2021, Art, Family, gardening, holidays, Uncategorized

Feeling Needed

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Our son and daughter-in-law are moving into their first home this Friday. We won’t be able to get to see them until October, over the long weekend for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. As usual, my job when we get there will be to hang the pictures and other decorative things on the walls.

I don’t know why they always want me to do this. They say I know how to center things so they look good. I just make a point of measuring and marking where the hangers should go. It isn’t that hard, but they appreciate it.

Husband is the family go to guy for landscaping advice. Son and his wife have a huge yard at the new house with no plants or trees or flowers. Son has been asking for landscaping advice already, and Husband has some ideas for him. We plan to bring all our flower and seed catalogs. It should be a fun visit.

What makes you feel needed? What skills do you want to teach others so they aren’t lost? How do you go about hanging things on the walls?

28 thoughts on “Feeling Needed”

  1. I’m slowly tidying up a garden right now, for a lady who was unexpectedly widowed, and let things slide. She was an office worker, and can’t handle manual work. I’m really pleased to help out.
    But what I remember the most is when someone confides in me. I had a really good one, not so long ago.

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  2. The skill I would like to pass on is an appreciation of Tuba Skinny, and another New Orleans band, The Shotgun Jazz Band. No, they don’t carry guns (I don’t think). Just play great music.
    I suppose it’s not a skill,really.

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    1. The shotgun in the name surely applies to the houses so popular in New Orleans. A shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than about 12 feet wide, with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from the end of the American Civil War through the 1920s. I think the popularity of shotgun houses in New Orleans is the partly unintended consequence of earlier tax policies.

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      1. You’re right about that Steve. Apparently John and Marla Dixon were in one of those houses for a while. There’s a guy tells the band they need to change the name, in today’s violent climate. But they haven’t.

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        1. Actually, our house in Palomar is kind of like that. I mean, it’s a bit bendy, but it might be as much as twelve feet wide in places.

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    1. I am going to court today, the third time in two weeks, as I am the only person at my agency qualified to conduct report of examinations for mental health commitments. I feel way too needed, as well.

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  5. Much to my surprise, readers of my books make me feel needed. I frequently see friends and acquaintances and customers at book signings who ask “When’s the next book coming out?” Many have that hint of urgency or eagerness in their voice that implies they “need” to buy my book and read it. I feel pressure to get the book done, but I also pressure myself to do it right and create the best possible book I can for those readers.

    Makes me wonder how the bestselling authors feel about that constant “pressure” to produce for their fans. I’m sure they have hundreds of fans “bugging” them daily to get the next book out. Maybe it drives some of them to drink or ??

    My wife directs all the hangings in our house. I’m just the muscle.

    I’d like to teach people the skill of respecting nature and learning to cohabit with all creatures great and small and stop thinking we can control the planet to do with it as we please. All it really requires is to get people outside and actively using all five senses to better understand how nature interacts. Can’t get that experience with any sort of virtual reality.

    Not sure I’m qualified to teach anyone about other skills that may be lost over time. Just trying to keep my own brain exercised and learning new things and keeping old skills honed so I can be as self-sufficient as possible.

    Chris in O-town

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  6. Those last minute calls about a lighting situation make me feel needed.

    Or opening the pickle jar.
    Or killing a bug in the house.

    Students asking for letters of recommendations are always nice. (Usually. Every so often I get someone asking for a letter and Its a struggle to come up with something positive to write.)

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    1. We get poisonous toads in John and Sandra’s garden sometimes. I’ve got no grudge against them, they are just trying to live their life. But they nearly killed one of the dogs one time, and they have to go. I hate killing, but so do the rest of them. I whack them with a shovel, and it’s messy. But I want it quick and certain. I dug chicken wire into the ground, all the way round the fence one time, but John never gives me time to finish a job before he wants the next one done. I really must check that wire soon. So I’m needed.

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  7. The gossip from former workmates about how much I’m missed makes me feel needed. Not gonna go back but it’s a bit nice to know even after the fact.

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  8. Honestly? I can’t think of a thing that makes me feel needed. I don’t have a skill that will die with me, and I”m lucky to have a say so in where things are hung on our walls.

    I’m in a quiet and contemplative mood at the moment. Not necessarily sad or unhappy, just quiet and not very playful. If you’ll excuse me, I have some more thinking to do.

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  9. I love being needed in our UU band – 3 guitars and my rhythm instrumetns, which will accompany the Fellowship this Sunday for the first time in a year and a half. Actually, they can get along just fine without me, but “need” me for harmony and tambourine or woodblock.

    I wish there was a way of teaching empathy to those who don’t have/experience it. Same with gratitude. It may be that there are “teachable moments” for these two qualities, but I’m not sure.

    Hanging things on walls: a wing and a prayer.

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      1. Way back when, a friend of mine had a piano recital at the UU. She invited me and that was the first time I heard of the UU. But I’ve known about it ever since. Been in there a couple times since; once to consult on lighting. (I get in a lot of church to “consult”… they don’t often proceed. I wonder if that’s my fault or a cashflow problem?)

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        1. BTW, Kelly has a much better eye at hanging things on walls than I do. I can manage fine, but usually she’ll say “Oh. You hung that there.”
          So I have learned to wait and get her input about things here at home. But out in the shop, I hang things any old place I want!

          I think actually hanging things on the wall can be hard! Depending where the wire or hook is in relation to the top of the item being hung makes a difference. And Heaven forbid there’s two hooks to line up, keep level and then get the hooks ON the nails in the wall! Goodness… More power to you Renee if you’re good at that.

          I like the big 3M hooks and I’ve hung a lot of things with them. But some large framed photos w/ glass have fallen off the wall using them. And those are what I’m waiting for Kelly to tell me where to rehang.

          A few years ago I took a photography class at the college. At the end of the semester we meet in the art gallery and we hang up our 10 best photos. And I watched all the kids just make a line with the photos and I thought ‘What would Kelly do?’ and I made a diagonal row. The teacher even commented on that as a bonus.

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