Tried To Act Like Normal People Doing Normal Things

Yesterday was a really nice October Sunday here in southern NJ - unseasonably warm but not oppressive hot; sunny, but with that lovely autumn filter that makes sunshine less obnoxious.

I have been sick for a week with a stomach bug and I was feeling a bit better so we decided it would be good to get out for a little bit.  We did the "what do you want to do?" thing a little bit ("I don't know, what do you want to do?") and then decided to head toward a cranberry festival that was happening in a town about an hour away from us.

I used to really like street fairs and festivals.  I used to go to them often.
But then something happened.  It's like the population exploded or they suddenly became ridiculously popular and everyone and their mother started going to them.

And then - POOF! - just like that I hated them.


There is nothing remotely fun about shuffling along while stuck in the middle of 14,000 people, some of whom think it's a great idea to bring their double-wide strollers.  In fact I'm pretty sure that street fairs are the reason God gave someone the idea to invent back and front carriers to carry your kids with.
There is nothing remotely fun about standing in line to try and get some food or get near a vendor.
Plus I passionately hate people crowds.

Why I came up with "let's go to the cranberry festival!" is beyond me.  The only explanation I can come up with is that I sometimes go through a thing where I try to pretend I'm like other people.  It never works but about once a year I forget that and attempt to join the masses doing activities that I basically loathe.  JP is the same as me but he'll go along with doing something he hates if it's something that I want to do, bless his heart.

Anyway, without further ado, here is a picture of us at the cranberry festival:

No, not that lady over on the right.  What you are really looking at here is our view from inside the truck of the massive traffic jam we were stuck in consisting of people attempting to go to the cranberry festival.  This picture does not show the real deal which was that people were parking miles - miles! - away and schlepping to the festival.  It does not show the shyster man who came up to our window and said "I can get you parked in 5 minutes for 10 bucks."  It does not show the non-moving, miles-long traffic in front and in back of us.

It does not show us eventually finding a place where we could actually turn around so we could high tail it out of there.

There is a restaurant near this area that is well known for its wings and it serves alcohol which is what we were in need of after driving for more than an hour to sit in traffic for an hour and then not go to the cranberry festival.  We made a beeline for it.

When we arrived we discovered that it, too, was a mob scene.  People lined up outside waiting to get a table. We managed to get inside to see how bad it was and entered a loud and chaotic scene and no staff in sight to help manage the chaos.  The outdoor area was filled with our kind of people (bikers) so we thought that would our (fun) option but all the tables were taken, people were standing around everywhere, and they only seemed to serve alcohol out there and we wanted food.
In essence, it was (again) our biggest nightmare.
JP and I are not the types who stand in line to get into a place.  We leave and find somewhere else to go which is, of course, what we did.
About 5 miles down the road there is a place that has the best pizza so we grabbed a slice and ate it in the car.

Defeated?  Were we? Well, yes...at trying to act like we fit in with the majority who somehow don't seem to mind chaos and crowds.

Somehow, though, I think we're the ones who were not defeated at all, but instead...victorious.

I'll take our quiet, harmonious life any day.

 

Regaining Sanity, Vol. 1: Extricating Myself From Facebook

For quite a long time now I have danced around the knowledge that social media does bad things to me (and you)**.

I’ve ignored that fact for a long time now even though I am very well aware that my attention span has dwindled down to noth…oh look, it’s a cute puppy video that I must watch right now.

Yeah, like that.

My morning routine consists of drinking my first cup of coffee while scrolling through Facebook which never left me with a warm/fuzzy feeling afterwards.  Au contraire.  The happy mood I almost always wake up in would be replaced by feelings of annoyance or disgust or exasperation.  Those are the things I have been feeding myself for breakfast almost every day since about mid-2009 when I joined Facebook. Wrap yourself around the fact that every single day I (you, they) voluntarily do something that does not fulfill or add to the the quality of life and instead diminishes it.

I have decided once and for all to do something about it.  To fight the addiction.  And I am not using that word in jest; social media addiction is real addiction.  And if you knew my family’s history with addictions (drugs, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, drama, victimhood) you would understand why that terrifies me.


