Putting our money where our hearts are

Greg and I love Memphis. We actively choose to make this city our home. We didn’t land here by accident or decide to stay out of a misguided sense of anything. We are here for many reasons–family, friends, work, opportunities, and combinations of the aforementioned reasons that are only possible here.

Part of living here is seeing the potential for what might be. This place is full of movers and shakers, some of whom are dear friends of ours. There are people building up neighborhoods, tearing down stereotypes and teaching others all kinds of things about our shared experiences.

In Memphis, we can hike in an Old Forest in the middle of the city. We can garden our huge community garden plot. We can actively participate in CBU’s alumni association. We can push our preconceived boundaries, reimagine how we want to live and do something about it. We could design our lives anywhere we chose, but I feel empowered to do so here.

Because we love where we live, we are making a planned effort to give monetarily to the local causes we believe in. We can never do as much as we want, but we can put our money where our hearts are and contribute to making this home of ours the place we want it to be. I don’t think Memphis is perfect, but I do believe that it is the place where I want my family to grow. I love Memphis, and I want to make it better–one targeted donation and volunteer project at a time.

Prepping

I’m teaching the first half of US history at Mid-South Community College in West Memphis, AR this fall. Here’s my game plan:

Step one, read book. (I’m one chapter into Eric Foner’s Give Me Liberty textbook. ) Step two, shamelessly borrow from the syllabi of those who have gone before me. Step three, reread book and hope that it all turns out fine.

By the way, it’s amazing that it is July and I can do this:

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Memphis’ First Museum

Another post on the Pink Palace blog. This one is about the Cossitt Museum Room. Check it out!

palacesocial's avatarThe Pink Palace Family of Museums

The first museum in Memphis was a room on the second floor of the tower over the entrance to the Cossitt Library. The Cossitt Library was completed in 1893 and was funded though the bequest of Frederick Cossitt. Cossitt was a Connecticut born entrepreneur who maintained a wholesale dry goods business in Memphis until the Civil War. He promised his friend Carrington Mason that he would make a gift of a public library to the city. When he died in 1887, his will did not include the Memphis library, but his heirs decided to give money for the building anyway.

Cossitt Library 1893
The library’s statement of purpose specified that the Cossitt Library was “To establish and maintain a free public Museum…” As part of this objective, after the 1897 Tennessee Centennial celebration, the elite Memphis women who had composed the city’s Centennial Board and the wives of the library’s board of directors…

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Summer walks

This weekend we made the trip to Nashville to hang out with the Carricos. We went to the zoo, made lists with the two year old, talked parent stuff, watched the baby boys squirm, took our baby swimming for the first time, and ate a lot. Baby slept terribly; parents had groggy grown up time. Basically, it was great.

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After dinner I took the pup on a walk. My in laws live right near the Harpeth River, and there is a beautiful, paved path near their house. Zeb walked me up the hill and down to the path. As we walked, I kept a sharp eye out for the inevitable poison ivy and the ubiquitous geese poop. While looking at the ground, I almost missed the black dots to my right. I must have caught them out if the corner of my eye, because they stopped me in my tracks.

Blackberry brambles. Thorny, wild, sun ripened blackberries.

I spent seven summers camping and working at Camp Marymount in Fairview, TN. Camp is about thirty minutes from the path we were walking, but for a moment, I was there. The air was heavy after the morning rainstorms, and the red maples and Virginia creeper and PawPaws and sycamores were vivid in the falling light. As I strained to keep Zeb next to me, I risked the thorns and ate some berries. Just for a few seconds, I was a thirteen-year-old, a high schooler and a camp counselor again. Camp holds an indescribable place in my mind and heart. It is the place where, for a long time, I felt the most free. I wore my ugly green and purple plaid shorts and swim goggles on top of my head. I sang loud. I learned about trees. I fell in love with long walks and the music of whispering tulip poplars. I never once apologized for being myself, which is the greatest lesson Camp ever taught me. I grew up, but I still wear those shorts (to my husband’s amusement) and use those goggles. I go on meandering walks with my family and pause to close my eyes and really listen to the wind in the leaves. I am my camp self all the time.

So I ate some blackberries and walked back thinking about how much a small patch of sweltering paradise has meant in my life. A line a white in the trees will never fail to make my soul smile.

Summer

It makes me smile–this whole first week of summer thing. I live in Memphis. We are in planting zone eight, next to a giant muddy river, at the beginning (or end depending on your geographic perspective) of the Delta. It is HOT here. And it’s MUGGY. Since summer starts as soon as you have to start swimming through the air to walk the dog, it’s been the season for a month. It will stay summer until September when the humidity will finally break. Until then, I will play with my baby, laugh with my husband, work in the garden in growing or waning light, have several refreshing beers, can pickles and jam, fry in the car, eat delicious summer veggies, watch fireflies and enjoy the sunshine.

This is Memphis. We sweat here.

It’s ALIVE!

Things are growing.

Like the kohlrabi.20140623-125640-46600670.jpgAnd the black eyed peas, eggplant, squashes, tomatoes and baby you can see below. We went out early this morning so that I could weed and the baby could supervise before the sun got too high in the sky. Our new system: as long as he can either see me or hear me talking to him (frequently about the annoyance of opportunistic weeds), we’re good.

 

20140623-125638-46598318.jpgDespite the blurriness, you can hopefully tell that I was able to pick a couple of squash, some snow peas and some giant pickling cucumbers that stayed on the vine a bit too long. I’m planning on seeing what I haul in Thursday morning and then getting the summer pickling underway. Because in this house, summer means standing in a kitchen with a boiling water canner going. 20140623-125636-46596519.jpg

 

 

$ and cents

One gift we were given at our wedding two and a half years ago was a book called Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach. It was siting on a shelf and then put in a box and then reshelved before I finally made it a point to read it. It’s the first self-help book I’ve ever read.

Other than Bach’s annoying tendency to use trademarks in the middle of sentences, it’s concise and well written. The point that I took away from it is that it is important to own your financial future and make sure that your decisions (financial and otherwise) are in line with your personal values. These are things I knew before I cracked the spine, but Bach’s pitch motivated me to do things I had been putting off. Like making our wills. Can I honestly say that I value my family’s security if I don’t have a valid will in place?

I feel better about a number of things after reading and really thinking and talking about the points that were made. I am confident that I won’t be making a habit out of self-help books, but I am very glad that I finally read this one.

Barter

This afternoon I bartered for the second time. A neighbor two streets over has six laying hens that produce daily during the summer. (She also has two rescue bantam hens and three ducks with “angel wing” that can’t fly.) We met through NextDoor, a social network for neighborhoods. We exchange a dozen eggs for a loaf of homemade bread. The eggs are delicious with rich, yellow yolks and a meatier flavor than the ones I get at Kroger. We are planning on getting chickens next spring, but for now barter is working well.