The Gift and the Curse

Ed says that every gift is a curse and vice versa. All my experience has proven him right.
At this time of downsizing, however, I can see the wisdom of that clearly.

I'm thinking about choices today. When I was young, the grocery didn't offer the overwhelming amount of choices we have today. For instance, we had white bread, more white bread, maybe something like rye and Roman Meal. Go into a store today and take a look at the bread aisle.
Unbelievable! Even narrowing it down to sliced bread is too much. Whole wheat spelt? Organic? 10-grain, 7-grain, 12-grain? Oat? Regular whole wheat or soft? What about extra fiber whole wheat? Hearty whole wheat? Half the calories whole wheat? Half the carbs? Bread made especially for toasting? Sourdough? Bread with nuts or seeds? Pumpernickel? Cinnamon? Not to mention the other kinds of bread - the hot dog buns, hamburger buns, sub rolls, olive rolls, French and Italian breads, pita, tortillas, etc. It must be quite a culture shock for a person from a developing country to walk into an American grocery. That person is probably happy just to be able to eat bread - any kind of bread.

After we decided to probably build a house, we had to make countless choices. I HATE CHOICES! I have always had a hard time making up my mind about anything. Even in a restaurant, I will order what I want, then when the food arrives, look longingly at someone else's plate and I will wish I had ordered that instead. (I inherited that tendency from my grandfather, JW McDonald.) I could never serve on a jury. The prosecution would convince me of the perpretrator's guilt, and then the defense would come along and completely change my mind.

Back to the house. Choice of countertops. Ed's the cook, so the kitchen is his realm and I was along for the ride. Soapstone? Corian? Formica? Granite? Concrete? Tile? Marble? I had no idea there were so many choices for countertops. Forget color choices - it was hard enough to weigh and pros and cons of basic material!

OK, Ed decided on a butcher block countertop. He asked the salesperson to give him an idea on price comparison between butcher block and all the other types of counters. The lady said, "It depends." (Oh, by the way, I hate that expression too.) It depends on what? On what type of butcher block. She opened a humongous catalog of butcher block countertops. She said, "First you choose the wood. Maple and oak, for instance, are cheaper than the exotic woods." (Then she listed a whole bunch of woods, some I've heard of, some I haven't.) She continued. "Then after you narrow it down to the type of wood, you have to make some other choices." She pointed to a picture. "Here," she said, "you see the grain is balanced." She moved her finger down. "Here," she said, you see the grain is different." She showed us more grain pictures. (Looks like the grain in flour is not the only grain messing with my head!!) Then she turned a page. "OK, now right here," she said, "you can see a whole countertop without seams. A little cheaper than that, you can get seams. This picture shows evenly spaced seams. Cheaper still are non-evenly spaced seams." She turned another page. "Then you must choose the edge. We have straight edges, rounded edges, beveled edges..." And on and on she went. Amazing. And that's just for the countertops!

Just when my brain could hold no more information, we walked over to the floor section.
Here again - who on earth deserves to be faced with so many choices??? Pergo, cork floor, tile floor, stone floor, vinyl that looks like brick, vinyl that looks like wood, vinyl that looks like tile, tile that looks like vinyl, wood that looks like brick, vinyl that looks like stone, and - yes - bamboo, currently a popular choice. Then there's carpet.

Even narrowing the floor choices to wood, it's still too much. They have wide plank, medium plank, and one Ed likes which consists of cuts of the end of 2 x 4's made to look like brick. They even sell special wood planks hand scraped by Amish men who signed the back of each plank! There are certain finishes available, too. Here's one web site's version:

Factory Prefinished Hardwood Flooring
Wood floors that have been factory finished before they are installed.

UV-cured � Factory finishes that are cured with Ultra Violet lights versus heat.

Polyurethane � A clear, tough and durable finish that is applied as a wear layer.

Acrylic-urethane � A slightly different chemical make up than Polyurethane with the same benefits.

Ceramic � Advanced technology that allows the use of space-age ceramics to increase the abrasion resistance of the wear layer. See Award Hardwood Floors WearMax finish.

Aluminum Oxide � Added to the urethane finish for increased abrasion resistance of the wear layer, which is becoming extremely popular on the better grade wood floors.

Acrylic Impregnated � Acrylic monomers are injected into the cell structure of the wood to give increased hardness and then finished with a wear layer over the wood.

