Frugal Bliss
Our second daughter, the Equuschick, does not collect many things because she is not that sort of person. One thing she does collect is Christmas angels, the sort that light up and sit on the top of the tree. Hers sit out all year long on the television cabinet in the home she shares with her husband and baby.
Her collection began years ago when she was quite a small thing- she fell in love with a particular Christmas Angel at a home party of some sort (I think she was about 7 years old). It came in a diaphanous green gown layered like so many petals, and there were some plastic pearls around it. It wasn't chic or significantly well crafted, but green was her favorite color, and the shimmering mermaid-like greens in that dress were very pretty. So we bought it for her for her birthday, which falls near Christmas.
When the Equuschick was about 8 or 9 years old Jenny and The Cherub joined the family, just before Christmas. Sometime after that (I no longer remember exactly when), Jenny, who was always interested in clothes and how they were made, attempted to undress that angel figurine, and when she couldn't, she got a pair of scissors and cut the clothes off. Things are always easier to take apart than to put together, yes?
She left the pieces on the floor next to the Equuschick's bed and hid. So the Equuschick awoke to see the remains of her favorite physical possession that wasn't a book scattered on the floor like so many dead leaves. Jenny was just old enough to realize she'd been naughty after the fact, but not quite old enough to realize it <span style="font-style:italic;">before</span> she started and couldn't fix it again. She was also so young that she does not remember it (Jenny doesn't remember much of her childhood before ten, though). However, the Equuschick has long remembered- she has forgiven, but she really cherished that doll.
And that is how the Equuschick's collection began- we have been trying to make it up to her ever since. I have looked and looked for one in a diaphanous green, shimmering dress of petaled layers ever since, and I have never found one.
However, I have finished with buying Christmas Angels (Christmas Fairies, I think they are in England) for the Equuschick, and I suspect she might be through with adding to her collection.
Last week at a yard sale across the street from the park where we took the Dread Pirate Grasshopper and the FYB, a yard sale I almost did not go to because it was miserably hot and humid out, I found the <span style="font-style:italic;">exact same</span> angel figurine as the one Jenny had cut the clothes off of all those many years ago. It was only a dollar, and I was so excited I took it out of the box (yes, it was still in the box) and showed it to the Equuschick there on the spot, even though she cannot have it until Christmas.
So much delight, and all for only a dollar. This is a joy that I cannot describe to those who are not happily frugal. It is the thrill of the successful hunt, the fruition of years of looking, it is the joy of bagging two birds with one stone (the lovely angel lost so many years ago, a frugal purchase), and the glee of something long lost now found).
And yes, the fact that it was finally found for a dollar only heightens the delight, it's a thrill. It's like a bird-watcher finding a bird long missing from his list. It's like a gardener finally managing to get a finicky plant to bloom. It's like a baker mastering a complicated souffle that has never worked for him before.
I am Keats, first looking into Chapman's Homer. I am Cortez, silent on a peak in Darien.
I get a lot of joy and delight from these frugal finds, from this frugal lifestyle. And I submit that a certain way of thinking is required for deep satisfaction in frugalities- a creative and imaginative approach to the frugal life adds zest and patience is required as well. Developing and honing these qualities does not just benefit your pocket book, either. When money is not required to bring you joy, when saving money is not seen as a burden but a blessing, life can bring a hundred new little pleasures every day.
Actually, life doesn't bring them, God does, but He does ask that we open our eyes. Frugality is a way of opening your eyes.
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One Response to “Frugal Bliss”
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Love it!!! Great story, all the way around–and the price?? WOW!
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