Milestone Week

Last week was a period of milestone events at the Marble household.  Two things took place that are both time/age related.

First, and most importantly, the twins have their first car.  It’s a near perfect black Tracker.  Big Al spotted it for sale by the side of the road when we were returning from Wheaton.

Low mileage, one owner, meticulously maintained, we were thrilled at our good fortune.  The twins were blown away by their early birthday present.  We surprised them with an envelope containing two keys at dinner one night.  At first they simply thought we were going a bit overboard in presenting them with duplicate keys to our “momma” van.

No surprise we spent the next two hours slowly driving around an empty parking lot at Crowder.  Fortunately for their middle-aged parents they are very careful and thoughtful drivers.  I’m confident this round of student driver excursions will be much less stressful than their older sister’s experience.

What a blessing the passage of time and the compounding of age can be to one’s memory.

Like all parents, it’s hard to believe when your children seemingly grow overnight from training wheels to V6 engines.  How does the passage of time always catch us off-guard like that?

Our next time marker of the week belongs solely on my head – literally.

I surprised myself a few weeks ago by becoming completely engrossed in a magazine article devoted entirely to “brave” women who were letting their hair go naturally gray.  The writer detailed clarifying shampoos to remove “product” build-up and help enhance the gray hair’s natural shine.  Additionally, good shampoos and conditions were checked off according to their ability to make fading hair color seem like a bold fashion statement

So there I was Sunday, in Walgreens, pacing the shampoo aisle.  Reading the labels on each bottle as if I was part of a TV reality show scavenger hung, looking for clues.  Finally I had to break down and ask a clerk for help.  She happily replied that they did have one shampoo appropriate for me, evening offering to “show it to me.”

That would have been ok, but it’s what followed that made me catch my breath.  If you’re a middle-age woman, you know what’s coming next.  She said the “m” word – ma’am.  Just strap me to a rocking chair.

I know it’s good manners.  I know my parents would have swatted my Oklahoma behind as a child if I hadn’t responded to one of my older female relatives by using “ma’am.”  The point is the “older” designation.

Regardless, I have to admit.  I bought the shampoo for silver highlights.  I bought the leave-in conditioner.  I like the results.

Maybe if we take a student driver run tonight, I’ll roll my window down.  I’ll let some of that jaw-dropping gray hair blow around in the wind.  I will make sure to admire my reflection in the rearview mirror and remark to my reflection how “with-it” I look for a ma’am.

Fiber Daze

If IfIyou know me personally or read this blog for any length of time, you know I’m crazy about yarn.  I credit knitting with saving my sanity through a few back-to-back years of bad ice storms and blizzards. 

It was a little embarrassing a couple of weeks ago when Mary Horine sent me the Link to Fiber Daze, planned for this fall at Crowder, and I turned into something closely resembling a kid two days before Christmas.  I could not stop talking about it.  I drove Big Al nuts.  I studied that class schedule like a pirate reading a treasure map.

The inaugural Fiber Daze is scheduled for Friday-Saturday, September 23-24, on the Crowder College campus.  Teachers from every area of the fiber arts are scheduled throughout both days for small-group classes.  If you’re like me and never learned to knit or crochet as a child, come to Fiber Daze for one of the beginner classes.  Always wanted to learn to spin your own yarn – there’s a class for that.  How about weaving?  Do you love hand-woven wraps and home décor.  Register and learn how to weave your own.

Socks are one of my downfalls.  I thought they would be a cool little project to tuck in my bag (read as overly large purse) and carry around with me while operating the last year of the mom taxi service.  I’m having difficulty though with the double-pointed needles.  If you haven’t knitted with them, you basically set up your yarn loops on three needles, forming a triangle outline, then knit the loops off each side with a fourth double-pointed needles. 

There is hope for me yet.  One of the classes I’ve listed to take is for the “magic loop” method of sock knitting.  I may have found my sock solution.

All this fiber-goodness is made possible through and organized by the Fiber Folks of Southwest Missouri. Fiber Folks is for everyone interested in any aspects of the fiber arts. Knitters, spinners, weavers, dyers, or those raising fiber animals, and living in southwest Missouri are part of this group. Fiber Folks meets the third Sunday of the month at various locations.

To see a complete Fiber Daze class schedule and to register to attend visit www.fiberfolks.wordpress.com .  I’ll see you there.