Good grief!!!!! We have to choose either white oak, American maple, Brazilian cherry, Brazilian teak, American cherry, ash, Appaloosa, hickory, mahogany, birch, pecan, walnut - and each of these woods is subdivided into styles and finishes, e.g., "rustic," and then you have the color variations and tones.

The thing that makes this so hard is that it is different than choosing a loaf of bread. This will be very expensive and whatever decision we make we will be stuck with for a long time.

I just can't stand it! I'm trying to simplify and all these choices do not make it simple!!

Stranger in our Midst

One of my favorite things to do these days when I'm hanging around the house is to watch the cars go by and see if they slow down to look at the house when they see the "for sale" sign. I can't see the drivers' faces, but I consider it a hopeful sign that they slowed down to look.

Late yesterday afternoon Ed was preparing dinner in the kitchen when he commented, "There's a lady who looks like she's turning around in our driveway."
"Really?!" I said. "Is she just turning around or did she stop?"
"She's still there," said Ed, turning toward the stove. "She backed in."
"Is she looking at the "for sale" sign?" I asked.
"How do I know?" he said as he stirred a pot.
I ran to the sink which overlooks the driveway. The window there is a bay window which juts out and I had to really contort my neck to get a good look. The lady (I think it was a lady, could have been a man) was definitely stopped at the edge of the driveway, close enough to read the phone number on the sign. Dang it, I wished I had an easier view!
"I can't see the license plate," I murmured. "I can't tell if it is out of state." (Ed has this idea that the house is too expensive for locals and he thinks an out-of-stater will buy it.)
The lady just sat there. Then I saw a flash of white.
"Hey! She's got paper! Maybe she's writing down the Alex's phone number!" (Alex is our real estate agent.)
Then I frowned. "It could be a map, though. Maybe she's lost."
Ed turned around. "Maybe she'll get out and walk around the yard like those people did a couple of weeks ago."
I stepped back to relieve my neck muscles, then took up my position again.
"She's still there fooling with the paper. Is she interested or not? We don't even know if she stopped because of the "for sale" sign or for something else. Lots of people stop in driveways to turn around for one reason or another."
Ed smiled. "Maybe she'll ring the doorbell at any minute!"
I said, "Maybe she's calling Alex from our driveway!" We laughed.
I looked again. "OK, she's pulling out. She's gone."
Oh, well. It was pleasant little diversion.

Less than 30 seconds later our phone rang. "Hey, it's Alex," he said. "Can I show your house Monday at 8:30? Someone just called me from your driveway."

Mixed Messages

When we first decided to start downsizing, I bought my husband a small sign that says "SIMPLIFY" and he put it where he could see it every day. (I got it mainly to remind him not to order a bunch of stuff from catalogs.)

I saw a different sign for sale yesterday. It simply said, "INDULGE." Isn't that just like our society? SIMPLIFY yet INDULGE. Kind of like the popular women's magazines which feature an article on how to lose weight right next to a recipe for a rich chocolate cake. I laughingly told Ed I would buy the INDULGE sign and he could hang it next to the SIMPLIFY sign and every day decide which sign he wanted to consider his advice for the day.

We are constantly bombarded by the written and broadcast media, who send very clear messages that we are to treat ourselves, whether it's with a luxurious shampoo or a car with a DVD player in it. Our very economy is based on consumption. Didn't George Bush give similar advice to the country after 9/11 - buy, buy, buy to help the economy?

My sister's blog today is bemoaning the media's messages to and influence on our children regarding their bodies and skills. I too am fed up with the media today. I guess our goal is to teach our kids and grandkids to weigh carefully what they are hearing and reading and use common sense and wisdom to help discern the direction their lives should take.

Journey to simplicity cannot be undertaken lightly, for there are distractions at every turn in the road.

Moose nightmare

After our "for sale" sign went up in the front yard, I had a nightmare. I dreamt I was walking down an isolated country road and saw moose up ahead. Now I just love moose! I always look forward to spotting one when we are driving around in that part of Maine. In the dream, as I came closer to the moose, I could see they were menacing with red eyes. They terrified me, as they looked like they wanted to attack, so I turned around and tried to nonchalantly walk back down the road, casting quick glances behind me. When I felt assured they were not chasing me, I started running until they were out of sight.

