Apron Thrift Girl

Town Mouse Island Mouse

Some days when we are out and about in the city, I feel like such an island mouse rather than a town mouse. I think I am so spoiled with the quiet and nature of home. We have moved on from Sebastopol and are now in Oakland in the Bay Area. We are staying in my brother's house while he is staying in ours. 

Here is my list of things I miss about island life and things I love about city life.

I miss the sounds of the ferry horn which we hear nearly every hour of the day. Sometimes the fridge here will make a weird sound and for a second I think it is the ferry. The ferry sound is always a comforting one.

I love being surrounded by food I can eat. Dh said to me that if I can't eat gluten free in Berkeley then I can't eat anywhere. We went to a pizza house called Pizza Rustica where they will put any pizza topping in their menu on a gluten free crust. Do you know how rare this is to enjoy pizza out? It was an amazing meal. I also ordered the roasted garlic and was enjoying all flavors so much. Eating out with a gluten allergy usually means a lot of tasteless meals. I can have meat but no sauces, plain brown rice or salad with just oil and vinegar. When I taste food filled with a lot of flavor, my mouth just melts. We also found a restaurant in Berkeley called "Cafe Gratitude" which is nearly all gluten free. They serve organic food and most of it is live and raw. I have never had an experience like this one but it was fantastic. Their lemonade was truly the best I ever tasted sweetened with agave instead of sugar. I felt so alive there and filled with freedom to order anything I wanted. A strange feeling to have when most menus are saturated with gluten and usually leave me feeling sad. I even had a raspberry/blackberry cream pie with a nut crust. It was incredible. The restaurant is all about being grateful. Each dish has a special name like "I am Giving. I am Accepting." When you place an order, you use these words and the wait person says it back to you and of course you say yes.

I miss the quiet of my non vacation life. I miss not hearing lots of noise. Even when I run into town at home it is  generally very quiet. I find the city life too noisy and stimulating for me. My brother lives near a rose garden park and it is tranquil and a little bit magical. Cerys and I took a walk up there this afternoon and could feel the magic in the air. We saw many large birds that I think were kestrels. They were flying above us and drinking water from a cascading fountain. We felt more at home there than walking down the busy streets which were just a couple blocks away.

This isn't really much to do with city life but I do enjoy the Bay Area climate and understand why so many people are drawn here. It is such an ideal climate with blue skies, sunshine and the perfect temperature for summer. Apparently up in the Seattle area they have had quite a bit of rain which makes me grateful for every sunny day we have had here. Sometimes I don't want to even go home but just stay in the rose garden basking in the sun. Maybe they wouldn't notice a small tent beneath the grove of trees with a mama and her two small children.

I miss my small town thrift stores. I think I am very spoiled by our local thrift stores. I haven't had the luck I had last year down here. Maybe more people are swooping down and buying all of the vintage items or maybe the workers are keeping them back to sell online as many Goodwill's have started doing recently. I tried a couple thrift stores that were neighbors to antique stores and they were beyond dry. I can imagine that they are frequented daily by antique dealers.

I love being able to go brush my teeth at 10 pm and enjoy flamenco dancing from the bathroom window. The closest we get on the island is belly dancing at our local curry house. The best I can see from my bathroom window is an old cedar tree. Keiran watched for at least ten minutes, enthralled with the music and dancing.

I miss driving slowly without a car behind me or in front of me. I love the peaceful slow roads we have at home. I remember when we lived near Oxford in the UK that I never was able to drive on a road without company. It wasn't until we moved to Wales that life slowed down for me. This was a good thing as I struggled learning to not only drive on the left side of the road but driving with the stick shift in my left hand. I was doubly challenged. It seems like everyone lately drives at least 10 mph past the speed limit which leaves me limping along in the right lane trying to enjoy the views around me.

My mind is reeling with ideas of how to stay here or how to spend more time down in CA next summer. Maybe do a two month exchange for the summer in the south of the Bay Area so David could work. Of course when I go home I will be so grateful to be there too.  I remember in June how I considered not leaving home at all so I could take care of my garden all summer. I'm grateful we had this vacation in the sun and to show the children the type of summers I grew up with. My summers consisted of playing, swimming, sitting in the sun and traveling throughout CA in an old 1958 GMC Carryall. It didn't have air condition, we didn't have to wear seat belts and it had a water bag on the front grill which we used either to drink from or put in the radiator if the engine became too hot.  It's what summer memories should be made of.

