The Story of Stuff

I went to an estate sale today.  Usually it's a lot of fun to see what treasures I can find on such an adventure.  However, today, as I walked through this (huge!) house full of someone else's stuff, I couldn't help but feel immensely sad.

Spread out in every room of this house was someone's entire life for droves of strangers to come rifle through.  From stocked up packages of toilet paper to books, shoes, furniture, coffee mugs, trinkets, and  vacation souvenirs, everything was on display and for sale to the highest bidder.  As I wandered from room to room the emotions continued to rise.  Each of these items belonged to someone.  Each had a special or unique meaning.  Each was given or chosen with a purpose.  I wished for a second that these items could talk, to tell their stories.  For example, the owner of this house had a collection of miniature beautiful glass figurines.  I imagined each one being purchased by a grandchild or picked out as a momento on a vacation to Niagara Falls.

What made me particularly sad was listening to one gentleman who was there talking on the phone.  I perused the titles of books in a back bedroom inadvertently eavesdropping while he talked to someone (loudly!) about the value of something he wanted to sell.  He loudly discussed the monetary value of this unknown item while he simultaneously dismantled a mantle clock to find markings or some value to this item as well.

I suddenly felt guilty invading this person's home.  It felt oddly voyeuristic to be picking through their personal items.  So I walked from room to room with my hands in my pockets and started wondering what had happened to this person/people.  Realizing (from the hospital bed, numerous walkers and canes, and electric lift chairs that were for sale) that this must be the home of an elderly couple who had probably lived a long life and had passed away or been placed in a nursing home didn't bring much consolation.  In the cupboards and closets and shelves of this beautiful home was the stuff that told the story of their life.  Each of these items meant something at some point and now it was being pawed through by people who wanted to get a bargain or make a buck.  So sad.  

Simple Woman's Daybook...March 23, 2010

FOR TODAY...March 23, 2010

Outside my window...Rain. Cold. Rain. It really sets the stage for a blah day, you know?

I am thinking...about the many things I want/need to accomplish in the next couple of weeks. We're in the process of preparing our house to put it on the market and I have a LOT of work to do to make it ready. Problem is there just isn't enough time in the day.

I am thankful for...the expected (safe!) return of our Adventure Buddies, Tiff and Brie!

From the kitchen...Avery is whining because she wants to come out and join the chaos but there are just too many toys (a.k.a. "chew toys" to her) scattered around at the moment. She will have to wait until the boys and I can do a "clean up, clean up" bit.

I am wearing...a sweater and pants. Spring was here for a bit but this cold rain that's coming through makes me want to snuggle up again.

I am remembering...almost a year ago, we were up North saying goodbye to a fantastic woman, my Abuelita. It was a great weekend full of family and memories. I miss you, Abuelita!

I am creating...a plan of attack for the organization that has to go on in my home to get the house ready to show. Where to start, what to pack away, what to store...how to make the house marketable so we can get it sold this time!

I am going...to Target with the boys after work. We need baby wipes and I'd like to get some new socks. I'm sick of having my toes poking through the ones I have. It's time.

I am hoping...this sinus headache that's laying low just behind my eyes doesn't start acting up. I'm trying to keep it at bay but this weather isn't helping!
 

I am hearing...Lady Antebellum on my iPod. Love them!

Pondering these words...Another classic from my work intranet's quote of the day: "I learned there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some from behind" - Dr. Seuss
He is a brilliant man! 

Around the house...Stuff. Lots of stuff. Nathaniel got some great presents for his birthday this past weekend so now we have to figure out how to exchange his new stuff for toys he doesn't play with any more. The problem with that is, if he doesn't play with them it usually means Alex does! Either way we need to downsize and pack (at least!) half of them away to make room. Whenever we get into a new house all those hidden toys will seem brand new! Surprise!

On my mind...I'm frustrated - I spent over an hour perusing my photos last night for one that was perfect to enter for the I ♥ Faces Challenge and came up empty handed. I have thousands of photos and none of them were good enough to hold a candle. It's very frustrating. I'm feeling a little defeated, I guess.

Noticing that...I'm easily defeated. I'm obviously in a mood. 