I do my best to be very careful with myself. But this one’s got me in its clutches like it does a significant portion of the entire population.  For example, 72.4% of the entire US population has interacted at some level with Facebook*. That number makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat as if someone just said “…and I have this really delicious Kool Aid that all of us are going to drink right now”.
Because I work from home + have health conditions to keep me home, I have more time to peruse the Internet and more times than not that means a whole lot of Facebook and sometimes Twitter and Instagram.  What I find over and over is a bunch of mostly silly but sometimes fun nonsense (memes, etc), and an appalling amount of snark/sarcasm/cynicism/ad hoc attacks/vitriol (that, oddly, often gets directed at the silly but sometimes fun nonsense).  An entire populace subsisting on a steady diet of snark, snide, and pseudo-hip cynicism (thanks for the term, Camille Paglia).  Don’t get me started on politics & the e n d l e s s amount of posts that do nothing for anyone except to cause even more derision. Religion and faith?  Replaced by mockery and the worship of technology. Politics has reduced everyone to one label or another and the resultant hatred has caused a genuine loss of civility that I wonder if we’ll ever get back.  I can't help but wonder if people are really laying in bed at night feeling content that they posted that meme about Trump or Hillary...is that really what you want the gift of your life to be reduced to? Worse are the people who post about kindness and caring about those around them...unless, of course, that person voted for the wrong candidate in their slacktivist estimation.  Being an uplifter has been replaced by being a cowardly disparaging bully who hides behind a computer screen reveling in the delusion that they are somehow clever and cunning.  Everyone is offended by the most trivial of things and no one is really free to express their real opinions anymore because they will almost certainly get attacked for them.
With some puppy videos and delicious recipes thrown in for good measure.


I have seen too many people I know personally with good and interesting minds waste their intelligence and wit (the real kind, not the sarcastic kind) on being Facebook Fabulous; posting inane and/or derisive and sometimes disturbing stuff in some kind of Orwellian or Kafkaesque or Rod Serling-ish (or Zuckerbergian?) popularity contest in which the person who can get the most people to spend a nanosecond clicking a button (Like!)…wins.  Your guess is as good as mine as to what the actual prize is.

Yet we all keep coming back again and again and again.  I see posts on Facebook by people accusing others of being sheeple and the irony of that is not lost on me. 


via GIPHY

I can’t keep drinking the Kool Aid, folks.  I can’t keep feeding my own good and interesting mind this constant stream of tripe and drivel. 

I was reading something this morning on the topic of reducing social media usage and someone in a comment said that their goal was to not waste their summer on social media.  This hit home for me because it made me think about how much time I wasted this past summer perusing Facebook, etc.

Time I cannot get back.

Time I could have been doing a myriad of worthwhile things that fed and nurtured my mind, not starved or otherwise harmed it.

*http://www.internetworldstats.com/facebook.htm
**Please don't repeat the worn statement that Facebook, et al. helps keep the connection with friends and family.  There were deep and meaningful relationships before the inception of social media.

I Didn't Come Here For This

This morning I sat down at my laptop with my first cup of coffee of the day and starting scrolling through Facebook - this is my morning routine.
I've gotten really good at weeding out the crap I don't want to see or her about which is the stuff that stresses me out and interrupts my goal of having a pleasant life.
I also have an app installed that allows me to enter words or phrases to filter out that I don't wish to appear in my news feed.

I am so thankful for whoever designs those kinds of apps and lets me use them...for free, no less.
I hope they know the service they are providing to my well-being.

Unfortunately, because there are now myriads of potential land mines in the let's-be-offended-about-every-single-thing climate that we now live in, I would have to quit my day job (if I had one) to spend each day thinking about and adding all of the words and phrases I don't want to her about. So occasionally some things I don't want to see will slip through and that happened this morning.


I follow a very famous artist who makes really happy artwork.
I follow her because I like to be happy and I like artwork.
I do not follow her because I want to know about her political beliefs.
I do not follow her because I want to know what offends her.
I do not follow her because I want to know anything other than her pretty artwork.

