Tag Archives: Minnesota

Peeling Back The Layers

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Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf  published in the Albert Lea Tribune the week of September 15, 2015

I was stripping again. No, not my clothes, also not my hair color or a wire, but wallpaper. One room in my house had wallpaper on the wall from at least 60 years ago. That is 40 years before my time in this house.

One might wonder why I left the old wallpaper for so long. I liked the yellow wallpaper and perhaps in the deep recesses of my mind I knew I didn’t want to strip this old wallpaper because I was afraid of what lived underneath it. I was afraid of crumbling plaster walls. Because I knew the work involved and had that fear, I thought I would be clever and use peel and stick wallpaper, along with being creative and using book pages as new wallpaper over the old wallpaper. I started my project and loved what was happening, but I was reminded by my spouse we will sell this house in the future years and someone else might not like my creativity. Imagine that?

I thought about it long and hard and knew I didn’t have the energy to do the walls twice so I acquiesced for a saner wall treatment.

I was surprised when the old wallpaper peeled off in minutes. I had the entire room peeled in 30 minutes. How’s that for stripping? Piece of cake, I thought, until — I looked at all the glue on the walls. I knew it needed to come off, and the holes in the plaster needed to be patched. Old houses have crooked walls and show the wear of time, and plaster perhaps more than sheetrock.

Tackling the glue, I used all the removers I used on the wallpaper I stripped from walls in past houses I lived in. This time these magic removers didn’t touch the glue. The monster glue was not giving up its residence on my wall. I checked the Internet. Yup, I tried all the handyman tips. Finally I saw a little tip from a natural solutions housewife. Vinegar, could it be? Would it work? I had nothing to lose.

I poured the vinegar in my bucket and it was magic. Up and down, and up and down the ladder I moved. I didn’t need to lift weights; my arms were getting exercise from scrubbing. My bottle of Excedrin was getting exercise going down my throat to soothe my aches and pains. Finally the glue was gone and I could do my final sweep with TSP.

Of course I documented my progress on my Facebook page. I received support telling me my project would be worth the aches and pains. I wondered about that advice. Maybe it was like labor pains; you forget them when you see your beautiful child, and I was birthing a room fresh and new.

As I write this, thoughts of gratefulness for my friend Donna whisper in my mind. Donna is going to go through the next part of my process with me. She is joining me to paint the woodwork so I can get ready for the next step, Venetian plaster.

Donna offered to help me through the worst part of the job, which was the glue sticking to my wall. I didn’t want her to have to deal with the muck and the mess, so I offered her a little better alternative. We will have fun slobbering paint on the woodwork. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel in the redecorating of my new office.

I do think it will be the last time I peel wallpaper off my walls. When I was younger I enjoyed the rigorous activity and the messiness. It was great to get my aggressions out stripping and peeling that wallpaper. As I age, I must admit though my mind tells me I can do this, my body doesn’t always agree. I imagine as I get older I must balance the wisdom and the safety of what I can do with the limitations that age may put on my body. There is a fine balance between saying I can’t because I don’t want to try, than saying I can’t, and knowing that it might be the safest route to keep me healthy.

Asking for help during the worst part of the room renovation may have been wise. Help was there in the form of my friend, and I turned it down until the work became easier. How many times do we do that because we are stubborn and don’t want to admit we can’t do it ourselves? Or we don’t want to put others through the muck in our lives. We don’t remember that sharing the muddiness with someone else may make our journey easier. They might have the resources and wisdom we don’t have to navigate through the mire of our lives.

Underneath the wallpaper was dark green paint peeking through the top yellow paint on the walls. Underneath the wallpaper it was revealed one part of the wall had been removed and sheet rocked, probably for the purpose of putting in new windows. I was hoping I would find a secret door. Old houses have layers and when you peel the wallpaper back you see the character of those that lived in the house years ago.

If you peeled back the layers of our lives what would they reveal about our character? Would the world be surprised by what they would find?

 

Ask The Youngsters The Meaning of Labor Day!

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labor dayLabor Day is celebrated the first Monday in September to honor American workers. It is a tribute to the contribution workers make to the strength and well-being of our country.  The first Labor Day was celebrated Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, planned by the Central Labor Union. In 1884 the first Monday of September was selected as the holiday. It is referred to as the “the workingmen’s holiday.”

There is dispute as to who the father of Labor Day is: Peter McGuire, general secretary of the Carpenters Union of the Brother of Carpenters and Joiners and also co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, or Matthew McGuire, a machinist and secretary of Local 344 of the International Associations of Machinists.

As with so many traditions that we celebrate, the reason these holidays are celebrated is lost in translation. I wondered how many young people understood the reason for the Labor Day holiday. Many do not. To the younger generation Labor Day is the last hurrah before school starts, fall sets in and people get back into schedules after the summer. Many do not know why the holiday is called Labor Day.

Over the years there has been a big shift in our nation. Unions are not so prominent anymore. Factories and factory worker jobs have disappeared and moved overseas. Factories used to be part of the backbone of labor and provided good incomes for families. Factory workers were proud of their work.

My uncle worked for Douglas Aircraft Company starting somewhere in the 1940s. The company merged and became McDonnell Douglas in 1967. They were an aerospace company. My uncle and his co-workers were proud of their work and liked where they worked. He liked the working environment and felt the employees were treated fairly by the company. His pay was very good. He worked there from the time he was a young man until his retirement at the age of 55. The company had very good retirement benefits letting him retire early, a benefit for the hard work he had put in with the company.