One of my favorite things...my new Keurig. I love it! It's nice to make a fresh cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate in seconds whenever the mood strikes. I want to stock up on a variety of new flavors and have some fun. Can you say "Caffeine High"?!?!  

A few plans for the rest of the week: I have a few lunch plans with friends, a lot of work to do, and I'm looking forward to seeing Tiff and Brie upon their return from NYC this weekend!

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

This is Alex's favorite game to play with my brother (a.k.a. Uncle Noah). Whenever Uncle Noah picks him up his face lights up and he immediately leans back. Luckily Noah knows to expect this so he catches him and they play their little counting game. "One, two, THREEEEE!." It's fantastic to watch. This photo was the closest thing I could find that would even possibly fit the "angles" theme over at I ♥ Faces for this week. So instead of posting it there, I'll just put it here for my friends to see! 

To read more daybook entries, check out The Simple Woman's Daybook!

Out of Memory

I got an error message on my cell phone the other day.

The message read simply: “Out of Memory”.

Seems innocent enough, yet the dissonant chime preceding the bright red lettering made them mean words. Almost judging. It seems silly, but it shook me – ruined my day. Ugh. One more thing to figure out. One more thing to fix. Oddly, one more thing telling me I take too many pictures, save too many things. As if to say “Enough, already!”

It’s ironic considering this seems to be the running theme of my life lately.

“Out of Memory”

I get that at work on a daily basis. Disk space errors force me to save my work elsewhere, on second rate hard drives, using less than admirable methods of back up.

I get the message on my home computer. Same thing: compromise safety and security of my priceless data for anything that works at the moment. Inconsistent efforts. Scattered. Unreliable.

Quite often my brain gives me an out of memory message in the form of forgotten tasks and missed deadlines. What time was that appointment? When does Nathaniel have to provide snack for school? You wanted me to remember what? Where was I supposed to go? What did I come here to find?

I don't want to be "Out of Memory".  I want to have an infinite amount of memory to be everything to everyone.  I want to remember everything and forget nothing.  I want a bazillion terabyte hard drive so I don't have to lose something important just to gain something new.  My brain is constantly in purge mode, only I have no control over what is thrown out to make room.

Since that doesn't seem likely, I suppose I should go try and figure out how to choose between the cute shots of my children playing at the mall and the REALLY cute pictures of them romping outside with the puppy.  I'll purge what I can to bide my time until I am able to find the cord for my phone and figure out how to get my pictures off my memory card.  If I had any free memory cards, I suppose I could just replace it with a new one, but that's another issue.

It's moments like this when I feel like technology and the world is taking off without me.  Can you imagine me at 90?  Trying to figure out how to get my hologram machine to toast my waffles and heat my coffee?  Man!

I have "a thing".

Actually...I have a LOT of "things".

I am what you might call a collector.  If I have one of something, I probably have several.  Especially of certain things that I tend to have a(n) (odd) preference for.

Namely, coffee mugs.

The cuter they are the better!  I like them fun and cool and different.  I have TONS of them and have to consciously resist the urge to buy more whenever I find one I love (especially at the dollar store where they always have fun ones!)

I also have a "thing" for blankets.

Here, the criteria is SOFT.  I tend to be a very tactile person.  I love soft things.  Fuzzy things.  Warm things.  Blankets are the best of all worlds!  So I tend to collect them.  Lots of them - I have a whole trunk full of them and several bins, closets, and corners stuffed with them.  And I'm not the only one...Where do think Nate gets this from?

I tend to have a bit of an obsession with cute kids dinner wear, too.  I always find adorable cups, divided dishes, or bowls with cute monsters or animals or characters on them at fantastic prices and can't resist the urge to buy more (even though realistically I could already NOT wash the dishes for a whole week and still have enough cute plates for the kids to eat off of!)  I'm afraid if I don't nip this "thing" in the bud, my husband will KILL me!

I've talked before about my "thing" with polka-dots which spills over into pretty much EVERYTHING.  Purses, wallets, shoes, scarves, socks, belts, coffee mugs, blankets, AND dinner wear.  I even got an adorable polka dotted camera strap for my camera (seen below with a new scarf, both of which I got off Etsy - Love it!!!!).

