Just an Old Screen Door

My co-worker and I had to travel about an hour and a half yesterday to attend a meeting for work.  I was happy to let her drive because it gave me the opportunity to "pick" from the car.  Even though I was less than thrilled about attending the meeting, I truly enjoyed the trip.   I loved getting to look at the countryside as we traveled roads I'd never been down before, but I loved seeing the old farmhouses scattered across the landscape most of all.  I craned my neck on more than one occasion to get a closer look at what people had on their porches.  What was stacked up behind the house.  What was overflowing from the barn.  I was picking at 55mph!  

The one thing struck me the most and had me drooling was all of the old screen doors left on the front of abandoned homes.  Had we not been on a schedule, I would have asked her to pull over and let me out!  I'm in the process of preparing to screen in my back porch and the one thing I want more than anything else is old screen doors.  I don't want to go to the big box store and pick up new ones that are designed and created to look old.  The look of the old doors may be recreated in the new ones, but the feel and the sound of the slam isn't authentic in the new ones.  Can't be.  And that's what makes the old ones so special.  That's what makes them the real deal.  And the ones we passed by yesterday were the real deal.  I would love to be able to find the owner and make them an offer on those things!  But for now I guess I'll keep looking.  

Nothing Wasted

Today is the 4th Anniversary of my Granny Alice's death.  While it's difficult to believe she has been gone for four years already, so many of  her life lessons still resonate with me and I'm sure they always will.  One lesson in particular that she probably never even meant to teach has an especially strong meaning and presence in my life today.

Granny never threw much away.  I can remember watching her rinse out and save plastic bags and containers.  Sandwich bags, freezer bags, even bread bags were washed, dried, saved and reused.  Same thing with plastic bowls and cups.  Cool Whip bowls, butter bowls, sour cream containers.  All were saved and reused. She didn't see the purpose in throwing something away that could be used again.

Perhaps that outlook was one of the reasons she loved garage sales and yard sales so much.  She would pick me up early on Saturday mornings.  Me, an excited little girl with a couple of dollars to spend on whatever treasures I could find, and her with Thursday's newspaper full of red circles around the yard sales she had chosen and mapped out for us to visit that morning.  Off we'd go in search of treasure.  Browsing and sorting through other people's discarded items and often - no, I take that back - always - coming home with something.  It may not have been useful to the seller anymore...it may have even been broken or missing parts...but Granny could find a purpose for it and give it a new life.  She was good at it.  Very good at it.  Finding treasure among the discarded.  Finding purpose in the trash.

I must have inherited a small part of that gene because as I sit here this morning at my new desk made from an old door I picked up off the side of the road, I can't help but think that Granny would be very proud.  I think she would love my door desk and would love even more the fact that I've made something fabulous out of something meant for the garbage.  I think she'd see a little bit of herself in me and smile.  And while that makes me smile, too...it also makes me miss her that much more.