This nightmare was not hard to interpret. I love the idea of selling the house and moving to a smaller one, just like I love to see moose. But once the "for sale" sign hit the yard, I panicked. Maybe my desire is clouding my reason - what if this move is dangerous? What if it's the wrong decision? What if...what if...what if.... and I want to turn and run.

The subconscious mind is certainly intriguing!

Spring flowers

I just finished going through my last Past Box, so I'm in a pensive mood, I guess. I feel as if I've just watched a movie of a part of my life. This box was mostly centered around college. My parents kept every letter I wrote to home from college. I read through them tonight, then replaced them in the Past Box. I had forgotten that I had performed in so many places, playing piano/organ and singing. I don't sing much anymore, unfortunately. But all it takes is a program or bulletin and the past comes alive for me again. I remember the Pie Jesu I sang at Trinity UMC. I remember learning the Un Bel Di aria at Lambuth. Both those pieces of music I can still sing from memory (in Latin and Italian respectively). The music still lives for me, even if I don't sing it much.

I am 50 years old now. Somehow I have the feeling that I am starting the second half of my life, when in reality the expected lifespan for a woman in the U.S. is shorter than 100 years, so in fact I am well into the second half of my life. The time has really flown, and it seems that every week goes by faster than the preceding week. Our son will graduate from college in May, get married in July, and our daughter and her husband will have their second child in November. Amidst all those exciting events, we will be selling our house and moving only God knows where. I don't say that to be sarcastic; it is true. Only God knows. The older I get, the less I like the "not knowing."

I can handle my Past Boxes. The past is fixed and stationary now. It can't be changed. The joys, the sorrows, the memories, the regrets - all are fixed in the medium we call "time." Each day now I am closer to the end of my life, and sometimes I feel time is running out. I don't know where my sense of urgency comes from. Maybe it's because the news is filled with fear and unrest and disasters. Maybe it's because my memory isn't as clear as it used to be, and I interpret that as a warning sign of aging. Maybe it's because I have so many things I want to do and so many things I want to create. I want to leave behind more of myself than the contents of my Past Boxes.

I remember a story about an old man planting an apple tree. A boy watched him for awhile, then said, "You crazy old fool. You know you'll never live to enjoy eating a single apple from that tree." The old man nodded and said, "I'm not planting the tree for me."

Last fall Ed planted many, many bulbs in the yard - daffodil type flowers - that will be popping up when the weather in Maine decides grudgingly to admit it's spring and melt the snow. We may not even be living here to see the flowers. Or we may be living here, realizing that next spring someone else will be here to enjoy their beauty. Ed said that's why he likes the perennial bulbs better than the annuals. He likes to plant once and see the flowers come back again and again. Even though he may not be here in this location to enjoy the sight, at least others will benefit.

My sister is a gardener par excellence. She can understand seed, bulb, and growing analogies.

I guess that I am trying to understand, on my journey to simplicity, what is it I am planting on the way, why I am planting it, and the importance of investing time and energy in leaving part of myself for those who come after me (including one as-yet-unnamed baby due in November!).

It's a shame

I know it's an old joke, but it's a shame when you finally get around to fixing up your house to make it attractive to buyers, you kind of hate to sell it!

We're doing things around here that we should have done years ago. Instead we've just been living with the inconvenience. For 9 years!

Case in point: We have a closet in the kitchen, tall and narrow. When you open it up, there is an accessory hinged to the right side of the closet. This accessory is a stack of shelves which you pull forward and around to get into the back part of the closet. Now this stack of shelves is full of canned goods - heavy canned goods. The shelves weren't screwed in properly in the first place, and have progressively come unhinged enough to make it very difficult to pull them out and around as they were meant to do. You have to grasp the accessory, pull up on it (against the weight of all the cans) to enable it to clear an obstruction and release itself. We have been fighting (and cussing) this piece of equipment for the 9 years we have been here. We knew if a potential buyer came through the house and opened that closet up, they would cuss too. So my husband Ed decided to change it.

He completely unscrewed the accessory shelves and made the closet into a broom closet, with the back shelves used for cleaning supplies. He took the part he removed and stood it up in an adjoining little room (used to be the back porch for the house) and, with another set of bookshelves, made a walk-in pantry for all our food. Now it is a pleasure to open the kitchen closet, and it would be easy for someone to put a lock on it to keep young kids away from cleaning supplies.

My question: Why have we lived with that "inconvenience" for 9 years and now finally fixed it before we sell the house? Sometimes we wonder where our brains are.