It's ridiculous.

These "things" are all relatively small, both in size and financial investment so do I continue to feed my obsession, or seek an intervention?  I could just rotate the old "tired" things out to make room for the new, but that feeds my issues of wastefulness I've talked about here.  Ugh!  Help me!!

Do any of you have "a thing"?

Small details

In this season of thankfulness, it seems to go without saying that I am grateful for my friends, my family, my job (and the luxuries that it provides me), my home, and especially my children.  I could write an individual post singing the praises of each and every one of these blessings (and in fact, if I had thought of it before writing this just now, I would have done a countdown to Thanksgiving type thing doing just that).  However, today is Thanksgiving and I've missed the boat (the Mayflower, no doubt) and so instead, I'd like to follow the lead of a fellow blogger over at Manic Mother who posted a lighthearted yet sincere list of the little things in life that she was thankful for.  It's good stuff and she's right - there are a lot of little things that get overlooked and taken for granted.

So here is my list of some of the more prominent "little things" that I am deeply thankful for:

1.  my digital camera - it captures precious moments, expressions, and the very personalities of the ones I love most in this world.  It functions as my memory, my scrapbook, and my diary.  It tells stories and helps me to relive good times, forgotten details, and lost innocence.  I would be lost without this thing!

2.  the internet - I'm not sure if this would be considered a little thing, but it's an easy to take for granted thing that I simply could not live without.  In a financial crunch I think cable and heat would go before internet and I'd willingly walk 6 miles to work to be able to afford it if need be.  Ok, so I'm (half) kidding.  But the internet is my portal to the world, it has provided me with a gateway to a community in which I thrive.  It easily provides me with information when I need it most.  And the internet provides me with a means through which to satisfy my occasional need for retail therapy without having to pack up my kids and drag them out into the H1N1 infected world.  I mean really, what would I do without Google, Facebook, Blogger, or Etsy?!?

3. Clorox Disinfecting Wipes - Children are dirty little creatures.  Boys are even dirtier.  Enter in a potty training boy and a toddler and you see why I am thankful for these little gems.

4.  the eyelash curler - One of of the world's best inventions.  Hands down the best thing since sliced bread!  Enough said.

                           

5.  the snack trap - Without a doubt this thing saves my butt when I have a cranky, overtired, hungry, or otherwise miserable child on my hands.  I can put ANYTHING in this cup and it creates an immediate hush.  Raisins, cheerios, fruit snacks...you name it.  It's fabulous.  Self-feeding entertainment and enjoyment at its finest.

 

WARNING: Erratic Thinking Ahead!!

I stumbled upon this "feature" on a blog I frequent called Confessions of a Moody Mommy (via another blog she reads and borrowed it from called The Un Mom) and seeing as I have a bazillion posts that contain little more than a few stray sentences that never quite had the clarity to come together as real posts, I thought I'd take those thoughts and spew them here in one big GLOB of random thinking. That way nothing has to have a logical flow - hence the RANDOMNESS. So here is an invitation into my head...but don't say I didn't warn you!

*It pains me how wasteful we are in today's society. I drive down City streets on my way to work and on garbage days people have PILES of stuff loaded on the curb outside their houses. I mean perfectly good, USEABLE stuff. Yet because it's not immediately needed, or can't be stored, or whatever the reason, it becomes trash. It's just easier. Things today are made to be disposable and expendable. If the batteries die, it's useless. No one knows how to FIX anything anymore, even the simplest things. It's really a lost skill. And it's extremely disheartening. I watched this video over a year ago and it's haunted me every since. I highly recommend watching it. It's well worth 20 minutes of your life to really learn something. Unfortunately for me, it was largely depressing and made me feel hopelessly out of control. But someday I hope to be empowered to BE THE CHANGE I HOPE TO SEE IN THE WORLD!

