I just got back from a weekend in Chico where the temperature topped out at 115°.
Jesse (six, obsessed with Pokémon) is fascinated by my advanced age, and often asks questions about it. He was curious, for example, to know whether or not there are any other people alive today who are as old as I am, and was amazed to learn that, yes, in fact there are some even more ancient and still not dead yet.
Ember (ten, obsessed with Minecraft) and I stayed at a nice, roomy AirBnB for two nights. We would have spent more time on the front porch had it not been for the extreme heat. Here’s her portrait of her Mama Ginna.
She is fanatical in her hatred of having her picture taken but for some reason allowed this:
Ruby (nine months, obsessed with breasts) warmed my heart by reaching out for me to pick her up as I was getting ready to leave. She is a cheery little (well, not so little; she weighs about 25 pounds) bug. Here, she was entertained by her sister thumping around on the porch next to her.
Question: What do these things have in common?
- A travel backgammon set
- A wooden 5×7 picture frame
- A couple of stuff sacks
- A stack of index cards
Answer: They’re among the things that…
- I’ve had in my possession for years.
- I searched the house for yesterday.
- I remembered I gave to Goodwill three weeks ago.
- I now must replace.
Not only that, sometime last year when I washed my favorite SmartWool socks, one of the pair mysteriously vanished. For all these months, I’ve kept the other in my drawer, hoping for a happy reunion. But last week I finally gave up hope and tossed it. You know where this story is going: the day after Waste Management hauled away my trash, the mate emerged from inside a folded pillowcase.
The moral: never, ever even dream about throwing out anything unless you want to suffer through a life of regret.
On the other hand — how about the satisfaction of freeing yourself / house of ACRES of un-needed –nay, mildewed — objects ( clearing space for more things to creep in!)) A breath of fresh air!!
Lovely photos all around!
As the famous saying goes: “‘Tis better to have loved and lost many miscellaneous objects and then had to repurchase them a month later, than never to have loved at all.”
Petite: But you see, EVERYTHING is needed, except the mildewed stuff that I had no qualms about sending off to new frontiers.
Lulu: Ah, yes: THAT old chestnut. It shall become my new mantra.
I have had a couple of teapot lids on my kitchen windowsill since spring 2019, when we had pack up the kitchen before it was redone. I’d finally given their respective pots to Out of the Closet when I couldn’t find the tops anywhere. Then, of course, the lids showed up in the back of/under/behind pull out shelves. I keep them to remind myself to not act so hastily.
Ellen: ACK, that’s frustrating! How hastily did you act: was it days, weeks or months between your purging of pots and the discovery of their lids?