Miss Becky Home Ecky has lived a lot of days. Today, I get to be reminded of just how many days I've lived since high school ended when my husband and I attend my 25th high school reunion.
I try to understand time and cannot. Sometimes minutes stretch to seem impossibly long. Othertimes it feels like you catapult over entire stretches of days in the blink of an eye.
Madeleine L'Engle writes in her nonfiction book, Walking on Water, about the true story of American astronauts from one of our early space ships who heard a program of nostalgic music over their sound system, and radioed NASA to thank whoever it was who had sent them the program. NASA was baffled: they had sent no such program. After much research, it was finally revealed that this particular radio program had been broadcast in the 1930s.
There is so much we still don't understand about time.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Waste Couture
Miss Becky Home Ecky has discovered that she might be inadvertently eco-friendly.
Uncovered today: The average American purchases approximately 70 pounds of fabric each year, with 85 percent winding up in a landfill. This, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. (Miss Becky Home Ecky would like to put a sign up on her humble library door to that effect). Sewing machine companies are looking to market themselves, now with a "green" angle. The article I saw from Brother sewing machines was encouraging people to turn old t-shirts into tote bags. That might be a bit much. I mean, we must have style. At the very least, though, couldn't we make sure that our old t-shirts get transferred to someone who needs them, instead of languishing in a drawer?
We are on to something here at Miss Becky Home Ecky. Even though I shopped at the dreaded home of giant mass-produced items imported from China (sorry, Costco) yesterday, I feel reform in the air. A new president is coming. A new day is dawning. And next on my project list is taking my son to Wall-e. Yes, Pixar and Home Economics do mix. More tomorrow ...
Uncovered today: The average American purchases approximately 70 pounds of fabric each year, with 85 percent winding up in a landfill. This, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. (Miss Becky Home Ecky would like to put a sign up on her humble library door to that effect). Sewing machine companies are looking to market themselves, now with a "green" angle. The article I saw from Brother sewing machines was encouraging people to turn old t-shirts into tote bags. That might be a bit much. I mean, we must have style. At the very least, though, couldn't we make sure that our old t-shirts get transferred to someone who needs them, instead of languishing in a drawer?
We are on to something here at Miss Becky Home Ecky. Even though I shopped at the dreaded home of giant mass-produced items imported from China (sorry, Costco) yesterday, I feel reform in the air. A new president is coming. A new day is dawning. And next on my project list is taking my son to Wall-e. Yes, Pixar and Home Economics do mix. More tomorrow ...
Thursday, August 14, 2008
When Treasures Find You
Since I launched this misguided, silly, potential time wasting effort (all negative thoughts that my internal self-critic has thrown around in my head on every possible occasion), several interesting items have found their way to my library.
My new roommates include:
1960s sewing machine. Sears Roebuck catalog, winter 1931-1932. Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. Coats and Clark's Sewing Book. A hat box circa the 1950s or 1940s from The French Room at Marshall Field's.
As a child, my mom made it very clear that inanimate objects have a life. I pass this along to my boys whenever I can, pretending that their Hot Wheels cars, sweet peas on the plate, pillows on their bed, anything, have a life and feelings of their own. So it's not surprising that I feel that the 1960s sewing machine now taking up residence in my library came here for a reason. In fact, it was offered to me out of the blue by an 80-year-old friend of my husband named Marge. And why is it that, while having my first writing session with my new writer friend, she revealed that she was a home ec minor?
You can call it sheer random chance, or serendipity, but I know better. Every one of these little coincidences, to me, points the way down a path. This is how novels are born. People, don't break the spell for me: The creative idea is very fragile at birth.
My new roommates include:
1960s sewing machine. Sears Roebuck catalog, winter 1931-1932. Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. Coats and Clark's Sewing Book. A hat box circa the 1950s or 1940s from The French Room at Marshall Field's.
As a child, my mom made it very clear that inanimate objects have a life. I pass this along to my boys whenever I can, pretending that their Hot Wheels cars, sweet peas on the plate, pillows on their bed, anything, have a life and feelings of their own. So it's not surprising that I feel that the 1960s sewing machine now taking up residence in my library came here for a reason. In fact, it was offered to me out of the blue by an 80-year-old friend of my husband named Marge. And why is it that, while having my first writing session with my new writer friend, she revealed that she was a home ec minor?
You can call it sheer random chance, or serendipity, but I know better. Every one of these little coincidences, to me, points the way down a path. This is how novels are born. People, don't break the spell for me: The creative idea is very fragile at birth.
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