I haven't had a photo to share in awhile so I'm posting a thrift find of mine that I found just before we left for California.

$10.00 for the lot of them. These are the exact same dolls that I had when I was young and they must be one of my happiest toy memories of my childhood.

Having been born a hopeless romantic, these two were always a couple. Huckleberry Pie and Blueberry Muffin. That pesky Lemon Meringue was always trying to come between them but was never successful. Later the two adopted Apple Dumpling and were a perfect little family. These dolls look like they were never played with. They are in such beautiful condition.

They also came with all of this.

Dh didn't understand my joy of this find but then he was 18 when I was 8. I was really into Strawberry Shortcake and friends. I was going to give them to Cerys to play with but at the last minute I hesitated. Maybe I'll give them to her on her 8th birthday.

With Intention

We have been on vacation for a week now and life outside my island life is always an eye opener. Life where I live is relatively slow paced. Most roads are less than 45 mph with our main street speed being 20 mph. It is calm and I appreciate this pace of living. It fits me. Yet I also like getting off the island where I can enjoy how the rest of the country lives. I have noticed down here in Northern California at how fast many people drive. Perhaps they drive like this in Seattle too, I usually only pop over to go thrifting once every month to two months so I'm not used to city traffic. I have noticed that some drivers here around Santa Rosa, CA to be so aggressive. They seem angry and always in a hurry no matter how big or small a road is. I observed one car with his turn signal on trying to squeeze into a lane but was honked at by a large van rather than just giving him space to let him in. I just see so many angry drivers everywhere. Today I experienced this personally.

We were at a Costco gas pump and dh had trouble with his costco card. It wouldn't read his card. A very large truck behind us, drove around us to leave and was just inches away from our side mirror. Dh, having given up on trying to get the card to work was in the van by now. I just mentioned either to him or to the children that the truck sure drove close to our van. I assume this driver was watching me in the mirror because his huge, black truck stopped as he was driving away. This equally huge guy, at least 250 pounds stomped up to my window (what a bully, I was thinking) and said in a very angry voice "Did you have a problem with my driving? I thought I heard you say I was too close to your van".  I lied like the best actress stating that I was just concerned because our card wouldn't work at the pump. He then insulted us quite rudely because apparently we were parked away from the pump into the middle aisle. I said thanks for letting us know and gave him a warm (but freaked out) smile. He grumbled, looked very pissed and walked back to his truck and drove away.

I was immediately so angry at this guy having the nerve to come up to a very small 5'1" women and try to bully us. How can someone have so much anger in them that they have to cause a problem at a flippin' gas station? Aren't there worse things to be angry about? Poverty? Soldiers dying in war? Natural disasters? etc?  I also thought about what he could have done to us. Who knows? He could have been packing a gun and shot me or busted our window with a baseball bat.

I did take the opportunity to teach the children a valuable lesson about lying. Sometimes in times of possible danger, it's okay to lie. I explained that this man was just a dangerous bully and the best thing that I could do was not worry about my pride (in the fact that he was indeed extremely close to our van) but to just get out of the situation as soon as possible.

Later, I felt empowered by what I said to him. I'm sure the guy wanted to pick a fight for some absurd reason I will never understand. I didn't give him that power. I also felt empowered that I could think on my feet quickly and spout out a lie to get him to go away. Cerys said to me that she wished he would run out of gas. I told her that the best thing we could do was wish for peace and love for him so that if he has this issue again, maybe he won't get out of his truck and try to bully people. It's very hard to wish peace on someone that seems to bad. I've found though that it is easier for me to have peaceful feelings than angry ones. Of course my initial one was to call the police followed by keying his truck when I saw that he parked it in the parking lot of Costco. Of course I would never have done the latter but it did go through my mind when my adrenaline was running its course through my body.

