NASHVILLE, BABY!!

So I was reading some of the posts on here the other day and realized what a dark tone they took.  I was seriously unhappy with my life and struggling.  But a lot has changed since the last time I posted here and I thought I’d add a little postscript and update.

I had hesitated to be too open about my job search before now.  I didn’t know who might see the blog, although I doubt very many people actually read this, so my secret was probably safe.  But I had been in a job search mode for about 3 years.  Truthfully, almost since I’d been at RockTenn, if something interesting popped up I’d apply for it, but I was in a serious job search for about 3 years.  RockTenn was just not my kinda place.

I remember when I first started, another newbie HR person would go on and on about how much she LOVED RockTenn.  What a great company it was, what an awesome boss she had, how thrilled she was to be there, what a rock star our department VP (my boss) was.  It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes every time she said things like that.  It wasn’t that I hated it then, but I had learned over the years not to love your company, to keep it all in perspective.  And RockTenn didn’t strike me as the type of place that you would “love” anyway.  It was not a warm, fuzzy, employee-friendly company.  It was a pretty impersonal, command-and-control, no-nonsense place.  Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but a touch cold for my taste.

I had good business units though and particularly liked and respected the EVP of the division and the President of the joint venture company that I supported.  But that wasn’t enough.  I had 4 different bosses during my 7+ years there, none of which I particularly liked or respected.  So I started looking.

In the past, it hadn’t taken me long to find something else, but this time it did.  Some of it was the economic climate, some of it was probably me.  Atlanta is always a competitive market for HR professionals and, particularly at the Director level, many times the higher level openings would be filled internally.  I had decent traction on my resume.  I had a lot of phone interviews and a lot of in-person interviews.  I got called for interviews 4 different times for 4 different positions at Home Depot, including one at the same time that I interviewed for the job I finally accepted.  I was a finalist for positions at Equifax, at Zep Manufacturing, and at Genuine Parts.  I was a top candidate for positions at Paradies and Jackson Spalding, positions I withdrew from.  I was offered a position at Graybar that I turned down.

I had some of the worst candidate experiences I’ve ever had in my career.  At Equifax, I was one of two final candidates for the position and no one ever called to tell me I hadn’t gotten the job.  At Zep, they liked me a lot, but wanted to see if a headhunter could find anyone they’d missed in their own recruiting, so they made me wait for a month while they searched and then called to tell me I didn’t get the job after all.  At Genuine Parts, they put me through all the interviews, had me do their assessments which included meeting with a psychologist, and then decided to split the job between 2 lower level HR professionals.  Discouraging.

There were quite a few times when I would “give up”, but I never really stopped looking.  I had gotten moved to my 4^th boss at RockTenn and it was someone who had been a peer.  I was disappointed in the change.  She never really welcomed me into her little clique.  I was always on the outside looking in.  In many ways, I didn’t care.  But it wears you down over time when you don’t feel included, when no one seems to care or to value what you bring to the table.  My business unit did, but my own boss didn’t have any interest in me and certainly didn’t care about me professionally.

I had not planned to move from Atlanta, although I did apply for jobs in other cities.  But one day there was a job listed on LinkedIn in Nashville.  I thought Nashville was a cool city and, on a whim, I applied for it.  I had no expectation that I would even get a nibble from it.  But that throw-caution-to-the-wind action ultimately changed my life for the better.

The short story is that I got offered a cool job in a cool city with a cool boss.  Nashville has an energy that I like and I no longer mind getting up and going to work every day.  My boss cares about me as a person and as a professional.  I have neat coworkers and have already gotten to work on big projects that are important to the organization.

 

 

I’ve embraced my new city and I’m determined to see what makes it tick.  I have been to the Grand Old Opry.  I went because two of the actors from one of my favorite TV shows “Nashville” were on the bill.  Avery Barkley and Deacon Claybourne, known in real life as Jonathan Jackson and Chip Esten.  The whole experience was amazing.

 

Jonathan Jackson, aka "Avery"

Chip Esten, aka "Deacon"

 

I took a bus tour of some of the famous filming locations for the show and got to see this:

 

Rayna Jaymes' house

Scarlett O'Connor's house

Deacon's house

Making my "debut" at The Bluebird!

 

And I went to a show at The Bluebird Café, a songwriter’s In the Round night, and got to experience just how amazing it really is.

 

In the Round Songwriter's Night at The Bluebird Cafe

 

I also went to a (disappointing) football game at Vanderbilt, sitting in the cold rain watching Georgia lose, but it was fun all the same.

