Stories of Stuff

Like most people, I have seasons of accumulation and seasons of divestment. Sometimes, it's even at the same time, I'm chucking and acquiring all at once, in different categories. 

In my fifties, I desperately wanted to renovate my basement, but the huge barrier was getting rid of all of the stuff that had accumulated there, from my several moves and my mother's big downsizing into an apartment. I worked away at it, and finally declared defeat and hired someone to finish the job. "Just get rid of it, and keep it out of the landfill" I said. By then, I had picked through it, and successfully disposed of most items of value. But some stuff I wasn't prepared to sort or part with, and so it all went into boxes to be stored in a shed in the back yard until the renovation was complete. Then, when my beautiful basement was complete, I sorted before allowing anything back in. Much stuff was gotten rid of. The basement was furnished, but uncluttered.

Then, my mother died.  Not tragically, at 92 she was just beginning to fail, but suddenly, and unexpected at that particular time. Among the tasks that fell to me was the cleaning out of her apartment. 

I was pretty organized back when I started in the storage unit

"Gosh, she has a lot of nice stuff! I mean, it's really nice, but it's a lot!" was the universal comment that came from everyone that came in to help. Yes, yes it was. I had embraced the philosophy of minimalism (though not entirely the practices, in fairness). All this very nice stuff. What to do with it?  I wrote about the struggles at the time.

I'm now down to the last remaining items in the storage unit I rented. To get it cleared out, I brought several boxes home, where they are cluttering up my office and spare bedroom. I'm done with most of the sentimentality that made me want to hang on to things. But, I do have sadness for the stories that attach to the objects. I had an idea years ago - about the time I retired, before my mother died, of using a blog as the place to capture the stuff and tell the stories. I even started the documentation when I retired. I had a big box of awards I had gotten at work, and I was never going to hang them up on the wall at home. So I photographed them, and blogged about them, in a separate blog. But I never published it, and shortly after, overwhelm hit me and I never got back to it.

But now I have picked it up again. I have some objects I am going to dispose of, and the blog posts are partly advertisements! Other things, I'll just write about without trying to flog them off on anyone. They may be gone already, anyway.

So, take a look at my Stories of Stuff blog.

 

Big Feet

I did another Marie Kondo event, this time on my shoes. It was partly prompted by buying new hiking boots. The ones I had worked ok, except after a couple of hours my feet hurt in them. I was nervous about buying new boots because you can't tell about that "after a couple of hours" in a shoe store, much less on line. So I went to REI and got measured. I was shocked to hear the sales guy recommending a full size up in length from what I thought I needed! (BTW, new hiking boots working great, have worn for hours and miles. Still glad to take them off afterwards, but no pain.)

It was also partly prompted by what I went through getting shoes for the fancy wedding I went to this summer. I don't wear heels, and I won't, but I did feel the need to make an effort in the flats. I realized NOTHING I had in my closet would work for several hours mostly on my feet in a dress, so I mail ordered three pairs of sort-of-fancy but flat and wide shoes, and ending up keeping two pairs. I may have been the only woman at the wedding that never changed her shoes on board. How crazy is it that women can't have shoes that both feel good and make us happy that they look good? I find the tradeoff unacceptable, and I refuse to compromise on a basic level of comfort. [End of Shoe Rant]

Since I retired, I haven't needed to dress up hardly at all. I just wear my sneakers or sandals almost everywhere. That doubled down with the pandemic, where many days I never ventured farther than around-the-block with the dog, and flip flops or slippers actually sufficed. So maybe the lack of structured shoes led to my feet spreading out in all directions? Also, I've gained weight, and perhaps that has had an affect. And, I have a huge bunion on my right foot, making it quite misshapen, distorting all the toes on that foot. I recently regarded my left foot, and noted how attractive it is, just a normal foot with straight toes. Maybe some day I'll consult a doctor about the right foot distortion, but for now, if my shoes fit, my foot doesn't hurt, so why pursue a medical surgical solution?  It just makes it harder to get shoes that fit.