As I mentioned in my other post, I have been listening to Wayne Dyer's audio Cd's. It has really helped me with my patience. I used to be somewhat impatient. I would be annoyed by the person in front of me in line who happened to try to buy everything in the store with out a UPC code. Or the driver that is driving like it is a Sunday afternoon when I am on my way to a yard sale on a Saturday morning.  Now I try to step back and figure out why I am feeling annoyed.  I try to look at their side such as maybe the driver just is having a laid back day and is enjoying the sun on their arm and the music on the radio. Wayne mentioned that when he is feeling stressed he just says "I want to feel good." It is really cool how these simple words can really help me. They just remind me if anything, to be with intention. My intention of life isn't to be angry or annoyed. I do want to feel good. This has helped me be a better parent, wife and friend. It has helped me deal with today much better than it would have in the past. I simply asked myself what lesson did I learn from this. The lesson is that I didn't fall prey to what this bully wanted and I was able to teach my children a valuable lesson about bullies. Dh gave the funny advice that it helps to be a faster runner than a bully. Life though is worth too much to let our pride get in the way. Here's to happier and more peaceful driving in our world.

8 Things About Me

My very good book selling friend, Guusje tagged me for the meme "8 Things About Me".  Great motivation to get me blogging again. Here they are....

1) When I am happy, I like to sing. I can't necessarily sing but I love to do it anyway. I can belt it out quite loudly sometimes, especially songs from musicals. I love to sing songs from Phantom, Sound of Music or sometimes make up my own tune and words. My son doesn't enjoy my songs as much as my daughter. I can always gage my happy meter though by the amount of singing I do.

2) I'm a total klutz. I can't wear a white shirt without spilling something on it, usually chocolate. I run into things when I'm walking and I drop things like there is not tomorrow. Dh has great amusement from this side of me.

3) I love any story about time traveling and I've often wished I could time travel myself. My favorite adult book because of this is The Time Traveler's Wife. This fall there is a new show following Hero's on NBC called Journeyman which looks fantastic and it is all about time travel.

4) I have always loved writing. When I was 10 or so, I started my first newspaper called "The Unicorn News". I wrote each copy with pen and sold them to family members for .25 cents. I think it was one of those signs that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

5) Recently I have been really into Wayne Dyer. I somehow picked up both his book "the Power of Intention" and the audio CD set with the same title to sell. But when I was having a migraine I started to listen to his CD and really connected with his words and had to keep both. It has changed a lot of my outlook on life and especially how I interact with people. It's a nice, needed change.

6) We just got a GPS system in our van and I am in love with this technology. It feels like the last two years has been amazing for technology for me personally. My three favorite things I really wouldn't want to live without are my Tivo machine (I was always forgetting to tape shows or taping the wrong channel), my Ipod which I take when thrifting and now GPS. Ours lets us find coffee houses and ice cream parlors on it. When we get lost it helps us find our way back. It is  so amazing.

7)  I've recently started watching Martha's morning show Martha. I started last spring and I was totally hooked on her. Which is funny since many in blogland have been into her for years. I am sometimes late on the bandwagon. It started with finding her new cookbook "Everyday Foods". Then I had to have her magazines of the same title and then I found her show and loved it. I would tivo it so I could fast forward the boring parts or the gluten laden parts that I didn't want to see. Dh laughs at my obsession with her but loves the food we are making from her cookbook.

8) I've started a vacation scrapbook. My first scrapbook in probably 2 1/2 years. And to link it in to #7 I found a Martha Scrapbook at Michaels which I had to have. It is powdering blue and gorgeous. My only problem is that I forgot my camera lead to my computer so I can't upload photos which means I also haven't been blogging too much lately. Last night though I went to Safeway and printed off some instant photos for .29 cents each. They weren't the best quality but serve my scrapbook purpose for now.

There you go, eight more things about me. Let's see now....which eight people will I tag? Sandy, Lucy, Erin, Samantha, Willow House, Beth, missvintagelove and Laura.

Here are the tagging rules. Have fun.
1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged

I'll try to get some photos up soon. I have been thrifting again at the Sebastopol flea market and just yesterday I picked up 3 Vera scarfs in perfect condition for $3.00. It was heavenly.