Value

Last week I was attempting to place the monetary value on the various components of a public relations campaign. A couple of pieces were hard for me to define and box into a standard fee structure; one that would more commonly resemble a pricing structure for advertising.

I threw the question out to a group of public relations friends I speak to daily. Immediately I received interesting feedback. Of the group of 10 or so who responded, not one gave me their estimation of cost, but each one presented their opinion on the significance of the item to the overall goal. Their quick and surprisingly frank comments made me consider the term “value” and how it is applied to our everyday considerations.

A definition of value includes the consideration of monetary worth: an amount expressed in money and considered a fair exchange for something. Another definition is the importance or usefulness of something to someone.

Take earbuds for example. Have you priced those little gems lately? Earbuds are the tiny headphones that connect into iPods and various other MP3 players. They stick inside your ears and basically cancel out noise, except what you want to hear.

Our twin sons are gifted and talented at losing their earbuds and/or wearing them out. So, it’s not uncommon for us to be shopping for something, totally unrelated, say groceries and one of them blurts out, “Hey! Think they’ve got any earbuds here? I need a new pair.”

Since you could wrap these up in a small ball and hid them in a pill bottle, you would think their monetary value should be about $2. Even if they were priced at $2 each, whoever produces earbuds for the universe would still make money off me. In actuality the starting price for these small listening devices is around $10; and that’s for the plain variety.

Branch out in earbuds colored like the American flag or the Jamaican flag and you’ll spend an extra $5. Pick a pair with comfort padding for better positioning in your ear and you’ll cough up another $10.

Rummaging through a box of electronic supplies this past weekend, I came across four or five orphaned earbuds. No one could honestly answer why they had been abandoned or why they were any less valuable then the pair we had replaced at $10 a pop earlier that afternoon. But with as much mom flair as I could muster, I rolled them up into a clear plastic baggy, waved it dramatically over my head and declared “Earbuds!”

This weekend the boys are part of a church-sponsored mission trip out of town. This same destination was one of the highlights of their summer last year and they’ve been planning their return trip ever since. Included in the packing list distributed by our youth minister was the recommendation for each youth to pack a couple of extra pairs of earbuds. It’s hard to imagine the noise and the disagreements if every one of these kids wanted to listen to their own tunes.

So I’ll end with an alternate definition of value: the importance or usefulness of something to somebody. Apparently earbuds are priceless.

Welcome to Neosho

Our children’s church message a couple of weeks ago was about making people feel welcome.  Our children/youth minister Melinda Gibson brought a welcome mat and asked the children what it was.  Most of them replied rug, which provided her with the opportunity to explain the phrase "putting out the welcome mat."

I’ve been thinking a lot about Neosho’s welcome mat every time I drive down Harmony Street.  It is so refreshing to see a full parking lot in the old McClintock’s/Scholastic parking lot.  One of the businesses damaged as part of the Joplin tornado has temporarily located to the space.  These folks are spending a large part of their day now in townand it feels good to know we, as a community, had the space to provide.

Reading a recent Neosho Daily News report, it was not surprising to learn that there has been an increase in local home sales since May 22.  Amye Buckley wrote that since that time, 87 new Neosho water customers established residency and signed up for services. The signs of change are evident in our neighborhood, three homes on our circle, long on the housing market, and have now sold.  All three are being occupied by families whose homes were destroyed by the tornado.

So many of us have felt lost as to how to help, and now it seems we have a perfect opportunity simply by throwing out Neosho’s welcome mat and making sure our new residents, no matter how long they’re here, know they’ve arrived somewhere they can regroup and right themselves.

If you’re like me, sometimes I’m asked if I know a particular person.  Even if we’ve never spoken, but if they’re from Neosho, I’ll say yes; because they’re “Neosho people.”  Having only lived here for the past 24 years, I have never experienced any feelings of being on the outside.  Neosho has always felt like home.

A quote I remember attributed to Thomas Hart Benton was his description of Neosho as a town addicted to celebration.  We have our Christmas parade, our arts celebrations, our car shows and Wildcat pride.  More importantly, I believe we celebrate each other.  We celebrate our commitment to our schools by volunteering when asked to help.  We celebrate our community when we participate in civic events; serve on committees and attending council meetings.  We celebrate the arts when we attend local plays and concerts.

Maybe now more than ever, we can prove Thomas Hart right and celebrate Neosho by welcoming our new residents.  A warm smile and a quick, “Welcome to Neosho.  We’re glad to be here for you,” will be one of the many ways we can help renew and rebuild.