So I retrieved all my shoes from three different spots in the house, and laid them all out. The picture shows just leather shoes, "work shoes". I had different arrays of sneakers and sandals. First went away any too worn, or that I never liked anyway. Then I tried on some favorites, and was distressed that some of the ones I liked a lot really didn't fit. So I finally got down to a much smaller shoe collection. In fact, I may end up buying some shoes to fill holes in the uses. I remain on a search for casual shoes as comfortable as sneakers but that look nicer. Obviously, I will size up any new shoes I buy.

When I retired, I decided all my work clothes would stay in my closet for at least a year, until I saw what my life was going to be like. Again, the pandemic changed all that, and so I have literally a closet full of clothes where I haven't touched maybe 90% of them since 2019. I'll get around to them, probably this winter as I move more activities inside. But next up on the clothes pruning list is hats, gloves, and scarves. I've spread the storage over two different places, (plus pockets of coats) and it's time to consolidate and prune. I got through last winter without having to buy new gloves, hooray! I was pretty sure I own a warm wool beanie from Norway, so I didn't buy another for myself from the constant opportunities to shop in Iceland, but now I can't find the one I'm looking for. Time to dig deeper.

Sock Explosion

How many pairs of socks can a person own? It appears like too many! Ever since I stopped buying cotton socks, no sock of mine has ever worn out. For a while, I was losing them to the Very Hungry Labrador, but that's over now. No Christmas holiday goes past without socks given and received. And hardly any trip to Costco goes by without a pass through the sock display. And socks are the easy, likely-to-fit, easy premium to be stashed in a goody bag at any sporting event. And they just keep piling up!

So I Marie Kondo'd them. I found them stashed in three places in my room, plus I finished all the laundry to be sure I had them all. First, I got rid of those with no spark of joy - that was a whole grocery bag full. Then, I sorted what was left: running socks, hiking socks, thick wool winter socks, cool short and thin summer socks, dress socks.... I weeded them down further within categories - I don't need 10 pair of hiking socks! But I do need socks to match each pair of running or walking shoes, with different color stories each. With what is left, it seems like a whole lot. Three dozen, plus compression socks and huge non-skid welcome-home-from-the-hospital socks, and Christmas socks (but only 3 pair of Christmas socks, not 5) and Thanksgiving socks! But I freed up more space in my dresser drawers.

Room Reveal

I decided to act on updating my room variously known as Rocky's Room, Abbey's Room, The Dog's Room, the TV Room, the Sun Room, and The Porch. In a big stroke of luck, I contacted my contractor just as he had a room-sized hole in his schedule. As a result, from deciding to act to having it done was less than a month total. This almost never happens! Here is a link to the post from a month ago when I was poised to move forward. When I spoke to the contractor who did my basement, we worked out a reasonable scope of work for a reasonable price, and I just went ahead without getting any other bids. I had to leap into action going through my piled up stuff and especially books. I took ten brown grocery bags of books to the library bookstore, yay! And now I'm sitting in this updated room, all cozy with new heat and clean walls and books I can actually access and my plants, and I'm thrilled!

This shows the cluttered corner
with books wedged into the shelves

As often happens, I don't have good "before" pictures. I was pretty good about taking the "during" photos. As soon as I was well moved back in I quickly took the "after" pix, before I start messing and cluttering up the place.

   

 

 

 

 

 

Just started - air conditioner out of the wall,
electric baseboard heaters next

Drywall going up. See the hole where the a/c used to be.
Drywall going on top of the paneling. 

Ready for paint!

Painted! I'm shampooing the rug before moving back in.

EEEK! A hole in my wall!

The outdoor component of the mini-split

This was funny - when they pulled the baseboard and heating unit off this wall, what seemed to be an entire bag of dog food fell out! There have often been mice in this room, but it seems a little excessive to think they stored all of this. Maybe it just came from Rocky throwing it around accidentally - I did used to feed him in this room.

Done! I mostly sit in the chair here, so this is my view,
and Bixby mostly stays on patrol looking out the front window.

Done! The furniture will be adjusted some more,
but all the components are in place.

Done! This is the view no-one gets from this corner.
I used the phone's wide-angle lens, and you can see the
mini-split near the ceiling.

