Case in Point

This is the case for a pair of glasses I lost almost a year ago.  Did I mention that I don't use these cases, even for the glasses I have?  If my glasses are in my purse, I wrap them in one of those little microfiber cleaning cloths.  Tossed.

Gilty as Charged

More from the brother's estate - two large mirrors. My mother had one in her home, and I had one in mine. Mine (which I have actually had on the wall in the condo) has kind of a nouveau look to it. It goes well with the period of the current house, it is a style I like, and I like it enough to have utilized it in the past. I'd like to think the main reason I don't have it up yet in this house is that I need to do some kind of touch-up on the frame. But the chances are decent that I will hang it eventually.

The other one, Mom's, is less my style. It is a gold gilt frame, something you would use to frame a portrait of your great grandfather or something. It is nice, just not my thing. It wasn't really Mom's thing, either, I know she only displayed it because it had been my brother's. When she died, it got boxed up, and it is still boxed (six years later), so no photo. I opened the box just enough to make sure it isn't damaged, but it is packed well and I don't feel like messing with it.

If I didn't already own the deco mirror, and saw it in a store, I might wish I could have it. The other one I would probably pass without a second glance. Right there is probably all I need to know.

Like so many things that I keep because they were at one time owned/valued by my brother and mother, I have to get real over whether they would have wanted me to feel that I HAD to keep these things, especially when I have many, many more items that meet these qualifications.

The mirror really is rather big. I hope it will fit in my car so I can get it to the thrift store.

Words Fail Me

And here is the flipside to the previous post.  This painting is from my late brother's house.  Maybe he painted it, maybe he didn't.  I have no idea who (or what) the subject is.  If this painting was displayed in his house, I don't remember it.  It was never displayed in my mother's home.  It never made it to the wall in my home, and I don't wish it to.  Zero reason to keep, now that I think about it.  I just hadn't thought about it.

So it is going in the "donate" pile . . . um, maybe someone will want the frame. . .

Roger That

So here is something that I am keeping.  In fact, I've bought additional stuff to support keeping this object.  But it was a mindful decision.

At some point, probably over a decade ago, I was buying and selling a lot of silverware on eBay.  I bought a page cut from a 1953 magazine advertising 1881 Rogers silverplate patterns, thinking, one of these days I'll frame this and put it on my wall.  Well, yesterday was that day.  I went to Aaron Brothers, bought a frame and a matte (and might I say I did a good job picking the colors) and came home and fiddled with the lot a good 45 minutes to get it the way I wanted it.  This morning I put it up on the wall in my kitchen, and I think it looks damned good, if I do say so myself.

Resolved:

Resolved: I don't need a portable DVD player anymore, as discussed in a recent post.

Resolved: I don't need 2 bicycle locks - I scarcely ride my bicycle anymore; one will suffice.

Resolved: I don't need to the lockset I bought years ago for reasons I am too tired to go into right now. And it doesn't match my current hardware in this house.

Resolved: I don't read the material I get from the Tahoe Rim Trail Association. The only activity in which I am willing to engage is 1) hiking, on my own when I feel like it an 2) occasionally contributing money to the cause.

Resolved: I don't know why I saved an unfilled Ambien scrip of my mother's (I know what you are thinking, but if I were going to abuse something, it wouldn't be this) and the label off of a box of prescription Lidoderm.

Resolved: I don't need old, used padded envelopes. I can utilize my ample supply of bubble wrap and brown paper bags if I need to mail books.

Resolved: I don't need the deco lusterware tea set that's been waiting patiently by the donation pile for months while I tried to think about something to say about it.

Resolved: I don't need the plastic over-the-door hangers that are a relic of apartment life. I can drill holes in shit now, if I want. Also, with less stuff, I shouldn't need to resort to much stored on hooks anyway. None yet so far in this house.

Resolved: I don't need the bracelet I bought when I hadn't waited long enough for the (pre-medical procedure) drugs to wear off.

Resolved: I don't need the little teapot ornament I bought at the airport, of all places, when I though I wanted to start collecting the stupid things.

Resolved: I don't need the rest of the shelf brackets I bought to fix the ones at the condo I'd sheared off.

Resolved: I don't need the jewelry-making supplies I bought for some one-off project a year ago.

Resolved: I don't need the extra phone filter devices I still have too many of. They came with my modems and I think I wound up with twelve. I need ONE, and one for backup, although I'm sure I could get one at Radio Shack if needed.

Resolved: I don't need the little stained glass piece I let sit in my kitchen for a decade. I've only kept it so long because it was probably made by my late brother.

Resolved: I don't need an aerial photo poster of San Francisco. I will never frame or display it. It was a cooler thing to have years ago, before I could call up satellite photos of most of the planet from my cellphone.

A Prescription for Clutter

I'm not posting a photo - I think we all know what a prescription pill bottle looks like. Anyway, I had four of them living where I keep seeds for gardening. Their contents have redistributed partly to a glass spice jar, last seen in a previous post, and also into a plastic film canister I'm keeping, because you really can't get those anymore.

The fallacy of a lot of things I keep is that they look like they would be good to store things in. And that's true. But if I have fewer things in general, then I have fewer things that need to be stored, no?

There's just the one small drawer of seeds, and I recently drafted into service a small wooden box ("it would be good to store things in") to hold the little paper packets that hold most of my seeds, so that area is fairly organized. But even organized, there are too many seeds, even for the huge yard I have now. I don't have the soil/garden beds/irrigation system yet to grow everything I want, and most seeds have a shelf life, and I can and do grow things that are technically past their optimum dates, but still.