Sadly, she doesn't care what I follow her for.

You see, she has fallen victim to I-KNOW-YOU-STARTED-FOLLOWING-ME-FOR-MY-ARTWORK/MUSIC/WRITING/ACTING/COOKING/ETC-BUT-I-NOW-HAVE-AN-OPINION-ABOUT-SOMETHING-POLITICAL/SOCIAL-THAT-I-AM-GOING-TO-TELL-YOU-ABOUT-EVEN-THOUGH-IT-HAS-NOTHING-TO-DO-WITH-WHY-YOU-FOLLOW-ME syndrome...
and, by God, is she ever going to let you know about it because she has a gazillion followers and - wow! - isn't it so great that she can use all of them to foist her opinion(s) on them even though that is not why they follow her at all.

Talk about being an opportunist.

Talk about bait and switch.

Talk about getting hoodwinked.

One more thing to add to the list and unfollow.
I'm pretty sure that pretty soon there won't be much left to follow.

I wish this kind of thing would stop but in a world of I MUST BE INDIGNANT ABOUT EVERY SINGLE THING...it doesn't seem likely.

I just wish they knew

Please feel free to save this image and share it accordingly.

#StopPoliticizingEverySingleThing
#IDidntAskForYourOpinion
#StopTalkingPlease

 

Caustic

"You see, I decided five years ago that I was done with fitting in, and that I'd rather be lonely and alone, than to continue immersing myself in a world I found caustic.

Everywhere I looked people seemed to be shouting, trying to make their voices heard.
The most recent clever story on facebook.
The most wittily stated opinion.
I didn't see kindness, I saw intolerance and rudeness.
I saw people ripping each other down through the medium of social media because they didn't have to look that person in the face, and see how their comments hurt them.
Then I watched as that attitude seemed to make people less tolerant in the real world as well.
I wanted no part of it anymore.
From that point on I was standing alone, and that was that." -Gingerbread

 

Art Show Fiasco

I was supposed to an ART show yesterday.
All week we prepared for it.
Weeks ago we purchased our first pop-up tent.
JP built me a podium; not so that I could pontificate from but for writing out invoices, running charge payments, etc.

We loaded up the truck very early yesterday morning and set out for the site. And then I proceeded to have a massive literal anxiety attack.
The whole way there.
Full on, doesn't-get-much-worse-than-this panic.
It didn't make sense. I've been doing this art thing for years now. I do solo shows and artist receptions where the spotlight is 100% on me and I have to be "on" and sociable. I might get the jitters a little bit at these kinds of events but honest to goodness panic? No way.

I could not figure out what the heck was going on with me.
But leading up to yesterday I kept getting that awful foreboding feeling. You know, that dread kind of feeling that pops up. Really, really weird.
And then we got there.

Here's what happened next:

• We arrived at the entrance gate of the park the event was being held in. Park also has a marina. We arrived just in time to witness the organizers telling a man that he could not enter the park to get to his boat at the marina because there was an event happening. Understandably the man was less than happy and was expressing that while using various words that looked like this: &*$#*&!@#. The man proceeded to blast his horn at cars that were blocking his access while shouting out of his car window at the organizers who were shouting back at him. Man then drove maniacally past the organizers who were trying to stop him from entering and getting to his boat. Similar to a Seinfeld episode. Ooooookay. 
• At the entrance gate, I gave my name to the woman in charge who had a checklist in her hand with vendor names and their assigned space numbers. She scanned the list then THRUST it at me and said "here, you read it. See if you find your name. I can't see today." Ooooookay. 
• I found my name and got my spot number. I asked her where #25 was and she said she "had no idea"...and with a jerk of a her head said that we should "go ask the lady at the white tent". Ooooookay. 
• The lady in the only white tent there at that time had nothing whatsoever to do with the event; she was a vendor. We found spot # 25 on our own. It was approximately 4x6. This is a problem. Woman on organizer team told us there was plenty of room for a table. We have a 10x10 tent, no tables. Framed artwork that hangs on panels. Big problem.
• Some other woman was running around trying to solve the problems that were popping up all around us. We told her that our site wouldn't work for us. She told us to set up our tent OVER the sidewalk that was next to the tiny site we were assigned. 
•  Then she told us that we couldn't park where we were parked. 
• Then she told us that we couldn't set up our tent until everyone around us set up theirs because our tent would block them from getting out. 
• Some other woman came along who told us to take another spot across from the tiny one. No matter that that spot was assigned to another vendor. The other spot had a giant divot in the ground. So if we set up our tent over it we ran the risk of having potential customers who entered our tent break/sprain/twist their ankles or fall. 
• Vendor behind us arrived only to find out that her assigned spot had a tree directly in the middle of it. 
• I sat back in the truck to calm down and quell the panic. JP stayed outside having even more ludicrous conversations and encounters. I was praying he didn't explode on anyone. 
• Vendors around us were setting up to sell their flea market-type items. This was billed as an Art & Music Festival. 

