$50,000 Fingernails

These don't look like $50,000 fingernails, but they are. I'm having them removed today.

I've been having my nails done for 25 solid years--since before my third child was born. It has cost me about $100-$150 per month for each of those years. When I looked at what it would have been, had I invested this money in a fund that would earn a modest 5% return, it comes to OVER $50,000.

I've enjoyed them. But Geez! Now that things are what they are with the economy, I'm actually enjoying lightening our spending habits more than actually spending the money. What a new concept.

All day today I was looking at women's nails. Most women don't have them. Why did I think I needed them? Who knows. Just one of those things you start doing (like advertising, seems like you can't stop) and then quit thinking about and just do forever. My computer doesn't care how nice my nails look. I don't think my Real Estate clients ever bought or sold a house because I had pretty nails either. I don't think my books will sell any faster if my nails are pretty. My chickens don't care, in fact, they might be less attracted to my toes if they were nail-colored, not bright red.

Last Saturday I was hit by a nice young man in the Coast Guard, in a Coast Guard van. My brand new Toyota Hybrid is totaled. Now I'm thinking about not buying another new one. It would be nice not to have a car payment. I've had one or two car payments for almost 30 years. I haven't figured out what I actually spent on this, and the last 5 cars weren't worth the loans against them when I wanted to sell them. The number would probably be enough to retire a mortgage. I'd rather have the house than the cars--all of them combined!

An early blog of mine chronicled my "End Of A Love Affair" with my beautiful Mercedes convertible I couldn't live without. Now, just a few months later, I not only don't have to have a new Mercedes, I don't have to have a new anything.

One could almost say God intervened to correct the mistake we made in getting the new car this year. I think (hope) my insurance will pay off the car loan. Then I'll save the amount I would have had in payments, and buy a nicer car when I can afford to pay cash.

Funny how this economy I complain about so much has brought me such much-needed reality. Why have I been breaking my neck for so many years to pay for things I didn't need? I've even begun shopping in used clothing stores like my girls like to do. Totally cool. And fun. And a bag of clothes, gently worn, rarely costs me more than $50. And not a soul knows the difference.


I guess I like making lemonade out of lemons. I'm grateful I get to make these good decisions and be an example for my kids to do the same. By the time they are my age, they'll not have the same worries I have.

They'll probably have a set of their own.

Can a Vampire Love an Angel?

Absolutely!

Had a wonderful time last night at the Afterlife Party in San Francisco at the Julia Morgan Ballroom.

My husband and I have never done this sort of thing. It was fun planning the costumes, putting on the makeup (some of the sparklies are still on my face and in my hair as I write this). Good dancing, and the costumes! Went from over the top to downright clever.

Just to make sure everyone knew he loves me, I sported two bite marks on my neck. Everyone there knew I'd been claimed, even though I was an angel.

In more ways than one.....

Are you going to a Halloween party? Do you dress up every year. Do tell!

I'm Spring Cleaning in the Fall

Leap of Faith, here. I'm de-cluttering my writing room. Taking pictures here so I can show you how nice and clean it will be after Sunday night, when I'm done! Like tossing your cap over the fence (which means you have to scale the fence to retrieve it).

I have piles of things I want to do sometime in the next year. Some things I intended to do 6 months or a year ago and never got to. I have stuffed into boxes a craft project I started too late for Christmas last year. My nose was tweaking the more I sorted through the boxes just to see what I hadn't looked at in over a year!  Dust!


When I sold Real Estate full time, every time I cleaned my desk I would do an extra piece of business that week. Didn't mean it was something I found that I needed to followup on, but the de-cluttering space I now occupied helped me be more focused, more in tuned with my customers. But it was almost a joke, as my staff would wait for that phone call that would come some time in the next  7 days, bringing a new customer. Like God was rewarding me.

A lot of my nice things were destroyed when our house burned down in 2008. We've been in the new house now just over a year. Still incomplete, I discovered I designed a house that was bright and light, with wonderful two story walls and windows, including a huge roll up garage door window in my dining room, but did not plan into it any storage. So, closets, like this one, are few and far between, and have become catch-alls.



I'm reading a book on Simplicity, making do with less. Seems to be something a lot of people are struggling with. Making do with less money, less things, less complications. I'm even doing with less weight, having lost 40# since May, and that definitely means a lot less of the binge foods that got me to my predicament. And, like my closet and messy writing room, putting off until later that time when I should diet and watch my weight, my body became cluttered with extra baggage.

Not any longer.

Truth is, I have a beautiful home, glorious in all ways that are important to me. I love how the music wafts up to the second story, and the grand living room feels like a sanctuary of sound when I play my favorite CD or listen to Sirrius. I play the Spa channel all night long.

So now God gave me this second chance to live here in this new space. Time to act like I deserve it. Watch for my next post where I will proudly display that I've cleaned up my act.

