed to hiring people – plumbers, electricians, painters – who know exactly what they are doing, like that Oakland County’s best plumbing service our neighbours using on the regular basis. I stand in awe of their capabilities and knowledge. I think my problem with reaching out was about me, not her. I like to be the one to take the spring projects to the end. I like to stand back and see the fresh rake marks and the tender buds. It is the final nail in winter’s coffin.

Today I handed the hammer to Scotty and I couldn’t be happier.

Natural State

Yesterday I re-entered my natural state. I woke up, left my pajamas on the hook, and took off into a world I love. The one where my swimsuit is the main mode of clothing.

Several weeks ago, my best friend texted and briefly stated that she had just encountered the smell of Coppertone and was transported back to our summers as pre-teens, teens, co-eds, working women, young mothers and working mothers. I have never known a summer without the brown bottle. And anything banana-flavored has never touched my skin. I don’t even like banana candy, although I like bananas.

My dermatologist and I look at my largest organ in depth every year. My addiction to the sun has lessened as my age has increased. However, my yearning to live full days in Lycra and spandex fully coated in Coppertone has not abated. Good thing we’re supposed to wear sunscreen in the shade.

I live my dream every summer vacation by waking much as I did yesterday: shedding my PJs for my swimsuit and then spending the day moving through activities lightly clothed. A worn-in Oxford cloth dress shirt with the arms rolled way up is my ultimate cover-up. In our little corner of Florida, this passes as more than acceptable for restaurant dining. I shower long after the sun has gone down and move swiftly back into my cotton sleepwear. Never a bra or panties in sight. Never a long sleeve, hem or button to fence me in. Although, I do admit to window shopping on my favorite 7 best websites to buy sheer and see through lingerie but only at night when I couldn’t sleep, in bed, waiting for sleep.

She took me to the pool yesterday, my best friend, for the first time this year. This may well be a record. So late in “the season” for my inaugural walk into cool water. I am grateful and happy for her invitation, and the lingering aroma of our amazing friendship was with us the whole time. In my pool bag. Just waiting for me to un-cap it and let the memories overwhelm me.

Every boat dock, sun deck, beach chair, over-sized towel and speedboat returned to me. Every sun hat, pair of sunglasses, T-shirt, flip-flop and tote roared at me. My newborn son seeing pool water three months after his birth. My Dad skiing behind our boat. My Mom judging our dives from the edge of our pool. My sister holding her breath and my hands while we attempted “butt bumpers” for the one millionth time.

All this in one little bottle.

p.s. I mean no disrespect to anyone who wears Banana Boat lotions or eats those delightful banana flavored Laffy Taffy.

coppertone girl — This is the little girl I grew up with.

Not A Green Thumb

I do not have a green thumb. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to grow one either. I have watched my mother for years grow great things and enjoy it. I was raised helping her – alongside my sisters and father – make things bloom and prosper. I can also remember a killer breakout from the poison ivy infestation we attempted to quash at one of my childhood homes. I grew up with lovely surroundings, and I currently keep a lovely yard, but it is not labor intensive. We planted things 20 years ago when we moved in that have only flourished under our huge trees – vinca, hosta, lily of the valley, turf fescue.

But I digress. Today, in my own yard, these sweet babies were waiting when I came home from an early meeting. These glorious bulbs that my husband and I planted long before our son was in our world were coming to life. Long ago, we got a mixed bulk bag of crocus bulbs from somewhere. Probably the hardware store. And, on a weekend when my grandparents were in town, we planted them. I turned to my Grandma, my mother’s mom, and asked if she had any pointers for planting. “Yes. Plant them deep and where you’d like a little surprise.”

So we did. Some went in the front yard in the grassy part. Some went in a side bed that follows the driveway. They bloom every year and the come up in batches. A synchronized dance. The yellow ones are fearless and have been known to poke up through snow. Deep purple and bright purple will follow within a few weeks and the whole show ends with white. This can last for a month.

I am surprised every time.

p.s. If you desire to read more about my abundant gardening skills, click here.

Packing It All Away

I was packing the last two boxes of holiday decorations. I save the packing of the ornaments for last. They usually come off the trees on a Sunday, migrate to the dining room table for removal of the hooks, and, a few days later, I start putting them back into the tissue paper they hailed from just a month and a half before.

I was putting the finishing layers – three per box – into both boxes at once and said to my husband and son, “If I dropped dead tomorrow, you guys would never open these again, would you?” They were only one room away, clicking busily on their computers, when the dove-tailed answers hit. “No.” Maybe one of them mumbled, “Probably not.”

These boxes hold memories. When I unpack them right after Thanksgiving, they rest on the dining room table – out of their protective wraps – while I stare at them and repair unglued joints. I remember tiny hands that made some, and this year I revisited memories of a long gone sister and the two things I have that she made as a child. I walk leisurely down memory lane during the busiest month of my year.

A few days later, when the three of us go to hang them all, I take a few minutes to point out several to my son that have real significance – my grandmother’s stitches, my great-aunt’s crochet work, his grandfather’s paint strokes, and his aunt’s ability with clay. I try not to overwhelm and have learned that four shout outs one night a year is the maximum for possible retention.

I don’t really know if the boxes would ever be opened by the two men I live with. A woman would open them if left in her care. She would wait a year. Or more. Then, one cold morning, she would brace herself with a box of tissues and her courage and rip those suckers open. She would visit each piece like a tongue lingers on tooth pain. Delicately, so as not to wince, moan or cry out.

I packed it all away. Again. The entire process is cathartic to me. I have many people to visit with at my dining table all year long at a myriad of events, celebrations and holidays. But the places and the people I can’t have back come delicately to me in December in the form of pinecones, angels, dogs, and snowmen. I touch them all. Hang them up to breathe. Live with them. Then, I let them go.

p.s. Full disclosure: This is not our tree featured with my son and me in the photo. This tree graces the lobby at The Rep every year during the seasonal run of “A Christmas Carol”. We visit it.