 

Bulldog Central in Nashville

Georgia on the field before the Vanderbilt game

 

I still have a lot on the agenda to see and do, but I’m enjoying life again and I’m not feeling like I took a wrong turn.  I kept thinking I needed to blow up my life and I kind of did, but in a way that didn’t involve me completely starting over.  And it feels GREAT!

 

My favorite billboard in Nashville

 

Musings on a Father’s Day

I thought it would be appropriate to post this on Father’s Day, since I’ve been thinking about my own father recently. Actually I think about Daddy frequently, but I was thinking about him a little differently this time. It started with my last post and thinking about how everything I did in my life was designed to make my parents proud and not to disappoint them. And as I really kind of dug into that thought a bit more, I realized that the person I was trying to do right for was my father. Then I thought about his life and it made me wonder if it was really my father that was the one who had “the plan”.

My father was born and raised in a small college town in Michigan called Mt. Pleasant. He was one of seven children, nine if you counted his father’s son from a previous marriage and his mother’s daughter from a previous marriage. He was the third from the youngest, so he probably lived a lot of his life on the periphery, maybe just following in the footsteps of those who came before him.

I do know that after high school my father enlisted in the Navy. I don’t know if he ever thought about going to college then. I don’t know if he was a good student back then or what his career aspirations were. But he went in the Navy, served his time, and then came back home. At that point he did go to college, at Central Michigan in his hometown. Whether he had been a good student before or not, he was not a good student in college. He quit school before flunking out and then enlisted in the Army.

I don’t know if there was a method to his madness of enlisting in the armed forces. Did he want to see the world? Was it for some kind of training? Or the G.I. Bill? The only interesting place I ever heard that he went to was when he was in Germany after World War II, so I’m not sure it was for the travel. And since he did go to college again after the Army, I’m guessing that any training he did get, he didn’t use. I don’t know if his plan was to make a career of the Army or just what, but the fact that he met my mother most certainly was not was he thought would happen to him.

Once he did meet Marion Hunter, though, then there certainly was a “plan” for his life. My mother told me, when I married a man that didn’t have a college degree, that she had told Daddy she would marry him but only if he agreed to go back and finish college. Needless to say, she encouraged me to do the same. Mother obviously had her degree. I suspect that had she not met Daddy, she would have returned home to Charlotte and ended up married to one of the suitable young men she ran around with at home. Someone from a similar upper middle class background, with a college degree and a good career. I feel pretty sure that she never intended not to be married to someone like that. And so, she gave that command to my father.

So that brings me to where I started wondering about my father and what he really saw for his life. Did he really see himself in an office job with the phone company developing training programs? Did he really see himself in a business setting? Or was there something else he wanted to do with his life? Or maybe he was just waiting for someone else to point him in a direction.

I know that my father was a good husband and father. He loved my mother and was willing to do what she asked because he loved her and wanted to please her. He was a great father, something I’ve said over and over and over again. And he was successful in his job, well-respected and well-liked. I still remember the day of his funeral when I turned around and saw that the church was at standing room only, filled with people my father had worked with that had liked and respected him and were there to send him off. I know that he was content with the life he had. I never sensed that he was just going through the motions or that he was straining at the ties that bound him. But was that really what he dreamed of for himself?

I do believe that he was happy with the family part. But I wonder now if it was my mother that set him on a path that maybe was different in all other respects from what he thought he would do. He certainly didn’t feel compelled to go in one direction when he was younger.

So it leads me to the realization that it was always my mother that set the tone for me. It was always my mother that pointed me in the traditional direction. She would not have been happy to see me experiment with life.

I think back on my college years. I loved college. I specifically loved the parties and the football Saturdays and the lazy afternoons at Legion Pool and concerts and fraternity/sorority shit. I didn’t love going to class or studying or taking exams. Every chance I got I was doing all those other things. Spending time at the B&L Warehouse or Whipping Post or O’Malley’s. Going to fraternity parties and sorority dances. Playing jokes on dorm mates. Turning football Saturdays into football weekends. I remember one night deciding, along with my friend Patty Johnson, that we were going to go see Gregg Allman in Macon. Somehow we found a number to call for Capricorn Studios and Patty asked if he was there. (Do not ask me why I remember this or why we thought someone would actually tell us that Gregg Allman was in the house!) Anyway, we thought we were pretty together and we breezed through the lobby, casually (we thought) telling her roommate and her boyfriend that we were going to Macon. Of course, back in those days there was no MapQuest and we didn’t have a map and we didn’t know how to get to Macon directly from Athens, so we were going to go via Atlanta, where we did know how to get to. Once we got to Atlanta, it was after midnight and we were probably tired and so we ended up stopping at the local rock station and then we headed back to Athens, a little hungover and a lot disappointed that we had not gotten to see Gregg Allman after all.

