It's easy to be bitter

This month I lost my home to foreclosure. This month Chas celebrated his 20th birthday, and his family (I'm assuming) has seen fit to wish him well on several billboards around town.

Rudimentary research reveals that billboard advertising costs run anywhere from $700 to $3000 a month.

Even at the lower end of the billboard advertising cost spectrum, the price of three billboards would cover my rent, utilities, and gasoline for three months.

It doesn't seem fair.

Today I took Jack to an end-of-the-year swim party at the home of a classmate. Newly remodeled, that home could have engulfed my apartment 5 times over. Everything looked high-end and the parents were the type of overachievers that scare me. I was talking with one of the dads, a guy I've had a few really interesting conversations with, who knows my situation. We were sort of gazing around, taking it all in, and I said, "It's easy to be bitter." Rob was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You can't buy happiness. And you can't resent them for what they have."

He's right. He and his family struggle, too. He said he wouldn't trade his for theirs, and I agree. They wouldn't want mine anyway.

Comments

memory

wedding gift

On Saturday Dave's cousin Traci is getting married. At the last minute we decided to fly to Ames for the wedding and to see everyone who will be in attendance there. At the last minute, I decided to crochet a throw as a wedding gift. I just finished. The colors in this first picture are true; the other two pictures were taken with flash so the colors look brighter than they really are. I started last Monday night with 7 skeins of Lion Brand Chenille Thick and Quick in Periwinkle. It's 72 single crochet in the back loop only for as many rows as you want. Then single crochet around in a contrasting color. I chose Wine. I bought the yarn at Big Lots for half the retail price. It's long and skinny but very texturally appealing. Though all skeins were of the same dye lot, you can see that the top and bottom skein are definitely different, not so much in color as in texture. It's pure dumb luck that they ended up at the top and bottom. It's not perfect, but neither is mar

Jack doesn't have many "activities." I don't relish the thought of driving him to soccer, piano lessons, gymnastics, tae kwon do, KidzArt, swim team, T-ball, so on, and so forth. Not to say that I don't recognize the value of these activities, but I witness firsthand the toll a full schedule takes on little ones. On Monday nights Jack and his cousin participate in Young Champions of America Karate, which is more about learning discipline, respect, and self defense than it is about martial arts. Recently we've picked up a new activity, which is also about learning discipline, respect, and creativity: Tucson Lego Club. He was invited to join by Nathan and Lucas, friends from church who also attended the preschool a few years ahead of Jack. Here he sits between them, at a table surrounded by 6 other boys, each of them building a lavish Lego creation. Members spend an hour building and fraternizing, sometimes more fraternizing than building, but at the end of the

chock-a-blog

Search This Blog