A loophole? Or just plain wrong?

I find myself faced with a dilemma on this beautiful Thursday morning when all my Sacred Studies classes have been cancelled for Spring Musical practice (which is amazing!). I was approached by one of the parents from the Day School today, who handed me a bag of small gifts as part of teacher appreciation week. There were three small soap bars, each a different fragrance, and then another small bag with some things in it that I couldn't see. I have just opened the bag, and there's a gift certificate for The Country Bookshop, which I have blogged about before. It's for $15, just enough to buy myself a nice new paperback book, soft floppy pages and all.

I realize now, of course, that we did not build any rules about gift cards into our Stuff Stand-off. We have rules about accepting gifts - that being that we get rid of something in our house as an exchange. I just ran out of soap the other day, and toiletries haven't really been part of the Stand-off, so I feel like I'm okay there. But the gift card compels me to go to the store and purchase a thing that I would then bring into my home. Does it qualify as a gift? Or am I just looking for a good reason to go into my favorite store in town and buy myself something nice and new for the first time in almost five months?

I suppose I can contact the store and find out what their expiration date is on a gift card. But honestly, the likelihood of my remembering that I even have the thing tucked into my desk someplace is slim to none. Or I guess I could give the card to someone else and let them use it instead of me. But I have worked pretty hard with the kids this year, and am certainly not opposed to a little appreciation at the end of a long year. ::BIG SIGH:: I don't know what to do. But I'm open to suggestion... help?

Alleluia! The pants have risen!

This post is proof that magical things can happen in your closet if you just leave your clothes in there for long enough.

Allow me to explain. When I first started my job here, I went shopping for some clothes that I could wear for work (I was, of course, happy to have an excuse to shop). I bought three of four pairs of pants from New York & Co., which admittedly is not well-known for its finely made and durable clothing. The pants worked out fine for my first year, and a little bit into my second, but last spring when I would try to put those pants on I found that they just weren't working for me anymore. They were a little too short - one of my least favorite qualities in an article of clothing. I'm not sure what the reason for the shrinking was. I think, perhaps, I might have gotten larger, and not the pants smaller, but I'd much rather think that something just went wrong in the laundry process. Or perhaps I'd just gotten taller, and not wider.

Nevertheless, it seemed that it was time to get rid of some of these pairs of pants that are just taking up space in my closet, taunting me. A couple of weeks ago I reached for the pants to give them away in a donation drive that I was doing at the school, but I just couldn't bring myself to part with them yet. I thought maybe, just maybe, they could be the pants I had enjoyed one again.

This morning, feeling a little desperate and out of clean laundry, (ok, it's clean, I just haven't put any of it away) I reached for a pair of the pants, thinking maybe, somehow, they would fit properly.

AND THEY DID!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know how to explain this miracle. Perhaps my pants intuitively knew that this is a season of resurrection, and they felt inspired. Perhaps my width has diminished just enough that they have an extra half an inch at the end. Perhaps I finally have the perfect pair of flats that leave the pants fitting just right. Whatever the reason, it felt amazing pulling them on and having them button with no problem and then reach just the perfect part of my ankle. It was a glorious moment on an otherwise unremarkable morning.

Probably this won't help my general outlook on clothing. Chances are now I will just leave clothing that no longer fits in the closet for years at a time hoping for another magic day when a different shirt or pair of pants decides to resurrect itself. Maybe I should try on old small clothing only during the Easter season. Either way, for a girl who can't buy herself any new pants right now, this was a very good day indeed.

LOST

Back in January, it actually snowed here in the metropolis of Southern Pines. We've seen it happen here before, but on one otherwise unremarkable Saturday it started coming down and showed no signs of stopping... at least for a couple of hours. I was excited to have a good reason to snuggle up inside in my sweatpants for the day, especially because January is generally one of my busier months at work (though lately I'm starting to question my logic on that - which month isn't super busy?). Jonathan and I were enjoying the day when the unthinkable happened: I got a phone call from the rector telling me that CHURCH was canceled the next day because of the snow. Which of course meant that the adult forum, my after-church meeting, and youth group were canceled as well. This event was perhaps superior to any Christmas morning that I have ever experienced. I love church and all (obviously) but there is nothing like being clergy and finding out that you are spending a Sunday morning at home in your sweats with a cup of coffee. Suddenly, rather than scoffing or judging my fellow Southerners, I was simply elated to live in a community that closes up shop for days following a little snow. It was amazing.

That Monday the town was still closed down. No school, no church, nothing open or happening. It was still exciting to have a third day off, but understand that Jonathan and I are normally extremely busy people. We aren't accustomed to having three days in a row in the house. By that Monday cabin fever had started to kick in a little, and we were getting restless.

Desperately looking for something to do, we turned to our recently purchased Roku, which was our last major purchase before the Stuff Stand-off. Roku gives us access through our television to all of the movies that are available for instant viewing on Netflix.com. Sounds incredible, right? We thought so too. But as it turns out, Netflix isn't stupid, and all of the movies available for instant viewing really aren't the movies you really want to watch. Not that I don't love the 80s or anything - because boy do I. But I also like watching movies from this decade, and movies that actually made it to the theater. We felt limited in our options that day.

The one thing Netflix does offer is every season (save but the current one) of the show LOST. Jonathan and I had never seen it before, and we'd been curious. We had noticed that there was a slightly cult-like following to the show. Having a whole new day stretching before us with no activities planned, we went ahead and pressed play on Season 1, Episode 1. And the rest is history.

Fast forward to today. Just over three months later we've plowed through 5 seasons of the show, and we're determined to catch up to this current season before the series finale which we think happens later this month. And I'll tell you what has been lost: lots and lots of hours, a good deal of sleep for me, and any effective medidation time. You see, I tend to latch on to images and intense plots in a pretty serious way. I can't watch a show like LOST and then crawl into bed and fall fast asleep. Not when planes are falling out of the sky and the Others are coming and they don't know what year it is. I lay in the silence at night, or again in the morning, and even sometimes at church on Sunday (I admit it!) and think only of my friends on that island... replaying the scenes in my head or wondering what will happen next. It's completely ridiculous. But I don't know what else to do but just keep watching. Then, at least, it will be over, and I can get my life back.

So what does this have to do with the Stuff Stand-off? I'm glad you asked. The other day while Jonathan and I were watching just one more episode, we saw the episode description "in the landmark 100th episode..." Um, 100? Out of curiosity, we did some quick math. "So we've spent over 70 hours watching this show since January?" Jonathan asked. I cringed. "It's no wonder we've been bragging about how easy this Stuff Stand-off is," I said back to him, "who has time to shop?"

Here's the lesson here, folks: It is remarkably easy to replace one obsession with another. So easy, in fact, that you might not even realize you've done it until it's too late, and the whole first part of the year has come and gone and you've spent almost all of it glued to the television wondering how the hell they're ever going to get off that island. I remember many posts ago pondering how we might spend our time now that we won't be shopping and renovating our home, but I did not think that LOST was going to come into the equation. I more thought that we'd go for walks, visit museums, or find different activities to fill our days.

We'll plow through the rest of this current season, because we are really eager to see how this show will end. But I can't wait for it to be over. And we'll be a little more cautious moving forward that the things we do fill our time with aren't going to quickly slide into obsession.

That said, I have to go. I could have watched a whole episode in the time it took me to write this!