That was the kind of adventure that I had the entire time I was in school. And beyond. I just wanted more from life than the workaday world. And I wonder if somehow I got that desire from my father. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought. Maybe he was not the one with “the plan” and maybe he would have been the one to have understood my desire to explore.

I’ll never know for sure, but I do know he was always the one to tell me “you can do whatever you want”. Without parameters, without boundaries. Maybe he was trying to tell me something back then and I just didn’t realize it. Maybe he was trying to send me off into the world on my own terms.

You know what they say about best laid plans….

So I posted on Facebook the other day about “what if you woke up one day and realized that you lived your whole life wrong?” I had a lot of well-meaning responses, like “you’re where you’re supposed to be” and “you have an amazing life and have done amazing things” and “yeah, been there and then I realize what a great life I have”. All nice responses and, I think, what we would tell someone who just blurts out something like that without any context. We assume they’re having a bad day or they’re feeling stressed or that they’re having a mid-life crisis. But for me this really runs deeper. This has been a journey for me. I even said when I first started this blog about my mother’s diary that I hoped it helped me gain insights into myself. And it has. I’ve felt unsettled for a while and as I explored this year in my mother’s life, it opened up a lot of a-ha moments for me.

So it isn’t just having a bad day or feeling stressed or just wanting something to change, it’s been kind of an evolution. It’s owning the fact that the life I’ve lived has been the one that other people wanted me to live. That I have spent the vast majority of my life trying to be someone else and not being me. I’ve really tried to dive in to some of the reasons for that, which led to the feeling that I have lived the wrong life. And worse, that in living the wrong life, I’ve lost the opportunity to live the one I should have lived. For those who said “go for it!” or words to that effect, I only wish I could. Because it’s not enough to just walk away. I could do that tomorrow (as long as I could sell my house). What I can’t recapture is what I wish I had done with my life. Those things are for a younger person to do. I’ve missed that boat. Which makes everything going forward feel like too little, too late.

It’s hard to realize that I have missed the chance to run away in the middle of the night and chase a dream. To live an unfettered life, to just experience everything and have every day be different. I’ve spent a large part of my life writing stories. Sometimes just re-imagining something already there, sometimes my own take on “what’s next” and sometimes something all new. But the thread running through all of them was not being tied to the life I’ve ended up with. It was to run away and experience life in a whole different way. Whether that was chasing a band or writing stories or living life off the grid. It’s hard to convey that in a sentence or two. The yearning that I pushed down because it didn’t fit someone else’s plan for my life.

As I’ve mentioned before, my mother had everything pretty planned out for her life. She went to college, became a teacher, got married and had a family. Things went pretty much according to plan. I’m sure there were situations that were unexpected and obstacles to overcome, but she had a pretty simple plan and executed it pretty perfectly.

I had no such plan, surprisingly. I think the only thing I did according to plan was go to college and graduate on time, without having to go to summer school or take longer than 4 years. But that wasn’t necessarily my plan, that was Mother and Daddy’s plan. I definitely didn’t sit down at any point and plot out my career moves. Occasionally on the fly I would make a decision to find a particular kind of job or go to work for a bigger company, but I never had an end in mind.

Growing up, I think I made a lot of assumptions about how my life would go. In very broad brush terms, I assumed I’d have a good job. I assumed I’d make good money. I assumed I would get married. But I didn’t really plan. I just let life happen to me. Albeit in the way that someone else determined was the correct life to have.

I saw a movie recently called “The Company You Keep” and I found myself thinking about my dreams from years ago. The movie was about a group of Weathermen who had gone underground after a robbery gone wrong and had remade themselves into different people. And then one of them decided she couldn’t keep up the lie anymore and confessed. And then all hell broke loose. The 60’s were a fascinating time to me. And this movie took me back there.

