Perry Moffitt

It is not often that I smack my head and say “why didn’t I think of that”.

But I just did.

Look what I found on the martha stewart website-

click the picture for instructions…

I have been saying to the husband for a few weeks now “I have itchy feet, we are long overdue for a vacation”. Which is not exactly true. We went abroad less than a year ago. But I think this is my reaction to winter. To the long nights and low temperatures.  I wake up in the morning and think, “I wonder who I could convince to go to Florida with me this weekend”. I know this is not a normal thing, but I have long suffered this addiction to travel, needing to get out of town (or the country) has plagued my bank account since I was 16, luckily I married a very understanding man.

All this being said, around our house we have been discussing how to cut back. What if work dries up for Paul? What if I got laid off? We don’t have any savings. We always put money in our IRA’s and said that was our safety net. If it got bad enough that we needed to crack into our IRA’s we wouldn’t mind paying the penalties. But alas, our IRA’s are about 30% below the purchase price and looking more meager by the day. We are young, we shouldn’t plan on using them for years and years, blah blah blah- therefore, I’ve stopped opening the statements…

So we have be talking about how to perk up our savings accounts. I shopped around and got cheaper home owners and car insurance which is saving us about $50 a month. I toyed with the idea of canceling the cable, but my dirty little secret is that I love television. Really love it. Especially with Paul working overseas, just having the background noise is a comfort. So what else it there to cut out? We live pretty modest lives,  we have 9 year old economy cars…okay, Paul’s is a truck, but it is a necessity for his job. We eat out less than once a month, we wear clothes until they fall apart at the seams and we possess one 19″ box television which I think I may bring to antiques roadshow soon.  Our netflix subscription at $14 a month feels very luxurious to me. What are our biggest splurges? Travel and parties.  Which we seem incapable of cutting out. This weekend we will be hosting a bonfire with whiskey drinking and chili dinner and have invited everyone we have ever met passing in the street. Which seems like a lot of whiskey to me… I have justified this by saying “at least we are getting rid of all that brush!”

And yesterday, on almost a whim, I bought 2 round trip tickets to Barcelona in May. US Air was having such an incredible sale that I just couldn’t stop myself from pulling out the credit card. For $100 more than the price of one ticket to London this time last year I booked 2 tickets to Spain!

So there we are, cutting back all to the bare neccesities. Failing miserably at perking up our savings account. But somehow, it makes me feel more like myself again. For example this is the first blog post in months that hasn’t had to do with sewing. And while I like sewing, I also like having things to look forward to. So now I am looking forward, 9 weeks to spain!

Some days I feel very clever. Like when I use coupons for cat food or trade in my credit card points to by a new computer monitor. Some days are good but sometimes I am downright dumb.

My dad bought Paul a little digital postal scale. I claimed it as my own and on it I weight the etsy packages I send when people are kind enough to purchase my sewing. On the scale is a chart- how many ounces to how much postage need. I have been following this and putting stamped packages in the mailbox with the postage on the chart under the category “large envelope”. But this weekend I needed an excuse to go to the mall (more on that later) and I visited the post office where the price of postage was about 50 cents more than I thought it would be. I asked her why and out came a 30 page catalog and I learned I have been sending things with the large envelope flat rate and not the large envelope package rate. I say “Well I guess I have gotten lucky so far because none of them have come back to me!” she says “right! they were probably delivered postage due!” Holy Crap! Am I the biggest jerk? Postage Due!!! Yup- I am not a genius. So, if anyone out there got a postage due package from me- I AM SOOOO SORRY! and I am the rudest etsy shop owner ever!

Oh- and the trip to the mall. Which I will firstly say is not a place I usually ever go. This mall I have been to maybe 4 times in the 6 years of living in this town, and at least 2 of those is because they have a post office that is open on Saturday afternoon. Anyway, the mall. I have this lovely desk job that I rather enjoy. I have been sewing a lot lately and both of these are rather sedentary and have led me to not fit into the pants in my closet. I toyed with the idea that maybe I could let out some of the seams but it appears that I have jumped 2 sizes in the last year and- so- it is off to the mall I went. I spent $50 in a store and had my eye on Ann Taylor when firemen came from all corners. EVACUATE! they were yelling. no sirens, no alarms just a lot of fully uniformed fireman yelling. So I was saved from Ann Taylor (which I could not afford anyway) and made my way outside where every 16 year old volunteer firefighter was standing, grinning ear to ear that they had such excitement in their life. about a dozen fire trucks and ambulances were all milling around slowly and still no smoke or no explanation. 2 days later in the news it was all explained away as a “sewer gas leak” and the newsman gleefully said there were ” no injuries”. So, big excitement for small town me, all because I wanted to mail a package.

I used to think I was fairly well traveled. In my college years I managed to see a bit of Europe and a smattering of other port cities around the world. Since then Paul and I have done a bit more. I think if I were to count countries I would be in the mid to high twenties. Which is ironically also my age. My age in fact is very high twenties, until Saturday when I will be turning the big three-oh. Am I where I thought I would be at thirty? no, but who ever is? Let’s get back to traveling and how the below pictures have sparked my imagination.

Part of my early travel lust was getting as far away from home as possible. Which lead me to Northwestern University for a theater program at the age of 16. It was there I met Liz and we were pen pals over the years. I had no idea until recently that she harbored the same travel lust I do. When she turned the momentous age that I will be shortly, she decided it was high time to see the world because, as she said “my whole life in no longer in front of me”. A sentiment that has hit awfully close to home. So, she and her husband have done what I hope to do someday, packed up the bare essentials, rented their home and are touring the world for the next 7 months. Liz is a beautiful wordsmith and her blog entries are delicious to read. I have been checking in on them a couple times a week with new posts every time I check.

I will be honest. The beginning of their travels had me thankful for my own bed and very sympathetic to the heavy backpacks they must be lugging around. But this morning I saw these pictures (which I hope they don’t mind I attached here) and it is all I can do to continue sitting here in my cubicle at work and not go home to sell all my belongings on Craig’s List. It is like they have entered a fairy land. Somehow the pages of National Geographic have met with the their reality and I am here, in suburbia, feeling very sheltered and oh-so-envious. Check out their website— WWW.kindnessofstrangerstravel.com

More than a few times I have woken up to the sound of a fox screaming in the middle of the night, usually between 3 am and 5 am. It sounds like a woman screaming bloody murder, or maybe a bobcat. It is the most terrifing noise you will ever hear in the middle of the night and always leads me to nightmares. Two nights ago we heard it louder than ever and it really sounded like it was right under my bedroom window. Cue the husband who has been overseas to leap out of bed and freakout. My solution? flicking the kitchen light on and off a few times. It seemed to work in getting rid of the fox, but I still had nightmares. Click here to see and hear the You Tube fox screaming. Before the neighbor told me it was a fox I thought there was a Bobcat in the neighborhood. you know , a bobcat in philadelphia, makes sense right?

I just discovered the one little box that was checked that enabled “snapshots” (that weird mini-screen that would pop up when you hovered over a link). And unchecked the damn thing.  Sorry it took me so long to figure out.

A quick update, I spent the weekend in the midst of a pretty good heat wave, trying to convince the dog she really did want to go for a swim. Meanwhile, Paul spent 20 hours and four flights flying from Newcastle, England to some little town in Texas to start the boat race with his father this morning. It is a week long race, I only hope he has enough sunscreen to last him.

Here is the website for the race; TEXAS 200