Stress

OK, I'll admit it. I'm a worrier.

I'm pretty familiar with the Bible, being the daughter of a church leader and wife of a minister. There is one section of the Book of Matthew with which I never could find common ground:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than
food, and the body more important than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable
than they?
27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[1] ?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these."

Those verses never made much sense to me. Oh, I understand verse 27, for what does worry accomplish? Nothing! But as for the rest of it.... Of course the birds don't worry! In the first place, they have no human mind that recognizes their fate and the possibilities thereof. In the second place, they certainly do not sow or reap or store away in barns because they don't need to. They don't have to worry about rent or mortgage, life insurance, health insurance, house insurance, taxes, electric bills, heating bills, phone bills, medical bills, or college tuition. They don't have to buy clothes so they don't have that expense. I can be "dressed like one of these" in all my glory too (just like God created me, in my birthday suit) but I'd be arrested the minute I stepped out of my house, which, by the way, is my current source of stress. The house, I mean, not my lack of clothing.

The more we aim at simplification, the more stressful it becomes! We have two weeks until the house is officially on the market. Yikes! So much to do in two weeks! Some of it is dependent on other people doing their part. Our son-in-law will be here Saturday to finish installing a new floor covering in the pantry. Our son will hopefully be here soon to help me move the computer et al up to the second floor and out of the dining room. And my husband, who is the absolute slowest person I have ever met, has countless things to do, which, yes, I worry about getting done.

Downsizing may reap benefits later - after the majority of it is accomplished - but meanwhile it is stressing me to no end!

Aesthetics

We want a smaller house, of course. We do not appreciate, however, the decorating trends of the 1970s. And after having just paid for a new foundation for this old Victorian we live in, and a new roof, and paint inside and out, we are quite ready to move into a house that we can - well - move into! Not rip up carpet, not fix electrical lines, not replace the bathroom fixtures! My husband Ed is talented at many things - but carpentry, plumbing, floor-laying, and electrical skills are not included in the "Ed package."

We're tired of trying to maintain a large house. That is one reason we want to simplify.

However, we do not mean by simplification that we are willing to live like bums, so to speak. We still have taste. In fact, that's one of the ideas the simplicity books mention - better to have one delicious piece of chocolate than a whole buffet of cheap, processed food. Quantity versus quality sort of thing. We still want a home where we can feel cozy, comfortable, that is a pleasure to live in. The colors, the smells, the textures, the warmth that we seek - this is our goal.

I write this because we saw two houses for sale yesterday. Even though this house will not officially be on the market until April 1, we are spending some time touring houses that are for sale right now, to get an idea of what's out there at what price. Each of these houses had its own individual deficits, but they shared one thing: Any person from the 1970s could have walked in and have thought it was a "cool pad."

The first house looked like a garage. Not a house garage, but a mechanic's garage complete with concrete floor. They had enclosed the garage part, left the concrete floor, left the big table/bench tool area in the rear, and tried to start lowering the massive ceilings. Apparently they didn't get very far before they moved, and just lived upstairs during the "renovation."
Up a very steep staircase was the second floor. Actually, the floor was what we first noticed. Several square feet of old shag carpet. One room had an animal-print type shag with swirls of beige and brown, and the other bedroom had the exact same pattern except in bright blue.
All the walls had cheap semi-dark paneling. Oh, my! There was a kitchen on the second floor. I didn't look much closer; I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. I thought it had to be a joke, to be honest. Someone must have been pulling our legs! The "house," or "garage," as my husband prefers to call it, came with 3 acres of wooded land. They really need to tear down the "structure" and just sell the land. The poor real estate agent showing it to us was embarrassed to even show it. Our real estate agent couldn't believe his eyes. And to top it off, the "house" didn't even have central heat, oil or whatever. They had a hookup for a wood stove in the "garage" downstairs portion, then had a small wood stove upstairs and 2 electric wall heaters.

I'm telling you, that had to be the ugliest house I have ever seen. Should have taken my camera, because a word description just does not suffice.

The second house was an old farmhouse, younger than our Victorian built in 1890 - the farmhouse was built in 1900. I think I want a little newer than that! Anyway, it had shag carpet from the '70s all over the place and nothing else updated since then either. The upstairs had a creak on the floor so loud I thought I would fall through the floor. It wasn't just one individual creak on one individual board - it was a major defect creak that would wake anyone up within 20 yards. During the energy crisis in those years, they decided to lower the ceilings to preserve heat, so they had a metal grid put up and placed in it those styrofoam sections. This grid was not done well, and the sections were falling in several places.