*I'm pretty sure whoever engineered and designed sippy cups was a spawn of the devil. Seriously, were they ever market tested or focus-grouped? I have yet to find one that's durable, functional, AND easy to clean (have you SEEN all the nooks and crannies in those things?!?). Now think of all the gunk that collects in those nooks, especially while said sippy cup is hiding in the bathroom cupboard where your three-year-old hid it from his baby brother and then promptly forgot about it until it was stumbled upon a week later with some solid substance in it that looked like it could have at one time been milk. Now THAT'S a real world test!

*There are very few things in this world better than that initial feeling you get when you crawl into bed and your head hits the pillow at the end of a hard day. I love that feeling.

*This morning while blow-drying my hair I heard Alex pounding at the door and crying because he wanted to get in. Of course, Nate just walks in if he wants to and I thought "it's just a matter of time before Alex sees how Nate does that and learns to do it himself, which will be a lot sooner than Nate did it, I'm sure". Then I racked my brain trying to figure out how old Nate was when he learned to open doors himself and I couldn't for the life of me even ballpark it. I realize it shouldn't because that's silly, but why does that make me feel like a bad mother? Like I'm failing him somehow by not being able to spout back to him (in 20 years) the age at which he started opening doors. I mean really, is that ridiculous? I guess on some level I realize it is. But tell my brain that. Perhaps I should refocus that negative energy on the fact that I haven't written anything in either of their baby books since Alex was born. Yikes!

I was wondering recently, do you think people drive cars that fit their personalities? I mean tough guys seem to drive trucks, flashy people tend to choose bright colored cars or sports cars. Does anyone else see this as true amongst people you know? I suppose that's why they make so many styles, colors, etc. But if this is the case, I might be worried. See, my cars have ALWAYS been pretty non-de-script. An American Idol judge would no doubt call my choice of vehicles "safe". I could easily blend into traffic and get lost in a crowd. So what does that say about ME? Not that this should be about ME, but I was just wondering what you guys think...

ANYWAY, that's enough of a picture into my bizarre thought patterns for one day. Come back next week for more randomness.

Inanimate Sentimentality

Today's Thinkbox drawing (chosen by my beloved husband) garnered the following question:  "Do you remember your family getting a new piece of furniture, a new car, or something similar when you were a child?"

As long as I can remember I've always had an unnatural attachment to things.  The mass quantity of boxes in my basement are a true testament to that fact.  I have old notes from middle school, tokens of love from high school, reports and papers from college.  Shoes I wore to the prom, a shirt an ex-boyfriend let me keep, old cats-eye glasses of my grandmother's.  Each item holds a memory, an old feeling, a reminiscent spark from a time gone by.  

It's a problem, really.  The number one reason why I find it so difficult to downsize and simplify my life.  But it's been this way for as long as I can remember.  I get attached easily to material things.  Which brings me to my answer to today's thinkbox question.

When I was little (I'd guess maybe 5 or 6) my parents traded in their grey station wagon (It had an actual name but I don't recall it at the moment - phantom?  ghost?)  Anyway, I vividly remember taking that car to the dealership where we were picking up our new (1980-something Renault Alliance!) and leaving that car behind.  I was DEVASTATED!  I clung to the backseat of that car and cried my little eyes out.  I was a mess!  I sat in that backseat and hugged the car, told the car that it had been a good car, that it wouldn't be forgotten...Sad, I know.  Ok, less sad - more pathetic.  But still - I was genuinely torn up!

What does this say, besides that I'm a freak?  Ultimately I think this really shows that I hate change.  At least in the case of the car.  I was NOT ready to warm up to a new car - a new seating arrangement, new fit and feel, or perhaps I was simply hesitant to have to learn the new location of the cupholders.  Who knows, really?  

As for my boxes in the basement.  That is more about my fear of forgetting.  I have a horrible memory and holding on to STUFF dupes me into thinking that I will somehow remember all the adventures, mishaps, relationships, and fun I've had along the way.  Too bad that doesn't guarantee anything.  

Lord help me when it comes time to trade in my precious Honda Civic!  Millie has been very good to me for the last 10 years and 120,000 miles!  And truth be told, I'm not ready to have to figure out how to re-program a new clock for Daylight Savings Time!  Oh, no!  I can feel the tears welling up as I write this!  Does anyone have a tissue?!?