Finally we looked at each other and said let's just go home.

There was more. Oh so much more.
The stuff above were just the highlights. Or lowlights.

We're still reeling.

I want to write a post about red flags to look for with these types of shows but right now I don't know where to begin.
Two days before this show I realized that I never actually received any type of communication from them after I sent in my application and payment. This was a big fail on my part...but an even bigger one on their part.
So right away I emailed. No response.
I left messages on their Facebook pages. No response.
I called and finally got a response. The organizer told me verbatim - and I wish so hard that I was kidding - "I don't have time to contact everyone and let them know I received their payment and give them their site assignment."
Then, lady, you have no business attempting to run this kind of event because you're really, really bad at it.
But all of this explains perfectly my anxiety attack.
And cements my commitment to pay attention to and trust implicitly my gut feelings. I knew some thing was off. What an understatement that turned out to be.

The only words of advice I have right now are:

1. Make sure the organizers are communicating often and in detail. 
2. Make sure your spot is the right size! This seems like a given but maybe not. 

 I just hope I can get past the very strong trepidation I'm feeling right now about doing these kinds of shows in the future.


 

A Migraine & A Farm

I just made a McDonald's migraine run.  What that means is that I woke up with a pretty good migraine today (6/10) and part of my arsenal for treating a migraine involves eating a salty/greasy breakfast with a fountain coke - even if I have to sometimes force myself to eat.  The drive-thru people were looking at me all weird so I can image that I have that lovely migraine-induced look of derangement.

"One Egg McMuffin meal with a coke, please."

And I'm sure they were judging me for ordering a Coke at 8am. 😩

Today will be a salty food, caffeine-fueled kind of day.
Which sounds sort of fun minus the stabbing pain in my head.

JP and I have been kicking around some life-changing ideas lately...



like potentially selling our house to move to a place that's an easier commute for him - he crosses the Delaware Memorial Bridge each day so enough said there - and has a whole lot of country for my artwork.

Which is how we wound up walking around a farm on Saturday.

Yes, that's right...a farm.  I happened upon it for sale on Realtor.com on Saturday morning and by lunchtime we were traipsing through its acreage while awaiting the real estate agent to arrive to show it.

There were multiple outbuildings that were seemingly made of the stuff I dream about (and create artwork about)...like the most weathered, breathtaking barn wood everywhere.  Like big open sky and big old trees to rest under.

I was in love and probably would have signed on the dotted line right then and there...until we went into the house.

Very unfortunately, the owners had rented it out and let's just say that the renters did not treat the house very well.  I wouldn't say it was trashed but it was significantly gross.  I am easygoing when it comes to houses; I can deal with a lot and can always see potential even when others can't, but I could not get past this house's ick factor.  This was a tragic shame because exteriorly the house was terrific.

Afterward, we went out to lunch and mulled things over.  What if we had a professional company do a clean out?  What if we did this or that?  The answers kept coming up with a lot of no's and so my heart broke a little bit because I was really liking the idea of owning a farm.

But, for real?  Do we really want to buy something that's going to commandeer 95% of our free time at this stage of the game?  Because, let's be honest, if JP and I owned a farm, we would then just have to own a cow...a horse...a couple of goats, etc.  JP would have to indulge his love of tractors so there'd be a bunch of farm equipment to maintain..