Sharon

Happy Friday - Watch Swedish Telephone Ad

Come join me on Ravencraft's Romance Realm. Talking about Honeymoon Bite.

http://ravencraftrealm.blogspot.com/


Also, there is this fantastic Swedish commercial for phones from my friend, John Kold. Enjoy.

Tele2 - Electric Shock

www.youtube.com

Good Bye Old Friend

Attended a memorial ceremony for an old friend today. I knew half of him, or I guess I could say 1/3 of him, since we knew him for only 1/3 of his lifespan. We met him as an architect, and later knew him as a musician and owner of a recording studio, and great collaborator. Truth was, he was always a musician. I don't think I ever was greeted with anything but a smile from his face. Even when things were tough, even when news was unexpected or particularly bad. He had a way of showing up or just being where I was from time to time. Like a cool drink of water, he was a pleasant distraction from things all in their places with bright shiny faces. Don't know how better to put it than that.

Every once in awhile someone who thinks so outside the box comes along and it just redefines everything. We came from two different worlds, yet he understood both of them. He knew about my world, but chose to live in his. He never forced his friendship on anyone. Asked lots of questions. Always believed in miracles. You could easily dismiss him as irrelevant and he wouldn't mind, really. Life was for living, not measuring or evaluating.

He leaves a hole in the fabric of the universe.

In the early years, he lived in a big house in a woods. That place is now Dogbone Park in Novato. The house is gone, but we stood in the place where it still is--in the memory of everyone who lived, played, wrote and performed music there. Grey-haired members of his old band and their manager came to pay their respects. Ex-wives, girlfriends and girlfriends he wished he had all came. Children and grandchildren. We told stories and watched the Native American blessing of welcoming him back to walk among us and look over our shoulders. And we all told him we loved him, each in our own special way, which is how he would have wanted it.

I think he came back and joined in the celebration.

The words on his memorial handout are so fitting:

I'm sailin' away to a promised land...
Aint' nobody gonna know where I am...
I'm cut loose, I'm free
There's no one here but me.


There are a lot of good people up there who will make some awesome music. I'm sure he'll just show up, not say too much at first, pick up his guitar, and fit right in.

Rest well, Tor.

French Laundry's Gardens

My husband and I jumped in the car, drove over the hill to Yountville, and strolled through the French Laundry's vegetable garden. I have always loved that place. Have you ever eaten at a restaurant that costs on average $1200 a meal, and didn't have a sign out front? Supposed to be the most expensive place to eat in the US. The No. 2 is in NYC.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to be able to eat there again. I have enjoyed it several times. But this time around, my feast came in the form of eye candy. An avid organic gardener for 40 years, I love to watch how plants grow, especially plants that bring health and vitality and contribute to a meal costing $1200. That does get my attention.

I view gardening as the next best thing to having children or great sex. And those two are tied for first. I've enjoyed getting dirty every day now for four decades. It's part of my DNA.

Seeing a well-tended garden brings me to tears, and Saturday, I must admit, I had a hard time talking. I smelled the tomatoes (since I didn't have permission to pick them) and the fresh basil. I looked at the roots of the bush beans to see how close they planted them. I looked at the seed potatoes they had just dug up. I even looked at their 8' tall compost pile I was tempted to rifle from. But, I am not a thief. I reveled in the joy of growing things and how unfettered they displayed their wonderful, magical finery.

In the greenhouse, they had tomatoes staked up and growing like vines, held by twine and clips. Those snaky things at the bottom of the picture are vines that had been pruned, and probably would stand 12'-15' tall if righted.

Between the rows they had sod. My gardener's delight burst forth when I exclaimed, "You can pick veggies in your bare feet!" How nice to be standing on something green, picking food your body will enjoy. The moist sod keeps the soil damp and weed-free.




I even enjoyed seeing their new little Frizzle chicks, exploring their own part of heaven. I could understand why someone planted savoy cabbage for them to nibble on.

Some years ago, I spent a Mother's Day up in Washington State with my roommate from college and her family, who were in the nursery business at that time. We put a long table down the center of the greenhouse, and had ourselves a feast, with rows of blooming plants. The aroma from their flowers almost overpowered the smell of the wonderful food we ate that day.

I think that if God ever gave up running things, he'd manage an organic farm. And he'd have office meetings in the greenhouse. And talk about redemption and all things new. Where it is inspiring to just be alive.

Isn't this really Heaven on Earth, after all?

Expect Miracles

I am filled with gratitude beyond belief. Maybe this is supposed to be my natural state of being.

Someone is definitely looking out for me. Even woke up on Wednesday after a pedicure. There were sparkles on my toes.



My future's so bright I'm gonna need shades, to quote Steely Dan.

Boy has it been a long time coming.

I'm even starting to love my editing.