lucky

i accidentally bought a cowhide rug today.

it really was an accident because it was an auction on ebay.  i NEVER do this.  OK, i've done it twice. but i've never actually bought anything on ebay- i've never been the high bidder.  last year i tried in desperation to buy myself a le creusset pot for my birthday, (and i must have bid on 5 of them) i never won.  then i tried to buy several antique cotton tablecloths- again- no wins.  so i'd pretty much figured that you always get outbid.  for the past few years i've been checking out cowhide rugs.  so when i saw this beautiful picture of a brown brindle cowhide- and it had a high bid price of 52$  i got excited. the problem is that when i became the high bidder- i read the description again, and the photo is an "example" of what the rug "sort of" looks like, in brown not brindle. there were 38 minutes left in the auction.  i figured i'd be fine and said a quick prayer that i'd soon be outbid. no such luck- apparently everone else bidding had re-read the description too.  fantastic. so basically i 'won' the bid on an item i haven't even seen a picture of.  let's hope for the best. maybe i'll get lucky.

i've been cleaning out boxes and closets and purging. i'm getting organized.  i'm getting rid of things.  when i do this, i usually divide things into piles- save,give away, throw away and purgatory.  purgatory is a holding pen for things i'm pretty sure should get tossed, but i'm just not ready.  i use this system with everything from clothes to my kids toys to papers.  if the items in purgatory don't get worn, played with, asked for or needed for several months- i toss them. 

i'm not a hoarder. i don't think i have a lot of "stuff",  but i do like to save memories. so when i go through a few boxes- which i've moved with me over the years- i find all sorts of treasures.  it's like going backwards in time. i read what i wrote about 10 years ago, even 20 years ago- notes passed between my friends and i in high school. so funny. i found random pictures of zoe as a baby, jude's birth hospital tag, bryn's birth announcement. i found hundreds of letters from mike, always on handmade cards with soulful words.  and i found cards i'd saved from friends.  it was kind of like being at my own funeral to read the things people put in cards. i put things in their appropriate piles.  and then i found a small stack of three by five cards.  on each card, i'd written something that makes me happy. and this is what they said- in random order:

christmas
seeing my mom after i've been away (she gets totally excited as if you're famous- or have been gone for years)
holding mike's hand
writing and reading my bible and prayer
zoe saying 'i love you' and hugging me
feeling mikes breath on me when we sleep
taking a nap with zoe
taking a bath with candles and a glass of wine
laughing with friends
playing the guitar and singing with my brother and sister

these cards have no date- but it was obviously before my little boys were born.  the cool thing is that besides adding them onto the napping and hearing 'i love you' cards- the list is still the same.  the same things make me happy.

i bet that if most people made these three by five cards they'd be similar- there wouldn't be a lot of 'stuff' on them. it wouldn't be buying new shoes or having a new car.  i wouldn't be buying a used-possibly ugly non-brindle  brown cowhide rug. 

so i managed to toss my highschool latin homework (i have  no idea why those were ever saved) and some letters from camp in the fifth grade, and a lot of old work papers. i got two boxes down to one. but these cards will go in the save pile.  these cards will be taped across my bathroom mirror for a few weeks.  and they will remind me of really how lucky i am.