I was too young to experience everything that happened all those years ago, but I remember wanting to be in San Francisco, in Haight-Ashbury, living the free love life. I wanted to wear long skirts and have flowers in my hair, living with people who had a purpose, even if that purpose was nothing more than just laying around in a park or chanting while incense was burning. I wanted to go to Woodstock and experience a life with no boundaries. The causes of the day spoke to me and resonated with me and I remember being angry that I couldn’t participate. I wished I’d been old enough to run away and join up with people that I thought would accept me and bring me in.

I’ve also been watching the TV show “Nashville” and it reminds me of the years that I used to yearn to be on the road, like those entertainers are, living an unconventional life that didn’t involve getting up every day and putting on a suit and going in to an office. Living a life that’s raw and real, feeling everything deeply, both the highs and the lows.

I do realize that the reality of all those things that I have fantasized about is likely not as nicely choreographed or as beautifully edited as what I saw on the screen. But I also know that the life I do have, with a nice house and nice things and a good job, feels pedestrian.

I found myself wondering what my life might have been like if I had woken up one day and just run away. If not to Haight-Ashbury, then to someplace else. What if I had just chucked it all and gone in search of a dream, looked for a life that was raw and real.

I went to a party school and I was a party girl, even after I graduated. I’ve come to realize that what I loved about college was the parties and the football games and the occasional spontaneous moments. I studied so that I could maintain my grades in order to satisfy those needs. There were times when I wanted to be on the seamier side of life, where things were unpredictable and life would be something other than the day-to-day humdrum of life. Or gone off to “find myself” on a spiritual journey to just experience life and find my soul. But it had been drilled into me my whole life that I had to be responsible, that I had to have a “good job”, that I had to be predictable.

I remember when I moved to Ft. Lauderdale. It was the height of the “Miami Vice”/”Scarface” period. Steamy, decadent South Florida. I remember actually writing down in a journal that I was hoping to explore that dark side. It was hot, sultry, bright white with sunlight, pastel and terracotta in color. It was, as it turned out, a very interesting time in my life. Drama makes me weary, but messy is intriguing, and that time of my life was very definitely messy. When I moved away, I was ready to go, but not necessarily ready to leave, if that makes sense. It was more than just a place to live, it was a way of life and it did touch some of what I was looking for.

I’ve written before about how “Eat, Pray, Love” spoke to me on a very powerful level. It still does. But I would want more than a year; I’d want a lifetime.

I wonder if that’s why I have ended up where I am. Without a plan, not feeling fulfilled, feeling at cross purposes. There’s been a little bit here and a little bit there, but not the whole thing. I have a hard time staying in one place because it always feels like there’s somewhere else to go, something else to experience, someone else to be. I can’t articulate anymore what it is that I actually want. I only know that it isn’t what I have. I’ve lived life feeling like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, never quite fitting in the places I was always told I needed to fit.

I wish I had the freedom to just go and see where life takes me. But, because of what was drilled into me as I was growing up, I would find it difficult to just walk away. Too many responsibilities, too much of what’s expected of me. It used to be that when I got bored with something – a job, a house – I just left and found another. But that’s much harder now. I don’t like the same thing every day – I need something new, something different, a fresh start. It’s almost like a drug. And it frustrates me when I can’t make that change, like right now. It leaves me feeling like I’m faking my way through every day.

I wonder what life would have been like, if I had been old enough to run away to Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. What if I had run off to chase a band or a singer? What if I had disappeared into the steamy, sultry side? What would my life have been like? Where would I be today? What experiences would I have had? It sucks to be too old to just run away. It sucks to be too scared.

Damn Good Daddy

Tuesday will mark 24 years since my father passed away. It’s hard to believe it’s been that many years. I think about all the things he’s missed in that time. He’s missed marriages – John’s and Paul’s; he’s missed grandchildren – Jack, Allen and Boyce. He’s missed things like my getting my MBA and getting divorced. He wasn’t here to help Mother get through her health issues. Or maybe, if he’d been here, she wouldn’t have had them at all. He’s missed small things, everyday things. I’ve written before about Daddy and been all sad and morose. I still feel sad whenever I think about him and I miss him as much today as I did 24 years ago. But I thought maybe this time I’d do something a little different.

I’ve always said that Daddy was the best father ever. I know there are other people that would challenge me on that, but I bet there are lots of great fathers out there. I thought I’d talk about what made him such a great father. And maybe, if anyone else reads this, you’ll see your father in some of these, or maybe you have others to add.

1. A good daddy will make sure that you have your favorite dishes whenever you’re at home. I always loved waffles. And so every time I came home from school, Daddy made waffles. Of course, I think I was the primary person that ate them and I always ate more than I should have because I didn’t want him to think no one was eating his waffles! Those waffles were always made with love though.