The short answer is No, it would be foolish to buy a farm now.  No one in their right mind would advise us otherwise.

Which means nothing to us, of course.

This farm was not the right one for us but if I stumble upon another with a better house in the right area?  Well, who knows what might happen?

 

Andrew Wyeth Exhibition

We spent part of JP's birthday on Friday 8/25 at the Andrew Wyeth Exhibition, Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, PA.

I have no words to express my awe.
To be in the presence of these works was tremendous...so much so that I got a little bit overwhelmed at first upon entering the exhibit.

To say that I adore Andrew Wyeth would be a silly understatement.

Seeing his actual work 3 inches from my face was nothing short of a privilege - like being let into his house and world.

The exhibit included works from all the Wyeths - Jamie, N.C., Carolyn, Henriette + several of N.C.'s proteges.  Amazing.

.

I bought a print of this one - it's one of my most favorites

The infamous Christina of Christina's World

The exhibition runs until September 17th and so if there is any way you can get there by then I implore you to do so.

I spend a lot of time in the Chadds Ford area and any time spent there - if you can arrange it - is time well spent, I promise you.

Scenes from the breathtaking museum itself:

If you go, be sure to walk around the premises and do visit the gift shop where you can purchase prints at very reasonable prices.  I don't think there are very many places at all where Wyeth prints can be gotten.  I bought this one, of course - because of my obsession with everything moon. 18x19, $35.00:

For more information about the exhibit, click ---> Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect

Clean Your Room

August's Simple Little Giveaway

I need your help growing my reach so from now until the end of the month, every SHARE of any of my images on my Facebook page and new NEWSLETTER SIGN UP will be entered to win this 3.5"x 2.25" double-sided keychain featuring my "HANGING AROUND JOANNE'S HOUSE" piece.

Share 1 of my images = 1 chance to win Share 10 of my images = 10 chances to win, etc...



 

The "Experts" Are Anything But - Please Stop Listening To Them

.
Written by me in 2014.  I have since had 5 solo, month-long art shows at The Globe + various other venues.  Please please please read this...and read it again (and again) until its message sinks in, hits home, kicks you in your butt, etc.
________________________________________________________________________________

Yesterday my husband and I installed my final art show/sale of 2014 at The Globe, an historic former theater that is now a very hip and very popular restaurant/bar/art gallery located in Berlin, Maryland.

It's a huge show; 71 pieces of my artwork ranging in size from 24x36 (6 of this size!) down to little tiny 4x4 squares that are part of a 9-pc set of varying sizes ($100 for the set - a bargain!) spread throughout the entire two-level building.

This is my second show/sale there.  I also headlined there last year at this time.  That first show/sale was so successful that they invited me back this year, again at the busiest time of the year when galleries exhibit those who best serve the shopping season.

How successful was last year's show, you ask?  Let's put it this way: I was supposed to be in there from Thanksgiving until New Year's.  I wound up being in there until March.  The longest running show they've ever had.

Am I tooting my own horn?
You bet I am - but not for the reasons you might think.



Well, not totally for the reason you might think.  ;-)


I am tooting my own horn because I want to tell you - in one word - how all of this came about:  postcard.

Yep, one single postcard has given me two amazing opportunities to headline my own solo show at the most prominent art space in a town that was voted 2014's Coolest Small Town In The US by Budget Travel magazine.

All I did was send postcards out to places I thought my art would fit into.  On the back I had printed a message that said something about being available for shows and sales and retail opportunities.  I wrote a couple of lines that just said that I'd love for them to check my work out. That's it.

Ah, sweet naïvete.

You see, the "experts" will tell you to not ever make the very amateur mistake of sending out postcards to galleries and shops.  They will scoff at you for even considering doing this.  No self-respecting artist who wants to be taken seriously would ever do this because all it will lead to is having your postcard tossed directly into the trash without anyone ever so much as glancing at it is what the self-proclaimed art business gurus will tell you.