Clearing Out

Once upon a time, photography was one of my main hobbies. As is my wont, when I’m into something I can be all in. I always had a camera with me, and I learned to see the world with an eye to lighting and framing. I took classes, I read books, I subscribed to magazines, and of course I acquired equipment! My mind is going right now to a longer essay about how photography has influenced my life, but that’s not the post I had in mind when I started this, so I’m going to push ahead on my original intent. While I did learn how to develop and print in a darkroom, I never got into that aspect of photography, and so didn’t gadget up for that.

I plunged into the world of high-end SLR photography in the early 1990s, the dark ages of miniaturization of electronics, and firmly still in the world of film. I went with the Nikon brand for my camera backs and changeable lenses and was fortunate that they have had a commitment to compatibility - lenses I bought back in the beginning still work on the latest cameras. But, as things got “smarter”, not all functionality transfers. The quality of lenses depends largely on the quality of the glass, however, not on its electronics. And I bought some very high quality lenses.

I also wanted to always have a camera with me. Sometimes things happened, or light became extraordinary, and a pocket camera would be just the ticket. I did NOT have a camera with me on 9/11, and that prompted me to buy my first ever digital camera, a pocketable Nikon. 

The last time I used my film cameras was around 2006, when I went on a big vacation with my first digital SLR, also a Nikon. That was also about when phones started having cameras, but not very good ones. Pocket digital cameras, however, started becoming very very good. So I kept buying equipment, but what I got shifted. But I never got rid of anything! 

One ooky day this past week I decided to tackle the issue of camera equipment. The huge pile of cameras, lenses, accessories, and especially cords and wires took up half of a closet. And since I never trusted cameras to the formerly damp basement, it was prime closet space off the dining room. I could think of better uses for the space. 

I laid everything out on the dining room table, sorting, and figuring out what went together and what still worked and what was just trash. Then became the hard part - I had to decide what I might want to keep and what could go away. And related, what might have some value to someone else, and how could I keep it out of the landfill?

Pocket film and digital cameras were easy for me to part with. I have one nice pocket digital camera that I definitely use, but the rest (some from my mother) could go. Hooray, posting on the neighborhood listserve found homes for all I was willing to part with. Oddly, young people want to experiment with film. Parents want digital cameras for their kids trying to stave off phones for them.  I also had a vintage 1950s film camera, and a broken digital one with retro good looks, and someone else in the neighborhood took them for display purposes. Win win win!

I will definitely part with my Nikon film camera back. I will not got back to film. But all the other SLR equipment I can’t decide about. The digital camera back I have is from 2011, but it was high end and is still good. I do not know if I’m going to use it again, but I can’t quite part with it. And as long as I might use it, I am also hanging on to at least some of the ten lenses and the many many accessories I have to go with it. At least for now. I put all the stuff I have left into a big box, and its in my spare room until I’m ready to take the next step to sort and dispose. I imagine taking out the camera back, and doing some photography around here with some of the nicer lenses, and trying to decide if I should keep any of this at all. Will I ever use it? I’m not likely to ever schlep it on a trip that involves airplanes. Too heavy and bulky.

So what I have that I definitely use are a very nice pocket digital camera (bought in 2011), and a high end Sony self-contained large and heavy digital camera I bought for my cancelled 2020 trip to Iceland. I don’t know how to use all the features of the Sony camera, and perhaps I should focus on that instead of idle dreams about the SLR. The joy is that I don’t have to decide this now, it can wait a while.

I believe I will be able to find someone to take all of the Nikon equipment that I’m willing to part with in a batch. When I’m ready to part with it, I’ll start by putting out feelers among young people I know that are in the local art scene. I know some of this equipment has monetary value, but not enough money that I’m willing to go through the extra trouble of actually selling it myself. I won’t mind if someone takes it all and sells it because I just want it to be used.