2. A really good daddy will take you on a scary ride, even if he doesn’t think you’ll like it. We were at some local fair and I really wanted to go on this one particular ride. Daddy didn’t think I would like it, but we got on it anyway. And he was right. I screamed bloody murder and, being the good daddy he was, he got the guy to stop it for me.

3. A good daddy takes his daughter on daddy-daughter dates. Sometimes they’re scheduled events, like the daddy-daughter Girl Scout dinners. Daddy and I made meatloaf to take and had a great time. And sometimes it was just a surprise, like after I spent a whole summer doing more than my normal chores because Mother had broken her ankle. We got dressed up and he let me order what I wanted AND he ordered me a Shirley Temple cocktail.

4. A good daddy tells you why school is important. Daddy had nearly flunked out of college the first time he went, so I didn’t understand why he got so mad when I got an F in Chemistry my freshman year of college. I didn’t really understand why he wasn’t more empathetic. But it was really because he didn’t want me to mess up my opportunity and he wanted me to take it seriously. I (stupidly) told him that I was changing my major (from accounting to something else) because I didn’t want to have to study that hard. I got quite a lecture about the fact that studying was what I was in school to do, but then he helped me pick a more Marian-friendly major.

5. A good daddy will show you, by example, that pulling for your team is important, but that sometimes you have to be tolerant of other people’s teams. Unless, of course, that team is Duke. Or Florida.

6. A really good daddy will let you practice driving without being too micromanaging. I remember once when we went to the beach we took two cars. John and I rode with Daddy in one car and he let us help with the driving. John was the newer driver, so Daddy sat in the front seat and read while John drove, occasionally reminding him to “watch your speed, son” and other cautions. When John drove through a yellow light, Daddy asked him “what does a yellow light mean?” and John answered “better hurry, the light’s going to turn red.” A good daddy laughs a little before he frowns and says “no, it means you need to get ready to stop.”

 

7. A really good daddy supports you no matter what. He says “you can be whatever you want to be.” Period.

8. A good daddy teaches you stuff. Like how to ride a bike or skate or build a race car or hunt. And he never gets annoyed with you when you keep needing to do it over.

 

9. A really good daddy protects you, whether it’s from a bad dream or when you go out in the ocean and jump the waves. A good daddy is always there for you to keep you safe.

10. A good daddy supports you when others treat you badly. My senior year in high school was a tough year. A lot of my classmates discovered drugs and bad behavior and that changed a lot of relationships. People who had been my friends in the past now no longer were. I had gone out of town with my family for Thanksgiving but came back early to go to a friend’s wedding. While we were gone someone egged our house. A former friend (who was still pretending to be a friend) was at the wedding and made a comment about throwing things that made me certain she was the culprit. When I told Daddy, he wanted to go to the police. I talked him out of it because I knew it would just create more problems for me and he finally backed down. But that’s when I knew for sure that Daddy would always have my back.

11. A really good daddy will be there for you when you need him. Daddy went with me to Cincinnati when I moved up there. I was a little afraid of moving that far away and having him there for a little while really helped.

12. A good daddy loves you even when you’re being a jerk. When I was in junior high school, that’s when I went through my rebellious phase. I hated my parents and told them that I wanted to go to boarding school. But Daddy still hung in there with me and waited me out.

13. A good daddy will keep your secrets. At least the ones that don’t hurt anyone else. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

14. A really good daddy knows when you needed a hug – virtual or otherwise. I had a bad time at work when I lived far away from home. Daddy knew the right things to say and, of course, assumed that the people at work were idiots. That meant more to me than he would ever know.

15. A good daddy will help you out when you need it, even after he said he wouldn’t. I bought a car while I was in college so that I could live off campus. My parents didn’t want me to do either. So I was told that if I had problems with the car, that was on me. One Friday when I was leaving Athens to come home, the transmission locked up on my car. Daddy came and got me after arranging for my car to be towed to the dealership. When they called to tell me I needed a new transmission I remember crying in the kitchen because I couldn’t afford it. Daddy bailed me out.

16. A good daddy will give you advice, whether you want it or not and whether it makes sense or not. Daddy gave me a lot of good advice during my life, but it was some of the silly advice that I remember most. Like when he told me that if I had to drink my coffee with milk and sugar in it that I just shouldn’t drink coffee. And that if I needed to put something in my liquor so that I couldn’t taste it, I shouldn’t drink it. I took him up on the first, but not the second!