So I started thinking about aesthetics. We are definitely trying to simplify, but can't we have a house that #1 looks a bit more up-to-date and #2 does not require pulling up miles of shag carpet, and #3 looks 90% ready to move in when the time comes? Is that too much to ask?
Are we too picky?

So today we went by the modular home company, a place highly recommended to us by a number of people. I'm sure exploring this avenue will be an adventure in itself. They say you can personalize the floor plans to the max and from the day they get your call to order the house of choice (and your downpayment!) they can have your dream house built in 8 weeks.

Trying to simplify surely does involve a lot of stressful decisions!

I am, however, filled with gratitude that I did not have nightmares about shag carpet in my sleep last night. And my second point of gratitude is that I woke up in this lovely house and not in one of the houses we saw yesterday!

The Past Boxes

I've procrastinated in writing this post because the task of the Past Boxes was a very difficult job to undertake and an equally difficult job to write about - but here goes.

I had a fantastic childhood. Warm, loving family, exciting vacation trips, caring teachers, wacky friends - and I saved all the memorabilia those entailed. My parents saved some things for me, and when I got old enough I started saving things for myself. I put all these things lovingly in what I called Past Boxes. Sometimes a cardboard box, sometimes a plastic Rubbermaid type box, but they each contained treasured memories and were identified by a label marked "PAST."

As you can imagine, by age 50, my present age, I have quite an accumulation in my Past Boxes.
Ed gently broached the subject last week, suggesting I might want to consolidate some Past Boxes, which to me very clearly meant "throw some of that stuff away." I didn't really think it could be done, but one day last week I sat down with a few Past Boxes and took out every single item to decide its future.

Oddly enough, the Family Circle magazine had arrived in the mail, and the article I had started to read was an article on dealing with things like this. (I am editing the sidebar in the article to the statements pertaining to my Past Boxes.) Here is the excerpt:

Is It Junk? Use these guidelines to help you determine what you're hoarding:
You've got junk if:
- It wouldn't really affect you if you saw it again.

It's not junk if:
- It generates good feelings.
- It will enrich or delight the coming generation.

I'm sure most people keep some treasured memories. What's a treasured memory depends on the person.

The problem I encountered with dissecting my Past Boxes is the problem I expected to encounter - it was an emotionally wrenching experience. Bluntly put, so many of my fond memories involve people who are dead. That not only makes it more difficult to let go of something; it also makes me acutely aware that people who share my wonderful memories have died, are dying, will die, and part of the memory itself dies with them.

For instance, I came across a satire my best friend Bernie and I had written in high school. Together we wrote a newsletter in French, complete with advertisements, joking about our beloved teacher, Mrs. McTyier - the works. I laughed aloud re-reading it. So what do I do with it? The only other person in the world who would care about this newsletter is Bernie herself. And she died 2 years ago at the age of 49. Only two people created this newsletter, only two people share that memory. Now I'm the only one alive who holds it in my heart.
My kids wouldn't care about it. My husband doesn't even know French. It just makes me sad. I don't like to be the sole memory holder of something special. A memory is meant to be shared.

I think I can better understand now about the depression some elderly people are stricken with as they watch their contemporaries die. It's the memories. One death means one less person who shares your specific memory. It can be as focused as writing a French newsletter with your best friend, or as vast as a generation sharing memories of living through the Great Depression or World War II or even what it was like to grow up in the turmoil of the '60s. The expression comes to my mind, "You wouldn't understand." "You had to be there." You had to be there - to really appreciate this memory. You had to be there - with the accompanying laughter, smells, sights - the whole experience. It just can't be described effectively. You just had to be there.

So when I read the Family Circle's guideline "It will enrich or delight the coming generation," I really had to be truthful with myself. Most of the stuff in my Past Boxes are only important to me. Oh, I'm sure my grandchildren would be intrigued to see my elementary and high school report cards (as my kids were), and maybe they would giggle at a picture I drew when I was 5 years old. But most of the stuff? Just near and dear to me.

There's a message on notebook paper from our son Matt (date unknown), that says, "Dear Dad, Happy Father's Day! I love you! Sorry for what I've said about you this year. I was just kidding..."

