So I've always kind of wanted to live on a commune. Not those scarier versions where the "leader" makes you drink poison and things, I just love the idea of neighbors helping neighbors. So in my garden I would plant lettuce, carrots and peas and in your garden you would plant potatoes, onions and peppers. You would help feed my family, I would help feed yours. You need a new roof? Zach helps your husband and I watch your kids.
Love that idea.
Thankfully I have a few friends (and family) who, despite our geographical distance, enter into our commune and help our family. One such friend is Beth. This woman is just a better person in ever single aspect than I am, but she's so dang sweet I can't help but love her for it.
So I'm doing this garage sale to help raise travel money. It is the bane of my existence. Eyes on the prize, though, I'm going to finish and add the probable $500 towards our plane tickets.
Anyhow, this little garage sale is taking up a tremendous amount of time. I had to miss our Wednesday play date last week to pull another "all day-er". I get an email from Beth, "I need to help you, I hate imagining you under a pile of boxes. I'm coming over Monday to help."
Who does that? Well apparently Beth does.
So last night she came over, I introduced her to "G and T's" (Gin and Tonics) and we set (garage) sale-ing...for the next 3 hours. 3 hours of dusting off, tagging, throwing some things away (some things I just couldn't force myself to put my claim on them), reorganizing, pushing, pulling, etc, etc.
No complaints from Beth. To top it off, she tried to PAY ME for a few things she took from the pile. This woman is out of her mind, clearly I should be paying her (and honestly, I would've bought new clothes for her little Lucia-who is waiting for her in Ethopia-anyway!)
So Beth, Beth is definitely in my commune and I hope she knows anytime she needs a head of lettuce or new tile for her bathroom floor, she can call us. Because that's what we do in my imagined commune.
I'm no writer, I assure you. Just a woman with a few things on her mind. A mom that makes mistakes, a wife that loves her husband more than words can say and a woman constantly seeing God in the everyday.
10 comments:
hilarious...i seriously have always wanted to live in a commune, too. not even kidding. it just makes sense. :)
Can I be in the commune?
What an excellent friend! Funny I too have often thought about what a great idea that would be... without the scary kool-aid of course ;o)
That's sweet! I wanna be in the commune too! I have garage sale experience! LOL....
What a blessing it is to have friends like this, isn't it? I'm with you on the commune thing, by the way. I always say I should have been born a generation earlier (that would be TWO generations earlier to you, tee hee!) cuz I so should have been a flower child!
OMG! John and I have talked about this before!!! I think it's why we thought the Yurt idea @ camp was so cool :) Seriously... it's the best system EVER. I've found a semi-commune relationship with my kid's school parents... I started doing PTA stuff, started hanging out with other mom's and it's awesome. Not only have I made some new amazing friends but we barter goods and services ALL.THE.TIME. Example? John fixed my friend Beth's computer and she now in turn watches my boys after school for me on days I work! How cool is that!?! And it didn't cost any of us a penny!
And if you feel like veggie swapping... let us know! We're doing a full garden again this year! :)
I could go on and on but I've gotta go sew her some napkins... she'll probably bake us cookies in return! Lol :)
I'm with you on the commune--sounds wonderful. It takes a village, really. Beth sounds like a lovely friend. I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to pay her back down the road...that's what friends are for!
Okay, on a more serious note, we're having a huge fundraiser garage sale this weekend too...ugh, ugh, ugh--prepping a garage sale is not fun. Hoping for that $500 to add to our ticket $$ too. Hubby thought that taking up a brief part-time job would have been a better use of our time ;)
I think the commune is a great idea. I have talked to friends about starting the very same sort of thing : )
i'm packing my bags. let me know when the commune is up and running.
I love that all of us are admitting to wanting the commune. :) I love friends like Beth. My life is full of them and I am blessed.
Glad that you had G and T. Totally helps sort garage sale junk. :)
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