I was very lucky to have a really good daddy in my life, even if it wasn’t for long enough. But he’s always in my heart and I think about him most every day. He was definitely the best!

My Grandmother

Mocha was my mother’s mother. She is really the only grandparent that I remember. Granddaddy, Mother’s father, and Grandma, Daddy’s mother, died was I was very young and I only remember them really from pictures. Grandpa, Daddy’s father, died before my parents ever met, so I obviously never knew him. We were lucky to have Mocha for a grandmother. She was an amazing woman and always fun to be around. Mocha was born Marion Carney Malone on June 8, 1898. It’s sort of weird to think about, now that we’re in the 21st century, someone actually being born in the 19th century, even if it was just barely that. She gave birth to my mother when she was almost 28, which was probably a little old in those days. This is the earliest picture that I have of her, when my mother was a baby.

 

I think for a long time that Mocha and Granddaddy and their daughters lived a pretty cushy life. I’ve heard that they had a cook and a maid and they lived in a pretty nice neighborhood in Charlotte. I’m guessing that when the Depression came around that they had to tighten their bootstraps some too, just like everyone else, and that’s when Mocha learned to cook. Mocha really was a pretty good cook. Her specialty was baked goods though. I’ve mentioned before how she made cakes for the grandchildren’s birthdays and would make anything that we asked. Her angel food cake was always a hit as was her pound cake, and those got requested often. She also made chess pies, which were basically a super-sweet custard-like concoction in individual tart shells. Somewhat like a baked crème brulee, although not as creamy. Put a little whipped cream on that baby and you were bouncing off walls for days!

 

 

She also was a great casserole maker. She made a wonderful chicken and wild rice casserole that was a favorite in our family. It was always my brother Paul’s birthday dinner and, since my mother served this often when we had guests, it’s been passed on to others. Here it is for your eating pleasure:

1 box Uncle Ben’s wild and long grain rice

2 – 2 ½ lb. fryers, cooked and boned

10 ¾ oz. can condensed cream of celery soup

1 onion (minced)

2oz. jar pimientos

2 cups mayonnaise

8 oz. can water chestnuts, sliced thin

2 cans French style green beans (drained)

Paprika and parmesan cheese

Cook rice as directed on box. Add all ingredients except paprika and parmesan cheese and mix well. Pour into shallow 3 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with paprika and cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes.

Easy and delicious!

She also made something called Crittenden Casserole, which she got at a luncheon at the Florence Crittenden Home. This was a place where girls went, back in the olden days, when they were pregnant and unmarried. Mocha was President of the ladies group that supported the Crittenden Home, which kind of surprised me when I found out what the place was about. For whatever reason, it didn’t seem like something she would have supported, but I was always glad that she had had a heart for that. The casserole, by the way, was never one of my favorites.

Mocha was always a fun grandmother, although she could also be strict. She was never the grandmother that let the rules go out the window. If my parents left us with her, she always followed their rules, sometimes with a little twist. But she also, sometimes inadvertently, helped us out. I remember the Christmas she came to visit us with pierced ears. I had been begging my mother for years to let me get my ears pierced, to no avail. But when Mocha showed up with her cute little earrings, there was nothing Mother could say but “yes”. So I was forever grateful to Mocha for helping me out. Mocha loved going to the beach. The Hunters had always gone to Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina and that was a tradition that lived on for decades. I don’t ever remember seeing Mocha out on the beach, but here’s a picture that proves that at one time she did.

 

Mocha was always dressed to a T. I never saw her in anything but a dress. Quite the proper lady.

 

I knew Mocha wouldn’t live forever, but she lived a very long time. She was 96 years old when she died. As she got older, she got more confused about things. Not big things, just little things, but they were often funny. I went to visit her at her retirement apartment one evening when I was in town on business. She had asked me how my mother was doing and then she asked me about “Joe”. I was stumped. So I asked “who?” and she frowned at me and said “Joe, that boy that lives with your mother”. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. She meant George, my brother, who was living with my mother at the time. (My mother pronounced George “Joe widge” and that’s where I think Mocha got the “Joe” from.) It’s one of the favorite family stories.

So here’s to Mocha – a great woman and a terrific grandmother! I miss her a lot.