Family Archives

My mother in high school

I am the family archivist. This comes to me naturally. I was the family photographer, starting in the 1980s. I physically inherited boxes of documents and photos from my father and my mother. I had a brief engagement with family genealogy in the 1990s, and have some partial family trees from that era. I missed an opportunity to review old family photos with my mother, and so a lot of that knowledge is lost forever. Who are these old people in these stiff and faded photos? I just remember old Hester Anne, with her clay pipe, born in 1830. But where on the family tree is she?

I'm paying for a storage unit, where I put some furniture and many boxes after my mother died. I finally decided I needed to make a start on the boxes. I stopped by, and brought a few home and tossed them in the spare room. But before I tackled them, I though I spend a few minutes on the stuff already at my house.

My father in 1952,
when he got his PhD

I was quickly overwhelmed. There is simply too much, it's too diverse, I couldn't decide how to handle it. My initial thought had been to sort and scan as I went, tossing some things outright, others after a scan, and saving few physical items. Though my desktop scanner is of decent quality, it is very slow, and I realized Plan A was simply not going to work. So I stepped back, and spent some time thinking and researching how to organize the project. I didn't want to get too far into it before having to re-do everything I'd already done.

I'm a natural librarian, and I have professional librarian friends. I also have friends in similar situations wanting to tackle similar projects. So I got some sage advice, from physically how to handle the materials to digitally how to set up a filing system. One of the main points is to do a physical sort first, without engaging with any of the materials in depth. Sorting by family branch / family member, and/or by year, seem to be the leading alternatives. And, toss stuff in this first sort. Be realistic. My parents traveled a lot, but does anyone need pictures they took of European buildings, with no recognizable people? Of course not. Keep a trash bag nearby.

It's hard to stick to the guideline of "don't engage" when dealing with documents (as opposed to photos). I have to review them enough to know what I'm looking at. And then it can be hard not to get sucked in. For example, I found a stack of sympathy cards I had received after my sister died. My memories of that time are extremely hazy. I sat down and looked at all the cards, and put them into an archival envelope to keep. They won't be scanned, but maybe I'll look at them again in a few years.

At that point, I realized why the advice is not to engage with the material as you move through it. I was a little bit comforted and also a little bit blue after going through those little bits of thoughtfulness that had come at my most bleak time ever. I needed another break before getting back to it.

So today, with two inches of rain forecast, I dove back in. There was necessarily some spool-up time, as I needed to remind myself how I was doing the physical sort. I know I've decided many photos need to be scanned by a service as doing it myself isn't physically possible. But each service has its rules for how to sort and label batches, so for the time being I'm just grouping by rough family group and date. So all of those will need to be handled again, when I review detailed instructions from a scanning service. Documents can also follow the same rough sort, with another distinction between records (diplomas, birth certificates) and more personal stuff. Probably, documents that get scanned will be scanned by me.

Hester Anne. Note clay pipe.
One of the girls is probably my grandmother

I pulled out a bag - roughly a plastic grocery bag sized bag, and dove in. As it turned out, this bag held stuff from my father's mother, Haila Yvonne Miller Shellabarger. It appears she saved every letter or photograph my father ever sent her. The big surprise - and a treasure trove - is that he wrote to her a lot.  In 1957, the year my family first lived in London, he typed out a tissue-thin blue air letter nearly every week to her. Mundane doings of our young naive American family having an adventure abroad. But there are letters before and after that time as well - somewhere between 50 and 100 in total, I guess. So I sorted out the letters by year, and put them in envelopes for dealing with later. I'm really looking forward to working my way through them. But for now, they are all in a box labelled "Shellabarger - to be scanned."

Most of the photographs are copies my parents sent them. Everything peters out in the mid-1960s. Did long distance become affordable then? Or maybe, more recent things are in another box!

So I packed everything up again, and I'll do more sorting and organizing when next it rains or snows - that will be Wednesday, most likely!

Clothes

When I retired, I decided I wouldn’t touch my work clothes for a year, to give myself four seasons to figure out what I might actually wear going forward. This hasn’t been a year that is a fair test of what I might wear, obviously. But I own too many clothes and I feel the need for a purge coming on.

