Author Archives: Paula Spencer

Cozy Clutter or a Place for Everything?

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]

What’s your decorating style (besides, I bet for most of us here, country chic)? Mine, historically, has been lackadaisical. Or as my mom liked to say, “lived in.” Having lived for 23 years with someone who had stronger stylistic preferences, these tended to influence the overall look. Now I’ve moved into my own rental house — just this past week and yes, I can still hear the rrrrrripping of packing tape on cardboard box in my sleep — I’ve had to figure out what goes where “all by self.”

It’s been fun. (Excepting the complete exhaustion…funny aside here about the effects of my sleep deprivation!)

As I’ve positioned furniture and filled shelves and drawers, it strikes me that that there are two camps of housemakers:


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Holly Hobbie, Corny But True

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]

Anybody remember Holly Hobbie? Not the annoying biker-capped cartoon reintroduced a few years ago that your daughters or granddaughters of 2010 might know. I mean the original, blue-bonneted American Greetings version, who was created in the 1970s by an artist actually named Holly Hobbie.

While my friends were grooving to eight-tracks of Andy Gibb, crushing on David Cassidy, and borrowing their big sisters’ Lauren-Hutton-style Qiana shirts, one of my favorite pop-culture icons was a girl in a patchwork apron. Yes, that would place me a few bean rows beyond squareness. Call me a late bloomer. Decoupaged Holly Hobbie pictures (gifts made by my friend Jinny — there’s a HHish name) hung on apple green walls of my bedroom, next to cornflower blue gingham curtains. There may have even been dried flowers in a jelly jar on my nightstand, where Tiger Beat or Seventeen should have been. I may not have been a hipster, but I was a farmgirl before my time!


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Toy Story

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]

What does it mean when we keep our old toys in plain view? I don’t mean “toys” in the grown-up gadgets/cars/iPods/iPads sense of the word. I mean real toys, Barbie dolls and sock monkeys, right, um, on our office shelves. (Okay, home office.)

As you know, I’m moving. (Found a lovely, happy-yellow center hall colonial, with turquoise shutters and a screen porch — essential for North Carolina summers — on, yes, a quiet suburban cul de sac.) And moving involves lots of unearthing — excavating drawers and attic, seeing your whole life pass before your eyes. I’m now convinced everybody should move every five to 10 years, if only to sort through your worldly possessions and lighten, lighten your load! This, from someone who’s truly change resistant.

My friend Alexis, a sociologist and psychologist, says that by getting rid of stuff, we make mental space for the new. Worrying about old possessions, freighting them around, sucks up mental energy. Fourteen trash bags out of my office alone and I can attest to that. Exciting.

But to reach midlife still clinging to your sock monkey? What’s that about?!


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A House Divided

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]

Sorry if my long silence has made my corner of suburbia sound dull. Actually, it’s been anything but! I’ve alluded to ch- ch- changes underway — let’s just say that if they keep up at this pace I’m going to wake up metamorphosed into a basketcase. Or a fly.

What’s on my mind today: Dividing worldly possessions. You know that mental exercise of “what would you take with you in a fire?” Well, what would you take if you could have a whole houseful — er, *half* a houseful? How do you decide?

But first my update in a nutshell:
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That Promise of Spring…

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]
…“The nicest thing about the promise of spring is that sooner or later, she’ll have to keep it.” That’s what I write in a card to my old pal Kathleen every year about this time, between our birthdays – well, every year I remember, but it’s the majority of the past near-thirty.
I don’t even know how our tradition got started. (It’s a quote we picked up somewhere.) But since I live in the South, it’s a promise that’s kept to me before Kathleen, who’s lived in Iowa ever since we met there in college, so I figure she can use the sentiment. I heard Iowa had snow last week!
Over here in North Carolina, this first week of spring, I’ve got daffodils, Lenten roses (below), forsythia, redbud, and flowering trees galore. But it’s my psychology, rather than my weather, that’s really ready to “break into blossom,” as another line of poetry stuck in my head goes.


