Shopping with a Purpose

With a nod & smile to friends over at Travel with a Purpose I found myself this weekend Shopping with a Purpose.

The new apartment is great, and needed very little work, thank God! But the one thing that we did need were chairs around the dining room table. Oh, the wooden folding chairs from Grandma (circa 1964) are good for sitting, but after a bit of sitting you become painfully aware that they are in fact past their prime and not conducive to sitting around after dinner and chatting.

I was hoping for some good solid, timeless chairs. And I was hoping that I wouldn't spend a lot. And I was hoping they would be comfortable. All this is a lot to hope for, as it turns out, especially in the big city. And so off to the suburbs I went!

Mom suggested a couple of thrift stores - on Black Friday we went first to Liberty Thrift & Home Furnishings. The store was remarkably large (to my city eyes, but perhaps normal sized for suburbia) and filled with all sorts of furniture and clothes and home items. And many many chairs!!! Turns out there were three perfect chairs, solid wood, comfortable, and the whole store was 50% off that day. Three chairs for under $40 - I was thrilled! Even better though was when I saw the mission statement posted in the store:

"Liberty Ministries exists to serve offenders in prison and ex-offenders in the community by showing God’s love, providing practical assistance and supporting biblical standards of justice."

Three dining chairs? $40. Five red Christmas wreath bows? $3.50. Supporting a ministry you can believe in while shopping? Priceless.

Parisian Love

This just made my day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU

Time Management Scissors

I'm on my own personal "just say 'no'" campaign, and using the time management scissors to cut out unnecessary events. Just checked facebook and had four invitations to four events and proceeded to respond with four "no's".

I hate doing it, but in reality if I say "yes" I'll be only partially there, distracted by all the other things that I'm not doing while I'm at one of four said events.

Recently I was interviewed as a candidate for an industry association award. (It's an honor just to be nominated.) The interviewer asked, "So, you mentioned you're involved with your church, and you are also on the board of the organization. Other than that and work, are you involved with anything else?" "Am I supposed to be?" I thought "No," I said, laughing, "all that - and family and friends - keeps me pretty busy! Well, and the swing dance class on Monday nights I'm a part of..."

Last week as part of our church retreat we discussed virtues; the small group I was a part of discussed the virtue of wisdom. We decided that wisdom is choosing the best thing, at the best time, and pursuing it in the best way. So for right now, as life seems to be heating up (busy at work, industry events, Bible studies, and of course swing dance) the best thing to start doing is scaling back on the "I love to's" and boil it down to the "I need to's" in the schedule. And pray that God will make the "I need to's" super fun while I stay focused and keep the time management scissors handy!