Curl Up With A Good Book…

More and more of us are taking our lunches to work.  It saves money and is generally healthier.  Even some companies holding day-long meetings are cutting back on providing lunches, asking attendees to bring their own.  A former colleague of mine and I were required to attend one such meeting a few years ago.  Now, my colleague was (is) a professional children’s therapist, educated, gifted, intelligent and strong.  All the things you want your kid’s therapist to be.  About 12:30, it was lunch time so we took a break and everyone at this meeting pulled out their lunches.  My colleague was the only one carrying her lunch in a plastic grocery bag. I watched her try to hide it, try to unpack her lunch surreptitiously.  I told her over and over again it wasn’t important.  It didn’t matter.  She didn’t need to be embarrassed.  And I meant every word. I still do.  That’s what she had and she didn’t need to be embarrassed or ashamed.  Still, she was.

A couple months later, we went to another such meeting and this time, she pulled out her lunch and didn’t bat an eye.  She’d been given a gift wrapped in a gift bag and had saved the gift bag for her lunches.  Voila. Problem solved, embarrassment over.

Yes, there are thermal lunch carriers and small, single-serving coolers out there these days.  There are also gift bags at just about every grocery store, drug store, warehouse store and big red box with a bullseye store.  Some are fancy and ornate and can run as much as five bucks (still pretty damn cheap compared to the thermal thingies), while others are monochromatic and plain and cost about 99 cents.  There was a boutique I used to enjoy that used small, handled bags for their sales.  They were pretty and didn’t have a logo because they were so distinctive.  That was my lunch bag for both of the aforementioned meetings.

Inexpensive to free.  Reuseable and green.  Not to mention pretty and a way to express yourself, far more than a generic thermal carrier or plastic grocery bag ever could.  Just remember, it’s not about what other people think of you; it’s about what you think of yourself.  Be comfortable and proud whatever you’re carrying.  And, at the same time, if carrying something a little nicer makes you feel a little nicer, here’s a way to do that.  Because that’s what living a champagne life is about ~ even on a beer budget.

~ Pauline

Last week, I mentioned that I was finally finished writing the second in the Lambert Falls trilogy.  Mostly, I wrote here at home but a good part of the book was written at my favorite coffee shop. And the diner. And the park. And anywhere I had to be and there was a wait (the doctor’s office and applying for my passport spring to mind immediately).  Since I write everything long hand first, I can do this because I don’t have to lug my laptop around.

Something happened though, while I was relocating from one errand to the other, from one source of coffee to another ~ sometimes people believed I was actually an author and treated me as such; other times, people treated like a wanna-be with a notebook. Now, I’m sure there were several reasons for this but you know what one of the variables was?  In all seriousness?  When I walked in somewhere with everything crammed in my purse and under my arm, I was just another would-be writer with a notebook.  When I walked in with my computer bag, I was treated better and with more respect.

The craziest part of this is that the computer bag cost me less than ten bucks, far less than my purse.  Such a little thing; such a big diference in how I am treated ~ and how I feel about myself.  Because when I walk into my favorite coffee shop, a bookclub or signing, or even the diner at three in the morning, it’s the computer bag that is the final detail that makes me look and feel like a sophisticated professional living a champagne life.

Only you and I need to know I’m doing it on a beer budget.

~ Pauline

I’m back. And thank you for coming back yourself. So, where have I been? I’ve been finishing the next novel in the Lambert Falls series. As soon as I can tell you more, I will.  Promise. For now, we’re back to living a champagne life on a beer budget.

Do you remember the movie Mommie Dearest? In one particularly memorable scene, Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford goes completely crazy, screaming “No wire hangers!”  Well, if I have one thing that makes me crazy like that around living a champagne life, it’s plastic grocery bags.  In my opinion, plastic grocery bags can be used for transporting groceries, lining a garbage can, cleaning out a litter box, or curbing your dog.  In a pinch, they can be used for a dirty diaper or a wet swimsuit.  Otherwise ~ yeah, I’m somewhere screaming “No plastic bags!”

See, the the whole point of living a champagne life is feeling good about ourselves, feeling put together, confident.  Very little can make us feel that way like having the details right.  That’s why purses, sunglasses and the right jewelry can do so much for an otherwise mediocre outfit.  Can do so much for us on an otherwise mediocre day.  So why do we pay attention to those details and then shove our lunch, our papers, our overnight things into a bag that can be used to line a trash can?

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll look at beer budget ways to get that last detail up to champagne life standards.  Until then, go ahead and use those grocery bags – for your kitty litter and your pooper scooper and yes, to line your trash bag. Because as we’re discovering, it’s easy to live a champagne life.  Even when it’s on a beer budget.

~ Pauline