I did a major clothes and closet makeover back in 2012 (and wrote about it here, here, and here). I just re-read all of those posts, so you don’t have to. You’re welcome. Basically, I took all the clothes out of my room, demo’d my old closet, installed new racks and shelves but no doors, and then only allowed clothes back into my room that I would wear right then. And, I vowed to not own more clothes than fit in my newly efficient room. This was not really a big constraint, because in addition to the closet (which has room for boxes on top of the hanging racks) I have five chests of drawers in my bedroom, ranging from small to medium. Work clothes almost entirely hang in the closet, and all other clothes are in drawers.

The visual approach really worked for my work clothes - having everything hanging out where I could see them helped me get dressed in the mornings. But, looking at those clothes now, I think maybe they are getting dirty or fading, being “out there”. So I’ve just ordered a hanging curtain to block the light and keep them less dusty. But that is purely cosmetic, and doesn’t deal with deciding what I want to own going forward.

My unstable weight has contributed to the problem. I have continued to buy clothes, mostly in bigger sizes that are more comfortable now. The weight started to come on in my last two years of work. At first, I resisted buying new because I assumed I would lose the weight as quickly as I gained it. Alas, no. But then I was within spitting distance of retirement and I resisted buying good clothes knowing I wouldn’t need them all. In fact, I had a knee operation six months before I retired, and used that as an excuse to start wearing yoga pants to work. I kept that up until the end, supplemented with dresses that would work for a wider range of weights than my tailored pants.

So, paradoxically, I have too many clothes but not much in the way of good clothes that fit right now. I need a plan (having a plan makes me feel just about as good as actually doing something). How about this: save doing anything about it for a stretch of bad weather. And in the meantime, buy nothing. Maybe do laundry more often to get by.

Sewing

I fetched the sewing machine from the basement, along with the five boxes of fabric and the three sewing boxes that were there. (The sewing boxes were mine, my mother’s, and my mother’s friend’s.) First, I sorted through the sewing boxes and consolidated and tossed. Then, I sorted fabrics, looking for cotton good for masks. The cotton fabric I washed and dried twice on super hot cycles - not for decontamination, but to shrink before sewing. I also consolidated, folded, and tossed my other fabrics, down to three boxes. And I found elastic and bias tape and other notions.

Finally, I pulled out the sewing machine, which I bought in 1981. It squealed when I started it - loud enough to drown out the radio. As it turns out, this happened the last time I used the sewing machine two years ago. Not only did I have “sewing machine oil” from back then, I had seen it recently and was able to find it quickly! There came a couple of hours of dismantling it, oiling the eighteen points listed in the manual, trying it out again, taking it apart again, running it by hand, running it with test fabric, trying to mop up the oil so it didn’t cover the fabric when I was sewing...

So just twelve hours later I had four masks! They smell slightly of machine oil, but will be laundered well. I suspect the next few masks will be faster.

These are not medical grade masks. They don’t meet the specs of our local hospital’s donation site - I don’t have the proper materials or skills for those masks. But, I read, they can do an effective job for what is important for the apparently healthy general population: protecting others from me in case I’m not actually healthy, and keeping me from touching my own face, thus statistically slowing the spread. They could provide a small amount of protection for me from unhealthy people I am exposed to. But if everyone wears these when out and about, it will help slow the spread overall. And these stay in place better than bandanas and are easy to breathe through.

So my plan is to make them for my family, friends, and neighbors. Doing this gives me some illusion of control and helping. I can while away nights and rainy days when I can’t be in the garden for a while, listening to books and podcasts.

Home Refresh

The kitchen and office updates are (just about) done. There always seems to be this dragging 2% that takes forever - in this case, switch plate covers. But here are Before and After pictures!

Notice not just the drab counters but also the clutter!
The big flowers were from Ikea -
my girl and I brightened up a winter day long ago.

View from the other end- food stored on the counters.

I had started to store a lot of stuff out on the counters. After I cleared it out, I liked the uncluttered look and tried to keep it.

 I kept the cabinets, appliances, and floor. I changed the cabinet pulls, the countertop, the backsplash, and the wall color. I also had to do the sink, the faucet, and the disposal. Overall, it completely transforms the space!