Well, maybe they're right, if you are the type of high-fallutin' artist who straight out of the gate thinks your art should be featured in a gallery on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan where the cheapest piece sells for thousands of dollars.  Then, no, a postcard probably won't work for you.

But if you're a humble artist who doesn't say "no, it sucks" when people tell you that your artwork is really good or great (I hate people who do this.  Why are you even creating art then?!  It's like people who are a size two but complain about being fat.  Stop, please.) and you should sell it...and if you are a humble artist who needs a break, just one simple break...and if you want to keep your prices reasonable so the average person can actually afford to buy some art...and if you are not a wuss who isn't afraid to just put yourself out there, to take a chance, to throw the dice and see where they land...than YES, those "experts" and "gurus" are wrong.

I mean, come on...by now you should know that if there were some set of rules to follow that would guarantee success, everybody would be following them and riding off into the sunset, right?

Those rules don't exist.
The rule is that there are no rules.

Let me say that again:  THERE ARE NO RULES.

Oh, and while you're thinking about all of this, I beg you to reconsider what your definition of success is if it has anything at all to do with money.  Yes, I am serious.  Very serious.

I can say with complete confidence and truth that I am a wildly successful artist.
My artwork makes people happy and I know this because on almost a daily basis they make it a point to reach out and tell me. 

Something I do brings people happiness.
Tell me what defines success more than that.
There's not a price you can put on that.  And if I make some money along the way, that's just bonus.
I am not saying I don't want to make money - that would be ridiculous.  With my artwork I make money and I also make people happy and I'm telling you that the latter is what makes my soul sing.

It's a motivation thing and in all likelihood what motivates me (with my art and in life) is way left of center, which is usually how it goes with me.

I'll probably never wind up in a gallery on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan sipping wine and nibbling on cheese with the haut monde but that's not where I belong anyway.  Try and know where you belong; that's kind of important.

I'm good where I'm at right now:  meeting people, having fun, and making pretty pictures that make people happy.

And sending out postcards.

Ooh Ooh That (Fake) Smell

Do you know the smell when something is burned beyond recognition on a grill? Like when you're heating up the grill and the old funk on the grates is burning or when you burned the hell out of a frying pan? That is the smell that is stuck in my head right now.

Mind you, I am not really smelling this as I do not have the ability to smell anything.

It's called phantosmia and it's part of being anosmic (loss of smell).

Phantosmia is an an olfactory hallucination, it's smelling an odor that is not actually there.
Most of the time the "smells" associated with phantosmia are not pleasant.
And although the smell is not real, it might as well be because I am nauseous from "smelling" this for the past few hours.
My eyes are even tearing from it.
There's nothing I can do to alleviate it; I can only wait it out.

#Anosmia #LossOfSmell #AnosmiaStinks


 

That "Poor Girl" Thing

One of my endeavors operates under the name "Poor Girl".  You might see that name if you visit the my website, for example.  I wanted to explain a little bit about where that name came from.

I'll start with misfortune.

Whenever something bad happens to a person, someone inevitably will say or think or insinuate "that poor girl" (or woman/girl/child/man/boy/person/etc)".

As someone who has had more than her fair share of misfortune (which you will likely eventually hear about as this blog journal progresses 😏), that phrase has been used about me more times than I'd like to admit.  It has always made me very uncomfortable as pity is not something I aspire to attain; also, I come from a long line of victims and since I am the black sheep of the family, am vehemently opposed to being a victim of anything or anyone.

You see, it seems to me that every single bad thing that's ever happened to me has taught me a valuable lesson that I never would have learned if I hadn't gone through the bad thing.


Of course, I am not saying that I am walking around hoping for bad things - God forbid - just so I can learn and grow and evolve.  But bad things are inevitable and if our eyes are open and we're paying attention to our own lives, it is from those things that we learn not only our most valuable lessons, but through them we experience endurance, fortitude, integrity, insight, and the list goes on and on. Maybe the bad thing wouldn't be as bad if we remembered to look for the lesson(s).