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Pick (or Stumble on) a “Bouquet Moment”

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]
Who isn’t cheered by a bright bouquet? I always imagine farm tables set with little jelly-jar vases of wildflowers plucked from the surrounding countryside. Lacking a countryside around my suburban house – or even a proper cutting garden – I’ve been known to crouch in the lawn to clip tiny sheaves of violets, or reach up into the branches to clip a few stems of dogwood or rhododendron, just to get that sweet charge a bunch of blossoms brings.
Then the other day, a friend brought me a bunch of carrots from the market that made me swoon as if they were roses — or even my favorite, peonies. Seriously! These weren’t just any carrots: They were a rainbow of carrots, from deepest ruby red to creamy yellow, with every shade of orange in between. They had in their favor the surprise factor (I’d never seen such carrots!) and the fact that they happened to be variations on my favorite color. Their flourish of leafy greens didn’t hurt, either. Those carrots plumb made me happy.
And those carrots got me thinking… what would happen if I opened my eyes and heart to other unexpected “bouquets” that might be waiting to be stumbled on in a given day?


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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]
You’ve heard the expression “if these walls could talk…” Well mine does – at least, the rectangle that’s covered by a bulletin board above my desk seems to have plenty to say.
It’s a mishmash of photos, postcards, kids’ artwork, buttons and other random bits that have caught my eye. I’ve always kept a board like that. As I tack things up over time, it becomes less cork and more mirror, a reflection of the gal sticking in all those pushpins.
Want to know what it told me today?


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A Hug in a Bowl

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]
Are you the granola type? No, I’m not probing about your wardrobe or your voter registration!
“Granola” seems to carry as many connotations as a bowl of it has ingredients – few of them having to do with breakfast. (Didn’t Birkenstocks and Berkeley politics cross your mind?)
I don’t know how the world’s best cereal became the icon of a lifestyle, because any of us can enjoy this hug in a bowl. The word, for me, conjures up wooden spoons, thick crockery, pure whole ingredients, and home — and when made from scratch, a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Even a non-Julia Child like me, an Aga wannabe with a suburban stovetop oven – can create a batch of homemade granola worth yumming over. And it’s easy. Come watch!

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More Zen in ’10!

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]
What makes you calllllllllllllllllllm? Do you have to sit very still and chant “ommmmmmmmm” to chill — or can you hustle about your busy day carrying a place of peace and serenity within you all the while?
Two recent discussions have reminded me how much our attitude influences our quality of life. Unlike circumstance and hard knocks – things you can’t always change — attitude is something we get to pick. It’s the place on the self-tuner where we choose to set our emotional dial. (Hmmm, will I pick wallow-on-the-floor-in-a-pity-party-for-one today? Or will I put my energy toward counting blessings and getting the laundry done?)
One of my recent attitude-bending conversations was with my sister-in-law, a woman who should know something about stress. Her six kids fall between ages 4 and 13 (all hers by birth, btw, and every single darn one of them entering this world between 10 and 11 pounds!). Her 80-something parents live in a wing my brother built onto their house for them.
Until shortly before he died last year, Laura (that’s her below) had my dad living in her house, too, in her former reading nook, a room she gave up so my brother could convert it into a main-floor bedroom for Dad. (Even more generously, she gave up her pantry so he could turn the space into a shower in the adjacent bathroom.) And did I mention the two dogs? Two cats? The garden? The part-time job as the church pianist? The nightly cooking for 10? Like I said, she knows from stress.

Anyway, Laura (who is as cheerful and calm as they come) told me her new motto is…

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Happy Trails, Sweet Crush Pernell

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Suburban Farmgirl Paula Spencer
[Previous Suburban Farmgirl, October 2009 – October 2010]
I was an Adam girl. Still am. Always will be, even though Pernell Roberts isn’t with us any more. He died this week of pancreatic cancer at 81.
Anna Quindlen famously wrote how her fellow teenagers, circa 1964, were divided among “Paul girls,” “John girls,” “George girls,” or “Ringo girls.” The four “Bonanza” stars didn’t define and consume my adolescence the way the Beatles did hers, not least because by the time I discovered the show, it was already just in endless re-runs. But among its loyal fans in any year – and I suspect there are fresh ones hatching — there’s one Cartwright for whom your heart beats faster during the rotating horseback cameos in the opening credits. You’re an Adam girl, a Little Joe girl, a Hoss girl, or a Pa girl.
Joe girls – the biggest group – are the ones who like ‘em cute and flirtatious, usually because they’re cute and flirtatious themselves. Hoss girls tend to be bold renegades making a statement (it’s the equivalent of the “Ringo” pick). Pa girls are mostly grandmothers (mine, for instance).
We Adam girls are different. We long for…


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