The Glad Game

Necessity is the mother of invention.  Or so I'm told.  I remember that old -ism.  It felt like something my grandmother would have cross stitched and framed in her kitchen, right along side "back in MY day" and "kids these days...".  It felt archaic, used up, and SO not me or now.

Yet somehow, this afternoon, as I was ripping apart an old work shirt of my husband's to make into a tiny pair of pants for a little girl's birthday gift, I couldn't get the dang saying out of my head. Necessity is INDEED the mother of invention.


For the past year or so, more even maybe, I've been hearing lots of compliments about my "creativity and ingenuity". You are so creative! I would never have thought to use old sheets as fabric!  How DO you do it?  

All modesty and embarrassed "gee thanks" aside, I do it because I have to.

You see, I needed to cut up that shirt.  I don't have any spare money in the budget for gifts, none.  My husband is rounding out his 5th year as a PhD student, we bought an old I need something fixed just about every two months house, I stay home with two kids and sadly don't make any money doing it, and to top it all off?  apparently we're in the middle of a pretty bad recession.  Property and income taxes continue to rise, but funnily enough? wages are holding steady.  The cost of raising a mere family of four is skyrocketing past outrageous.  I'm honestly awed how anyone has any money to spare.

In any case, we sure don't.  So I'm learning to improvise.  In place of oodles of paper towels I've scrounged up every tiny cloth and unused towel in this house, grabbing one of them instead of a much more convenient albeit expensive paper alternative.  In lieu of purchasing gifts I've vowed to make at least a portion of every one this year, and instead of buying new fabric and yarn to sew with I've learned to use thrifted and unused sheets, pillowcases, men's button down shirts and unwound sweater yarn.  I'm still ironing out the whole budget food situation, but buying bulk meat and portioning out my own cuts has been a part of the routine for quite some time now.  Instead of putting the girls in expensive summer day camps and activities I fill our mornings with the free thrills in town (conservatory, library, splash pads and parks) and trips to the places we've purchased discount year memberships, averaging mere dollars a visit (arboretum, pool, zoo).  In essence? I'm re-inventing this semi-suburban life of ours, quite out of necessity.

Turns out? I'm not the only one.  I just finished a book The Dollshop Downstairs, a historical fiction children's novel about the creation of the Madame Alexander Dolls.  The owner of the doll shop was a Jewish Russian immigrant who started his own doll repair business in the basement of his apartment in New York City.  When World War One broke out and he lost the ability to buy his doll parts from Germany his business was threatened with failure, but he and his family rebooted, went back to the drawing boards, and out of only the materials they had on hand they made Nurse Nora, the first ever Madame Alexander doll which was ultimately bought by FAO Schwarz and the rest, well, it's history.

I doubt those dolls would ever had been created had it not been for the trade embargo with Germany.  I doubt I ever would have learned how AMAZINGLY well men's shirts, and vintage sheets work as fabric for just about everything, had it not been for this rather tight situation we're in right now.  It's actually pretty amazing.

This afternoon I watched Pollyanna with my girls in the basement while I folded and sorted all of my odds and ends of fabric and notions.  At the end, the girls were entranced and I welled up.  This poor little orphan girl has everything in the world to be angry at.  No money or possessions, no parents, no love from her crotchety old Aunt.  Yet she's vibrant with gladness and positivity and it rubs off on a whole town.

That was kind of the "ah ha!" moment for me.  I've spent so many sleepless nights worrying about tomorrow, next month and this time next year.  I've found myself even scowling at the carefree youth raucously enjoying their summers.  No fair.  


But suddenly I'm glad for the pinch, the stretch of life lately.  It's made me who I am.  It's made me look at life and things and needs so much differently.  It's made me so utterly content with all that I have and want for very little.  It's empowered me, because I can do this, AM doing this.  I am providing all that my family needs, just with a few twists and tricks here and there.  I feel truly proud for the first time in my life.  Proud to feel even one iota like all of those women and mothers before me who "made do" for so long.  Who stretched the last cup of flour, patched those socks one more time, let out the hems to their limits, and surrounded that Christmas tree with everyone's hearts desire.  Perhaps its not all as dramatic as that.  But as my boy works overnight one more time and my precious girls snooze in their rooms and I gaze around at our tidy cozy fifteen hundered square foot house, I can' help but feel so deeply glad for it all.  Thanks necessity.  I never knew how much I needed you.