My Love Affair with Purses

I think most people who know me know I love purses. Even people who think they know me know I love purses. But I haven’t always had this love affair with purses. As I’ve mentioned before, my mother was certainly no fashion maven and she definitely did not encourage this trait in me. From her perspective, you didn’t need to wear the latest trends or look like everyone else. She had probably 5 dresses in her wardrobe, all made from the same pattern, in different colors or prints. She had a couple pairs of shoes and she had a coat. And she had one serviceable purse. Anything more than this was just unnecessary, as far as she was concerned.

When I was in college, I remember buying some clothes, usually things that were – surprise, surprise – more trendy and modern. I had a roommate my freshman year who was very fashion savvy and I aspired to look more like her, although I failed miserably. I remember buying my “interview suit” for on campus interviews my senior year. And that suit was the first professional item in my wardrobe. I added to my closet over the intervening years, but I don’t recall having more than maybe two purses, one for fall/winter and one for spring/summer. And if I spent $30 on a purse, that was a BIG deal.

The first time I really remember thinking about purses was not long after college when my best friend Debbie bought her first “expensive” purse. She spent $60 on an Aigner purse, which seemed like an incredible indulgence to me at the time. She doesn’t remember saying this, but I recall her telling me that now that she was in the working world she was going to buy whatever she wanted and not worry about the price. I thought that was so amazing, but I had been raised to be cheap and I couldn’t bring myself to do the same. I spent many years searching for that perfect color that could take me throughout the year in the perfect style that was classic and timeless. And that cost $30 or less.

Debbie was probably the person that put the purse bug in my head, although it lay dormant for awhile. I was with her when she bought a Gucci purse and I bowed down to her ability to spend the money without having heart palpitations. I genuflected to her awesomeness when she spent $80 – EIGHTY DOLLARS – on a shoulder strap (just the STRAP!) for her Louis Vuitton purse. I never thought in my lifetime that I would spend $80 on a purse, much less a strap.

But then one day a Dooney & Bourke caught my eye. It was a shoulder bag in a nice season stretching color. I salivated over it. But it was $225! A fortune! But I thought back to that Carrie Bradshaw-like confidence Debbie had when she’d bought her first “expensive” purse after college and I started saving my money. When I finally had the $225, I went to visit her in Houston for the weekend and we went to our favorite shopping haunt, The Galleria, and I bought that beautiful purse. It was apropos that she was with me when I bought that first special purse.

I probably should mention that by this time I was already a Talbots-aholic and was spending crazy amounts of money on clothes. Spending that kind of money on a purse though somehow seemed silly. But I loved that purse and I carried it for many years. And even after I had that breakthrough, I still looked for purses that would be suitable year-round. Or at least for half a season.

The first Coach purse I ever bought was actually a swing bag. I bought it before I went to the SHRM conference in New Orleans back in the early 2000’s. It was perfect for carrying the essentials and leaving my hands free for my tote bag and other necessities. The first full size Coach purse I ever bought was a Willis bag, a Coach classic. An HR friend of mine named Kerry was a huge Coach fanatic and she recommended the Willis. I carried that bag for a long time, even though it wasn’t as practical as later purses. The Willis didn’t have things like the cell phone pocket or another interior pocket and it wasn’t as large, so it didn’t hold as much “stuff”.

Then I discovered the Coach outlet in Grove City, Pennsylvania. For a couple of years after that I started adding to my Coach collection, all from the outlet. I had Hampton bags, which were my favorite style, and tote bags, which were great for travel. I even bought a laptop bag. I would look at the full price catalogs and then buy the outlet version.

I don’t remember the next time I bought a Coach bag from the full price store, but once I started I couldn’t stop. And suddenly I had more than just a purse for fall/winter and a purse for spring/summer. I started buying purses just because I liked them. And eventually I quit buying from the outlet. I had so many purses that I had to start switching them out each month. But I loved my purse collection. I loved the pretty colors and the comments I would get.

Eventually I traded out my swing bags for better small purses that are my go to for travel.

 

I bought an oversize tote that has traveled to Europe and many places in the US.

 

Debbie and I bought the same purse once. On purpose. We both loved it and loved the color and we both still have it.

 

I bought a Burberry purse at the Burberry outlet. I had been on a Burberry kick and bought it along with a scarf and an umbrella.

