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Bath-Warming Gift? Is This A Joke?

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This is my kind of tile. It’s pink.

Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf -Published in the Albert Lea Tribune the week of  January 19.

I have been in hibernation mode; at least, that is how it seems. The weather is cold and snowy. My house is warm and cozy. There is no question which is more attractive.

The problem with hibernation mode is the fact I can go a week without face-to-face conversation with anyone except my husband. Social media keep me up on the news of the world and my friends. I chat and converse online, occasionally over Skype, but it is not the same as face-to-face contact.

Along with personal contact, when you hibernate in your home, your life experiences hibernate with you and are confined to your home also. Hibernation mode makes my life smaller. It might not be a problem to be in hibernation mode for some. It might be a lonely feeling for those who are shut in all the time. I do know the more I stay in, the more I don’t want to go out into the world.

For me, hibernation mode is a hindrance when it comes to creativity for this column. My creativity has to come from inside — inside my house that is. I traveled up the stairs, down the stairs, pulling out drawers, looking at my yard and laughing at my shysters trying to find inspiration for today’s column. I had to rule out the shysters because that was last week’s column.

And then — and then — I found my inspiration in the bathroom, by the toilet.

Poop. I can’t believe I used that word in my column, but I did. No, I did not find any bits of excrement by my toilet, but I did find something that I know was a joke, but as it turns out the joke is on the giver of the present. I found Poo-Pourri.

It is widely known, because I have spread the news, that my downstairs bathroom had been in disarray for the last year plus a few months. It fell apart when the sewer pipe broke between the second floor bathroom and my downstairs bathroom.

We had to rip out walls, vanities, cupboards, ceiling, floor and toilet to fix the bathroom. It finally came together in November of this year in time for me to have company for Thanksgiving Day.

December is Christmas and the time for gifts. One of my good friends gave me a gift and in the bag along with my Christmas gift was a bathroom warming present. The name on the bottle was Poo-Pourri Magic Spritzmas. Under the name it announces “Tis the Season to Smell.”

We had a good laugh. She knew I had wanted to put a bathroom fan in my downstairs bathroom when it was tore apart but because my house is vintage or an antique it wasn’t possible. This was my friend’s solution to my angst. It was a joke and neither one of us thought it would work.

According to the label Poo-Pourri is a before you go toilet spray. It is a blend of vanilla, peppermint and natural essential oils that is supposed to create a barrier and stop the smell.

It is kind of like a “little dab will do ya.” You spray a little dab in the toilet bowl water before you go and no one will ever know what you left behind.

I launched an Internet search to find out how Poo-Pourri got started, but its website did not have that information. I did find out there are other scents and other products, and the testimonials are good.

I have to say the joke is on my friend. It is the best bath-warming gift I have received. It is also the only bath-warming gift I have received. My husband thanks her because I am no longer lamenting about having no bathroom fan, and I guarantee the word poop has never graced my column before. And it never will again.

I am out of hibernation mode and relentlessly pursuing other unsuspecting subjects outside of my home. I will be incognito. You won’t recognize me if you see me because the picture that resides with my column is from 2006. I will be out and about, waiting to pounce on my next unsuspecting subject whether it be an inanimate object or a human being. You are warned.

 

 

photo credit: neatlysliced via photopin cc

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

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Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf – Published week of January 5, 2015 borris window

I got my broom out this week, but I didn’t use it to fly. I said that before some of my more sarcastic family members could make the broom and witch joke. When I am in a cleaning mode there are times I mimic the Wicked Witch of the East in “The Wizard of Oz.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t wait until the new year to get started on my house cleaning. While my husband was away, I didn’t play; I used my creative ability to chase some of the dust bunnies out of the way.

When I chase dust bunnies out of my house it also means I move furniture, change things on the walls and wash the kitty blankets, and if anyone questions my motives I erupt like a small volcano. This time I had the run of the house for a day or two and I got busy the minute the car pulled out of the driveway.

The couch sitting in the east corner ended in the middle, the kitty litter castle took the place where the couch used to sit, dressers were moved, chairs slid across the floor, things were tossed and closets and refrigerator cleaned.

At the end of the first day my shysters weren’t meowing at me anymore. They had retreated to a blanket on the bed together, not to come out of the room for at least eight hours, and when I would check on them they would raise their head and glare at me. They do have different faces, and this was not their smiley one. I had moved their world.

I tried to read on my Kindle before I went to bed, but visions of the next day danced in my head. A few hooks, a few new nooks and I could make my laundry room look like the decorating books. With no sane person to reign in my train of thought, the vision and dream of what I could do kept growing and I almost got up during the night putting my day dreaming into reality.

I have many dreams and visions of many things. I look at a house that needs help and can vision how it would look with a little tender care.

My dreams are sometimes just that, a dream but then there are dreams that do turn into a reality. I have always believed in dreaming big. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t I go on to the next dream. Dreams fuel my life and keep me alive.

While living in New Richland a co-adviser of my SADD Chapter mentioned that it would be outstanding, remember this was back in the late ’80s, if Kevin Lynch, Gopher basketball star, would come to talk to my SADD chapter.

In my dream we could make that  happen. We had no money to offer and so we put together a video. All anyone on the video said was “Please” in many different ways and many different tones, sometimes alone and sometimes in a group.

The entire community participated. They didn’t find it unusual for me to show up with a video camera in a business and ask them to say please.

We sent it to Kevin and he responded the next week, visited and spent an entire day with the New Richland-Hartland Ellendale-Geneva High School.

That is one of the many times a pipe dream turned into a reality. This past December the same thing happened. Earlier this year I interviewed via email for the Courier Sentinel, Chris Rupp of the talented A Capella Group, Home Free, winners of Season 4 of NBC’s “The Sing Off.”

As a Christmas gift the owner and editor of the Courier Sentinel had bought tickets for her staff. I decided to email Chris Rupp to see if it was possible to meet Home Free and get our pictures taken with them before the concert. I didn’t expect it would happen. I was very excited when he emailed back and put us in touch with his manager to make the arrangements.

Our dream was realized when we were led into the concert arena ahead of time and saw what goes on before a concert, meeting Home Free, hearing a song beforehand and getting our pictures taken.

It was an exciting event for all of us but for a couple of co-workers that had an unusually tough year, it was a highlight in their year. Thank you, Home Free and Chris Rupp. The concert was outstanding.

If you’ve told someone your dream and they laugh, don’t let it discourage you from dreaming and going for the dream. If your dream dies, realize that another is right around the corner and maybe that is the one that will happen for you.

When someone makes fun of my dreaming and some of them are kind of wild dreams, I remember all those who have shaped our country on a wild dream.

Thomas Edison dreams included the light bulb, a phonograph and the motion picture camera.

Anne Sullivan believed Helen Keller could be more than a blind and deaf girl that could do nothing. Because she believed and put that dream in to action, Helen Keller leaned to communicate and blossom in society. They broke through the barriers of disbelief because they believed in their dreams.

It’s a new year and our dreams might be different than last year. Some of our dreams might die before they were born. Disney’s Cinderella nailed it in in her song “A Dream Is The Wish Your Heart Makes.”

Elvis Presley sang, “Follow that dream, I gotta follow that dream.”

We are all dreamers in one way or another. Maybe we listened to those that told us to quit dreaming and we quit dreaming.

Dreams may die but your next dream might be the one that changes the world or at least your world. Our entire world would have been different if the inventors, songwriters, authors and people like you and me gave up on their dream. Let your heart make the wish and then follow that dream.