Reflections From a Country Girl

I’ve been a recycler for a very long time.  Some say it is recycling with a story.  

I’ve always liked to take other people’s throw aways and make it a treasure of mine. Yes, I am one of those people who will turn around in the road to get that old ladder back chair from the roadside, dust it off, and place it in the kitchen with the other mismatched chairs so there will be plenty of chairs to sit in when folks come over to “chew the fat”.  Though I have comfortable and more modern furniture in my living area, it is the kitchen that others will gravitate to when they come calling.  “That’s where the worlds problems get solved.”  They say. 

I believe them. 

As a dear friend once told me … “if you can sit around the kitchen table and take part in the conversation just like part of the family, then you are on the way to solving a problem.” 

I go far beyond recycling furniture.  I recycle men’s ties. I recycle wine bottles.  I also recycle old bluejeans.  

Just think about how many ties are out there in the world today.  Men get them for the birthday, for father’s day, for Christmas, for almost any occasion.  I collect them, sew them together, and make pocketbooks for their wives, their girlfriends, their daughters and their granddaughters.  You won’t believe the touching stories I hear about these ties as I create them.  The stories are just as varied and rich as the ties themselves.  Same goes for those old bluejeans that I make pocketbooks from.  

Then there the lamps I make from wine bottles. I take little white Christmas lights (many of them recycled, too) and glass beads to make them.  I always have a “signature” piece somewhere on each lamp. It is most often a geode, a rock, or some other “nature” item. Often the lamps are made from an empty wine bottle I take home after a gathering.  When I do that, the lamp I make from that bottle usually goes back to the person it came from…as a lamp of course.  

“Reinventing” these ties, bluejeans and bottles brings a new life to them.  It took my “looking out of the box” to create these into new and useful pieces.  It’s a great way to make something useful out of something old.  Interestingly enough, I find that others all over the country are doing these same kinds of things.  It has created a bond that goes far beyond the boundaries of my home.  

I believe our country is beginning to work on such a venture as I do when I recycle. We are getting ready to take important things that have served us well in the past and reinvent them.   

Just like my recycled items, if things like energy and environment are not “reinvented” they will be of little use to any of us in the future. 

I do believe it will take “sitting around the kitchen table” by people who care about these two critical components of our world in order to change the current path. I am encouraged to see people beginning to meet to discuss this and, hopefully, come up with a new way to deal with old issues.  It will take a “thinking out of the box” mind to do what you are attempting.  Knowledge plus a passion to make things better is the key. 

I don’t have all the answers. I do have hope – just like many of us do – that things that have been with us for years can be reinvented – just like the old ties, bluejeans, empty bottles and tossed aside chairs.  

I am encourage by the new efforts to reinvent our energy, our environment, our economy.  As Americans, we want to see a better economy, new energies, a healthier environment and a people who can look beyond the usual and discover new ways to deal with old and faithful friends…just as our environment, economy and energy sources have been for us all these years. 

My wish for you today is that you become a part of the solution.

~ Joellen

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 6:56:pm and is filed under American Pride, Living Life to the Fullest, Making wise choices, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.