Then the day came when I went in the Louis Vuitton store with Debbie during one of my visits to Houston. I was breathless over the prices. Sure, they were beautiful purses, but at those prices I just couldn’t imagine myself ever buying one. And then I saw this:

 

The sales clerk took it down for me and placed it on the counter. I gasped as I touched it and picked it up and admired it. I nearly passed out when I looked at the price. I remember thinking “I wonder what would happen if I just picked it up and ran out of the store?” I was in love with that purse. Debbie egged me on. But I couldn’t do it. I left the store without it. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I agonized over it. I went home and still couldn’t stop thinking about it and talking about it. I finally looked it up online and not only did they not have it in the beautiful red color, but the price had gone up. So I took it as a sign that I wasn’t supposed to have that purse.

But one day I looked again and there it was. The red purse. At the price I’d seen at the store. And before I could change my mind, I ordered it. I thought I would regret it, but once it arrived and I had it out of the box, I knew I would never second guess my decision to buy it. And I will have it forever.

I have bought other purses. I have re-homed purses to friends as I’ve bought new ones. I have bought Kate Spade purses and a real Burberry and even another Louis Vuitton. But that red purse is the centerpiece of my purse obsession and it is the epitome of my love affair with purses. I don’t buy Coach purses much anymore. The styles don’t speak to me as much as they used to. But I still love beautiful purses and I still love it when someone comments on the one I’m carrying.

Thank you, Debbie, for introducing me to the world of purses. And for reminding me that it’s ok to be good to myself with something that I love.

Wanderlust

I have a bit of wanderlust in me. Actually more than a bit. And it’s more than just a travel wanderlust, although that’s what caused me to contemplate it this weekend. I read an article on cnn.com about the 10 “hot” spots to visit in Europe this year. I’ve only been to 2 of them, although to be fair, my “visit” to Amsterdam was totally within the walls of the Schipol Airport as I changed planes, and sat on my outgoing flight for four hours, going from Basel, Switzerland to Atlanta. Number one on the list was one of my favorite destinations, Corsica. I never hear Corsica mentioned with respect to places you should visit in Europe. I don’t think Rick Steves has ever done a show in Corsica. Which is too bad.

Corsica is a fabulous place. For a small island, it seems incredibly large. It has lovely beaches and tall, carsickness-inducing mountains. It has cities that hang off cliffs.

I visited Corsica on a two week trip to Europe with my brother Paul, my sister-in-law Beth and my two nephews Allen and Boyce. We stayed in a lovely villa overlooking the Bay of Palombaggio. We spent most of our time there hanging out on the veranda or lounging in our own personal infinity pool.

 

It was spectacular. I read that they are holding part of this year’s Tour de France in Corsica. Which makes me wonder how they will get to the mainland of France – are they going to bike over the Mediterranean? Probably not, but I’m sure it will be spectacular.  LOL

There are some other locations on the list that I would love to visit. Berlin, Crete, Istanbul, Innsbruck (although I did go to Garmisch, which isn’t far away), and a real trip to Amsterdam. Liverpool is on the list, which surprised me. I know my brother George, a devoted Beatle-phile, would go in a heartbeat for International Beatle Week, but other than that, I found it hard to believe this would be one of the hot spots for 2013.

I’ve been fortunate to visit a lot of places, both here and abroad. I thought I might start blogging about some of them in upcoming posts. There are lots of places I’d like to go, some as mundane as Wrightsville Beach, NC and Charleston, SC and a long weekend in Southern California. But, as much as I wish I was, I am not a good solo traveler. I’d much rather go with someone than go alone. And so I don’t end up going to these places I’d love to see. Perhaps I can muster up some courage and just do it.

The wanderlust hits me in other areas as well. I am currently early in my 8th year with my current company. That’s 2 years longer than I’ve ever worked anywhere. My inner job changer has screamed loudly at me over the last 3 or 4 years and yet the time has never been right. But my desire for a change of scenery, new experiences and challenges, new opportunities still is there, still creating that itch I need to scratch, that vague unsettledness. While on the one hand, feeling comfortable with the familiar can be good, I never like getting too comfortable. I feel like there’s new mountains to climb, new experiences to have, new crazy employee issues to solve.

And relationships. If you were to ask me, I would probably tell you that I’d love to have that long-term companion, be it husband or not, someone to feel comfortable with and have experiences with. Maybe that person to go on all those trips with. But after a couple years in a relationship, I always have that desire for something else. Relationships start hot, but cool off fast for me. It doesn’t take long for me to get bored with the sameness, to stew over the faults, to want something new and different.

So maybe 2013 will be the year for me to satisfy some of the pent-up wanderlust I’m feeling. Stay tuned!