I used to a be the senior editor of many world famous reference books and publications.  Then I got sick and the stress and demands of that position were making me worse so I had to give up my career.
I remember sitting home a week or two after my last day at the publishing house and all of a sudden the thought "well, who am I now?" popped into my head.  It was a pure "poor girl, had to give up her high-paying, status-filled career" moment.  I panicked.  I thought that I had lost my identity because my identity had become so wrapped up as Sharon, Senior Editor.  Thankfully, I forced myself  to get over it - and get over myself - and realize that my life is not my job/job title.  I can't tell you how many amazing experiences and endeavors I have since had and would have missed out on if I had stayed stuck in an office dealing with corporate bureaucracy and insane deadlines as Sharon, Senior Editor.

I would not be who I am if not for all the times I was a "poor girl".

I'll finish with financial.

In one of the Real Housewives shows, someone says "I was poor, then I was rich, then I was poor again.  Rich is definitely better."  I couldn't agree more...just maybe for a little bit of different reasons.

When I was very little we were real deal poor.  My divorced mother was a waitress in NJ diners.  She received $25 a month from my father for child support and I don't think that was paid regularly. Needless to say, we were on welfare.  She shopped at Goodwill.  Sometimes we ate lumpy farina or baloney with onions or something called Shit On A Shingle for dinner (ground beef cooked in flour/milk gravy served over white bread).  We weren't alone in being poor and I don't ever remember lamenting over our poor-ness.  Seemingly everyone in our Elizabeth, NJ neighborhood was in the same or similar boat.

Around the time I was 5 or 6, my mother met my future stepfather and - POOF!- suddenly we weren't poor anymore.  Actually we were pretty well-off, definitely wealthy, maybe even rich.  My step-father was a successful Italian mason contractor and we didn't want for anything.  I was plucked out of school every winter as we snowbirded our way to Miami Beach for a few months.  As luck would have it, I won the Stepfather Lottery and was the apple of his eye almost immediately.  I was his shadow, where he went I went, and man did he love to spoil me.

Logically, I should have grown up and continued with that kind of life but it didn't work out that way. I chose what I naïvely thought was love over logic and that left me with a serious cash flow problem many, many (many) times.  Like, rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul-so-that-Paul-doesn't-turn-off-the-electricity kind of problems. (I was always too proud to ask my parents for bailouts.)  I married way too young the first time which was an unhappy and short-lived marriage (but I did get an amazing daughter from the union) and not too long after that one ended, I married again, disastrously.  Husband #2 was bipolar with a strong aversion to medication and working for a living.  This can be referred to as my Creative Ways To Pay Bills Era.  In other words, I was definitely not well-off (literally and figuratively).  One time I sent my well-loved winter coat to the dry cleaner...and never picked it up because I could not afford the $10 bill.  That's a true story.
I have not ever been the type to make my problems anyone else's plus I was appalled that I found myself in this situation so I sucked it up and dealt with it to the best of my ability.  Mind you, I was still gainfully employed in publishing during this era but it was a 3-person household and I was the only one of those persons who had steady income.
I paid our not cheap rent on time every single month since having a roof over my daughter's head was my main priority.  After that, as I said, I robbed from Peter to pay Paul to keep the lights on and the heat running.
I made breakfast for dinner. Or soup for dinner.
I bought any new clothes we needed at Walmart.
I walked a lot.
I rode my bike.
I checked hundreds of books out of the library.
I painted and drew.
I wrote.

At some point, I realized that being poor, so to speak, didn't suck.
In fact, I was having a pretty good time being broke.  My daughter and I (didn't care much what Psycho was doing or not doing...especially since he was mostly just sitting on the couch for months or maybe even years at a time.) might not have been dining out or taking vacations or wearing high end anything but you know what?  We were having big fun anyway.  We weren't feeling sorry for ourselves, that is for sure. My daughter had much of what the other kids had except for the fancy clothes and vacations but I kind of think we both had so much more.
I still think it was during this time that we had our best quality time, together and individually.

We were money poor but life rich.

I certainly am not saying that being broke is better than not being broke because that's obviously untrue.
I'm saying that the times that good fortune was not shining down upon me are the times that I learned the most valuable lessons and grew from them.

Humbly,

  Sharon