The backsplash was where I put my energy, though the quartz countertop was the most money. I went to several places before finding the tiles I wanted. I had started with only vague ideas of what I was looking for, fueled by HGTV. I sharpened my focus on the internet, and found what appealed to me on pinterest.

This is as de-cluttered as it gets. A new fridge is in my future.
I also will get new dish towels.

At the tile shops, I found the ceramic tiles dull, and I knew I didn't want a busy pattern. Glass tiles added depth, and they change dramatically with the light. I finally found, on the internet, a local tile shop that seemed very promising. An opportunistic trip (it was a block from my dermatologist) led to the answer. I had brought a drawer front and a counter sample along, and agreed with the design rep on a predominate glass tile color salted with a complementary color in a random pattern. I drew out the pattern to scale on the computer one night, and I'm thrilled with the result.

My fresh veggies and cutting board will stay out.
The lower open shelves hold recycling staging and kitchen towels.

 The cabinet pulls are from Home Depot - I swear I looked at all 657 choices on-line. I informed my choices by looking at and touching the in-store stock, but on-line had a wider spectrum of choices. I ended up special order, but it was still just a couple of days.

My sink is really deep - I bought a sink with an added inch of depth, and then the mounting under the countertop adds more than another inch (which then required some jiggering to fit the disposal in). A small dog could go swimming in there. I can store my dish soap and sponges inside the sink to keep the countertop clear. The big, arched, faucet is all the style, but I find it splashes more than my old one.

As things went back in the kitchen, I scrubbed all the cabinet doors and insides. I got rid of a few things, but mostly I re-arranged. Items seldom used went to the basement (which may be staging for eventual disposal) and I moved things around so the most used item became more accessible. I treated myself to a visit to the Container Store and got some back-of-cabinet door racks to increase the amount of area easily accessible. And the huge Instant Pot, which I use pretty often, lives out of sight!

Just for fun, I moved the countertop appliances around. The microwave is where the toaster oven was, the toaster oven sits where the coffee pot was, and the coffee pot is by the kitchen door where I used to keep fresh veggies. My huge stash of dog treats and dog accessories has been either put away or put into nice canisters. Right now, I'm motivated to keep the place bare. I stroke the countertops and touch the backsplash, finger the substantial drawer pulls, and love being in there. We'll see how it evolves as I start really inhabiting it, cooking and just living there.

Before

The other project was the office. There, I had a formica countertop that wrapped around, and I wanted to get rid of the part that was designed to be a desk. I never use it, (now that I have laptop and don't spend hours working on documents or photos) and it just took up space.

During

I bought a standard-sized countertop from Ikea, which was (frustratingly) ONE inch too small to fit the existing layout of the lower cabinets. I knew this when I bought it - the contractors said "oh, it's easy to just slide the cabinet base over a couple of inches". Thus, the dominoes start to fall:  baseboards, flooring, what else is affected? We managed to contain the effort, and I love the additional space and light from the fresh color on the walls.

After. Still clutter to clear from the countertop

This room has a high shelf that wraps around - to pull in and make whole the space over the basement stairs. I had a small collection of birds picked up on my travels over the years. This was a tendency adopted from my mother, who had a large collection of birds. After the construction was done, I integrated the two collections and put them up on that shelf.

Like the kitchen, I also emptied out the cabinets and thought through what I needed to keep or toss, and how to organize it to make it accessible. (I spent a couple of hours in front of the TV trying all the ballpoint pens that were in a big box.) I've got the paper and file folders all squared away, but I have a lot of electronic bits, cords, and gadgets still to deal with. Many of them are in two other closets (and even the basement) and I'll need a long day or two to consolidate and sort out.

I also had the living room ceiling painted - it had been damaged years ago by a leak - I got a new roof, eventually new drywall, but the paint waited until now. So to close, pictures of the disruption during the work.

Home Ergonomics

“Before” - my cluttered office with morning light

I’m in the middle of getting an update to my office and kitchen. Much less than a full renovation, but exciting enough - for the kitchen, new countertops, backsplash, sink and faucet, new paint (with new colors) and new cabinet handles. For the office, new countertop and paint. There will be plenty of pictures, once I get to the “after” stage for before and afters. But right now, I’m thinking about any changes I may want to make as part of moving back in.