We need to remember the reason for the Labor Day holiday. We need to teach our children the history of the holiday. We need to embrace the workers of America and that includes jobs that are not glamorous and sometimes are downright dirty.  We need to honor those who pick up our trash, clean our bathrooms, work in factories for low pay, take care of our children and our elderly, work at home-based businesses and work as CEOs of companies. We need to honor the police, the medical doctors, the teachers and whoever works to put food on their table, whether it is those who are wealthy or those workers who scrape to put food on their table. They all make up our great country of America.

Laborers today, whether they are a clerk in a store, a waitress or a company person, need to feel appreciated. I had a problem with book piracy on Amazon. I was impressed by the fast help I got from one of their employees by the name of Selene. I have never had a better experience anywhere, and it was because of Selene. I asked her if she liked her job. I knew the answer before she told me — it was yes. I already knew the answer because of her helpful and cheerful attitude. I could feel her smiling through the telephone. She is happy working for this company. It followed through to the service she gave me. She felt appreciated.

In talking to other workers at other companies, many were just happy to have a job. Some had a problem coping with the stress of their job because of bad management, a difficult boss and rude customers. Yes, folks, we as consumers can be a rude bunch, and we as bosses can be more concerned about the bottom line than our employees. We need to keep that in mind when we celebrate Labor Day. Being in the labor force is not always easy but people stick with it to put food on their table. Without the labor force our country would be at a standstill.

My uncle worked for McDonnell Douglas his entire working career. That doesn’t happen too often now. Companies aren’t always loyal to their workers, and workers aren’t always loyal to their company so the workforce is constantly changing.

On this Labor Day talk to your children about the value of the American worker and what they contribute to the strength of America. If you don’t know the history of the holiday, use your handy-dandy search engine on the computer for a quick history lesson. We can’t go forward with success unless we visit the past and know our foundation and what kept it strong. Thank you to everyone in the workforce today. You are a valuable asset to our country.

Change It Up!

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Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000039_00069]My book Something About Nothing has been out for a few months. I felt the cover didn’t convey the heart of the book. It is a book meant to be read little by little. It is a book of my thoughts and my meanderings that I put on paper and used for my column in the Albert Lea Tribune and other Southern Minnesota newspapers. With my writing I want to leave my readers with fuel for the day, with inspiration to go on with their life and with moments that we all share in our lives that bond us together to make the world a better place. Some of the chapters are silly and some are serious. Here is one of the chapters from the book. Feel free to share and tell people there really is Something About Nothing. In the nothings we speak every day there is something in our hearts needing to be said. Oh an don’t panic if the old cover is on the print book. Amazon is working on this. There is snafu in what it is showing.

CRYING

I have writer’s block this week. There are weeks when I can think of a thousand things to write about. Ok maybe a few dozen. There are weeks when I think about those few dozen things and don’t put them to paper right away. I then forget the thousand things or few dozen things that I thought about. This happens to be one of those weeks. I think it is called old age.

Today, the only thing I can think to write about is crying because I have been crying this week. Ok, I admit it. I do cry. I have been crying this week because I have felt happy. I have been crying this week because I have felt sad and mad. I have been crying this week because I have watched tear jerker movies and cried with friends who were also sad. I have been crying this week for no reason. I have been crying this week because of injustice in this world. As you have gathered, this has been a crying week. I am not going to apologize for that. I always feel better after I cry. I feel stronger and I am always ready to move on.

Lesley Gore sang, “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, I’ll cry if I want to. You would cry, too, if it happened to you.” I think we should all follow her instructions. If you want to cry, then let it all out. It is okay to cry, as long as you can quit crying at some point. If you can’t, then it is time to ask for help.

In the 50s and 60s, many artists wrote songs about crying. Some of them are: “Crying In The Rain,” “Don’t Cry For Me,” “All My Tears,” “Tears On My Pillow,” “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” “Crying,” to name a few. We loved those songs. They put words to our feelings.

I remember someone telling me once a long time ago that crying never solved anything. I tried to follow that advice when I was younger. I remember walking down the aisle after my dad’s funeral. I had been told that I had to be strong for my mom. I was pregnant, my dad died, and I was being strong, no tears. All of a sudden, I heard someone crying. I heard someone sobbing her heart out. To my surprise, it was me. You see, I had been strong. At the most unexpected moment, the dam broke and I could not hold back my tears. It wasn’t what I planned. It wasn’t the way I chose to behave in public, it just happened beyond my control. I felt so much better afterward. I could then be strong. The advice I wish I would have received was “Cry, let it all out.” Perhaps that would have been better than scaring everyone as I walked out of church.

I know we whine a lot, at least I do. But would we possibly whine less if we could have a good cry and get it all out? A couple of movies I saw this weekend featured the main character sobbing on her friend’s shoulders. How many of us do that? When was the last time you let yourself cry with someone? It’s okay if someone calls you a crybaby. It means that you have an outlet for your emotions. Maybe if we allowed ourselves to have a good cry, we would have less anger and violence in the world. There is some part about crying that is healthy. My opinion only. I have no idea what the experts would tell you.

And for men who are reading this, it takes a strong man to show his feelings and cry. You are not weak if you cry. You are strong because you are not afraid to own what you feel.

Before I go and weep a little more, I leave you with this paragraph. Remember “It’s My Party,” so you can cry if you want to. Maybe I’ll see you “Crying In The Chapel.” If I meet you and you are “Crying In The Rain,” I will give you an umbrella and a handkerchief. “Don’t Let Your Teardrops Be Lonely.” It’s not true that if you “Cry, You’ll Cry Alone.” There might be “Tears On My Pillow” or even yours, but “As The Tears Go By,” for a while after the “Crying” there will be “No More Tears.”

“Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart do not know how to laugh either.” (Author unknown