Each sale that we hold here at Life’s Patina benefits a local charitable organization. A charity that we believe in and that we work the sale around to create a theme for our seasonal sales. We collect merchandise from near and far that compliments our theme and our vignettes are styled around it as well. Themes are big with us here at Life’s Patina and one theme that seems to be reoccurring these days is partially what caused us to partner with the Women’s Resource Center of Wayne. Can you ascertain from their title what our theme is this Fall?
Why women? Is that a theme you ask? In our world it is. A theme full of strength, reliance, adaptability, compassion, hope… and the list goes on and on. Just because we are filled with all those positive attributes does not mean that our lives are perfect and that we will not stumble along our journey. ALL of us do and where do we go when the road does not rise up to meet us but in fact rises up to prevent us from moving forward? The Women’s Resource Center supports, strengthens and serves women…ALL women who need their services. From one on one counseling legal services, to providing female veterans assistance with acclimating back into civilian life, to building confidence and careers in women who have been out of the work force and are returning, to supporting girls during their formative “self esteem developing years.” The WRC is a non-profit organization created to inspire women and girls to achieve their full potential, housed right in our own back yard, yet that I had never heard of prior to attending one of their luncheons this past spring. Inspired and impressed after attending, we desired to change the fact that many of us do not know of their services so we reached out to them and they agreed to work with us and be our charitable organization for our upcoming Fall Preview party and Fall Barn Sales. We are thrilled to learn even more about them and to support them in their causes in the upcoming month!
Given that we chose an organization that supports women, and it is a topic that is near and dear to our hearts for we are women, we asked ourselves, “Why don’t we devote our entire Fall season to women?” We answered that question by kicking off our Fall season with our Transformational Exclaim Your Life Retreat on Sunday, September 13th. We are holding it here on our property so that you can experience all that is Willowbrook Farm as you depart on your path towards transformation. Your journey around the property will coincide with the activities and speakers we have planned for you to create a pampering yet soul searching experience. To learn more about the retreat, click here.
Three days later we are opening our Fall Barn Sale with a Preview Party on September 16th which will benefit The Women’s Resource Center. To register for the Preview Party, please click here so we have enough delicious goodies from Loraine Houston Catering. If you can’t make it to the Preview Party, you still have time to visit and shop the barn Friday the 18th, Saturday the 19th, and Sunday the 20th.
To celebrate our love for creating spaces that speak to the heart, we are participating in The Date with a Plate Event in Sherman Mills Philadelphia on October 6th and 7th. Dates and plates are a big part of our lives especially when they are benefitting causes like Project A.L.S. We culminate our season of the woman with the wedding for a dear friend of ours daughter in October, here at the farm.
As this topic emerged and I was trying to write about it, my notes that are scattered around my bed and litter my desk, caused me to have an “ah ha” moment. The fact that we, as women, encounter so many waters that are foreign to us, yet keep swimming became integral to my post and to our Fall theme. The fact that there are services that support women that you can get help from when needed, became integral to this post. The basic fact that women SHOULD support other women became even more important.
Foreign waters, “where was I going with that?” Oh yes, the notes around my bed, jotted down in the middle of the night as I was awakened by one sound or another, or a thought that so vividly imprinted on my brain that I had to get up and write it down…or maybe even the fact that sleeping these days is a HOT commodity (double entendre). Both for the lack thereof and the heat, generated not from my lack of air conditioning, if you catch my drift. These foreign waters were never discussed with me as my mother was swimming in them. How could she have not told me that I would need a much longer arm and very bright lights to be able to see small print, right about now? That would have prevented much thought being wasted into trying to ascertain why the chimney guy who had just sent me a text called me “mom”. Turned out he was just saying “morn”as an introduction. It also would have made me much more sympathetic to the fact that she wore at least three pair of readers on her person at all times.
Why??? I would ask her. Now I know.
I know A LOT of things these days that she never told me and I think that many of us are experiencing.
1) I have enough internal dialogues with myself each and every day that I should never feel lonely.
“Should I or should’t I? If I do than so and so will be affected and if I don’t this will happen because it is not the right time.”
“I can’t, I am too old, they need me, I don’t have time…”
or
“Why the heck am I here?” after walking up two flights of stairs to the third floor. This really came to a head this spring as I was walking around my house, with a small white pumpkin in hand so as to not forget that I had to shake out the seeds from all the white pumpkins that I had saved from the Fall into the garden. I was nearing the window of time that I could still plant them and have them grow to use this coming Fall instead of Christmas. As I walked into the family room with my pumpkin in hand, for I was assisting the electrician who was hanging lights in there, he asked, “Where are the shades for the fixtures?” I confidently answered, “They are right here in the armchair.” I walked to the soon to be offending chair who was not housing the lampshades. “Where could they possibly be?” I muttered to myself. I find them on the kitchen counter and thus walk back into the family room holding them out to the electrician. He sheepishly says to me, “Want to take the plastic off?” I turn a crimson red as it dawns on me that the reason they were in the kitchen in the first place is that I had brought them in there to find the scissors to cut the plastic off of them…the first time he asked me! The scissors were not in their usual kitchen spot which started my journey traversing the house to find them only to be waylaid by a small pumpkin that got me thinking that I needed to plants these seeds now, which caused me to pick up the pumpkin, forget about the scissors and walk back into the family room. I HAD found something after all, right? (Scissors were in my daughters bathroom, obvious place) To combat my forgetfulness into why I walk into rooms these days, I just say out loud or in my head over and over again, the item or thought that I am trying to remember. Should you see me at a sale, mumbling, “coffee, price list, order sheet,” hopefully you will understand.
2) Between the “parting” of the ways of my thoughts from my memory comes the “parting” of the ways with my own hair. Anyone else out there have a pony tail that is much thinner than the one you were blessed with as a little girl?
3) What’s with the waterworks??? Between the liquid I am loosing from my overactive bladder and my eye sockets due to the emotional rollercoaster I am on, I should be severely dehydrated.
I apologize, if I am offending anyone’s sensibilities but seriously, we are all in this together are we not? Are some of you not experiencing any of the above if you are in and around my age? It really can shake your confidence and your sanity.
Surprising that they call it, “Men-o-pause”. Who came up with that term???
If we can navigate these hormonal waters that we, as women are all forced to jump in, than we can do anything… correct? We do it all with aplomb, grace, a little shakiness, okay…and a little crankiness, a few tears and a joy that we are still here to partake in it all and get through it…with each other.
While we all come in different shapes and sizes, from different points of view and from various stages of life, we are all in the same boat in one way or another.
We would love to see you at one of our Fall themed events to both support AND celebrate women. Click here to learn more about upcoming events.