Since I kept all the kitchen cabinets and appliances, I didn’t need to completely empty the kitchen. But I did need to get everything off the counter and open shelves, window sills, any surfaces. Also, I emptied the top drawer of each cabinet bank, so there was room to demolish the old and install the new stuff. All of that stuff is now out on tables and floors in other rooms. I was struck by how much stuff I had out. It’s clutter, guys. The stuff that was out in the open tends to be the stuff I use all the time, but there is stuff in the cabinets that I hardly use at all. When I get to move back into the kitchen, it’s going be a process of making sure everything in there needs to be in there. And everything out in the open really needs to be out all the time. And, that things are placed where I want them placed, for how I will actually use the kitchen.

I just had a fun conversation with my contractor about where to put things when I go back. It’s good to be challenged. I’m going to need to find places out on the counter for my microwave, my coffee pot, and my toaster oven, all of which I use all the time. I’ve also had a jar for putting my most often used hand tools sitting out next to the stove. But I’ve had places for dog treats (need to be high up and out of his reach!), cutting boards, knives, water bottles and travel mugs, trays, vases, and non-refrigerated fruits and vegetables. I’ve had a cart that holds linen towels, a recycling staging area, and my instant pot. It added up to a lot of clutter. If I’m going to put all of these things away, I will need to pull things out of my cabinets or off my open shelves to make room.

I’ve got space in my new basement on open shelving, where I can put things I’m not willing to get rid of entirely. But definitely, it’s time to part with more stuff that I just don’t use. Things should only go in the basement if I am going to use them sometime. But things I don’t use too often. I found out a couple of years ago, when I wanted to cook more, that putting the cuisinart in a cabinet below the food prep counter meant I used it more than I did when it was stored in another room entirely. Going to get it was one more hurdle to cooking.

Should the microwave go next to the stove instead of across from it? Do I want to keep my longest stretch of countertop clear for food prep? Can I find an accessible, but out of view, place to put the cutting boards and trays? Do the knives go back in a drawer or will I find a place for my magnetic knife rack? Can I make room in a lower cabinet for the instant pot? (I already keep the cuisinart, rice cooker, and mini-chop down there.) Thinking systematically about this stuff will make my life easier.

Warring with my desire for clear, uncluttered surfaces is my awareness that I’m very visually driven. If I have cool things put away where I never see them, I don’t think about them. That’s one of the reasons I like to keep my fresh fruits and veggies out - so I remember to eat them before they go bad. Also, accessibility is crucial. I’m short. I’m getting older. My cabinets go up to the ceiling, but it takes a tall stepladder, not just a step stool, for me to reach the top shelves. Probably, there are things on the top shelves that have been there for years and not used, that could go away. But I couldn’t use that space for anything that will be needed more than a couple of times a year. The good news on things for entertaining is most often I am entertaining my family, all of whom are younger and taller than me. So, they get the job of reaching the inaccessible stuff!

I should be able to start this process of moving back in as early as tomorrow. This will be fun!

How Much is Too Much?

Bags is the first of many issues in this closet.
I’m going in! Send help if I’m not heard from.

I am truly my mother’s daughter when it comes to bags. I have kept daypacks, briefcases, messenger bags, and tote bags all in a closet in my office. But it’s gotten ridiculous - I need to get rid of some of them. Eight daypacks is at least a couple too many, yes? But almost every one of them sparks some joy in me. Each has its good points, things that compensate for the drawbacks of one of the others.

So I did the Kondo thing and pulled them all out, added a few bags that had found other homes, and tried hard to divest myself of most of them. I invited my girl to take her pick, and she went for one of my favorites! But it was my fourth favorite, not my first or even my second, so I let her keep it. I’ve put some of the others into a bag, waiting for drop-off at the donation center.

But its hard. I don’t know why I like bags so much. I happened to be in the Container Store this week and of course I browsed the bags - they have some with features I like. But they are not substantially different from the ones I have, just colors and combinations I don’t have... But no. Not now.