There's a handwritten letter from a former teacher whom I idolized (and still do) that says, "You remain the highlight of my teaching career, and if you could know all of the wonderful people - students - that I've encountered through the years, then you would understand what high praise that indeed is! You had a matchless combination of intellectual ability and gentleness of personality that makes me treasure you so..."

There are birthday cards I received as far back as, well, my original birthday in 1954! There are get-well cards from relatives and friends. There are lots of cards I made myself for my parents. There are homemade "bulletins" that sister Joy and I made for our family Thanksgiving service every year, when the 4 of us would gather in the tiny den, where the piano was, and have a family Thanksgiving service. (We practically lived at church as kids, since Dad was a choir director and church leader, so these homemade services had all the accoutrements of a real worship service - invocation, hymns, responsive readings, and sermons!) There are the little cards that came with floral arrangements from my husband, some of them bearing messages no one else would understand but us (thank goodness!).

There is a note from a church member: "I keep asking the Lord what we have done to deserve a preacher and his family like you..." Ha ha, that could be easily misinterpreted! But the rest of the note is highly complimentary. A note from a highly respected musician to me after she heard me play the organ one Sunday: "I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed the music. You used the organ so effectively..."

As you can see, I keep just about every compliment I receive - they're incredibly uplifting to read when I'm down in the dumps.

There are articles I wrote and was fortunate enough to have published from The Upper Room and a Memphis newspaper and magazine. There are programs from performances I have been in - Aida, Faust. Dinner theaters. Amahl and the Night Visitors. Piano recitals. Church bulletins from services where I sang or played the organ. The handbook from the Tiffin Spy Agency, a club Joy and I used to have with only 2 members - us! Numerous poems I have written (silly ones, not anything impressive). A newletter from the hospital where Bernie and I were Candy-Stripers (our pictures are in it).

Of course, there are things from our wedding in 1974 and our renewal of vows wedding on our 20th anniversary in 1994. There are obituaries of people who were important to us. I have some autographs (Agatha Christie, Duke Ellington, Ed Muskie, Neil Armstrong, to name a few).
The most unusual things in the boxes are 4 T-shirts. Matt used to love tomatoes, and the restaurant where we ate every Sunday knew us and called him "The Tomato Kid." We had T-shirts made up saying, Mother of the Tomato Kid, Father of the Tomato Kid, Sister of the Tomato Kid, and, of course, one for Matt saying simply The Tomato Kid. (His sister, a teenager at the time, was mortified but we made her wear it all of 10 minutes.)

I have a folder full of letters my parents (mostly Dad) sent to me while I was away at college. Many of these letters are written in, on, and around the church bulletin. What original stationery! He figured I would get his letter and enjoy perusing the bulletin at the same time!

Anything from my Dad is a treasure, since he died in 1980 at the age of 64. I found one letter, undated except for "Tuesday afternoon - at the bank." Apparently he had hurt my feelings that morning (how I can't imagine because it would have been so unlike him), but here is what he wrote:
Dear Carol, My heart has been heavy all day since I stupidly blurted that out this morning to you - I know it hurt you, though it wasn't my intention at all. How often each one of us hurts the one or ones we love by not thinking before speaking. I am sorry, honey - and God helping me, I will try to use my brain a little more before using my tongue. My heart, though, is in the right place. Please know that I love you dearly, and your best welfare and potential is a very great concern to me. Please forgive, and have a happy week, so I can too! ....With much love, from your imperfect Daddy."

So, you can see my Past Boxes dilemma. Actually, I thought I handled it all right. I shed a few tears and had some laughs, but I managed to throw away some Weekly Readers from 1963 and many birthday cards I've received through the years. For the rest - well, I kind of squooshed it down to make it look like I'd thrown out a lot more, and I was still able to get the top on the box. After all, how can a parent throw out her daughter's one-page "diary" from a family trip? I mean, she rated (with colorful comments) the service station restrooms from Memphis to Mt. Sterling, Kentucky! One never knows when one might need something like that in the future!

Matt's turn

Son Matt and his fiancee Sarah are here to clean out his stuff. For awhile, I sat on his bed and watched them. I think Sarah enjoyed a lot of the experience, because she got to see what kind of things Matt kept through the years. He still has a sizable comic book collection, which he said he'll keep a few years longer. He's still hoping it's worth something.

I told them both that I hoped they learn from our mistakes about just letting unimportant things pile up. Matt says he really doesn't do that anymore, and he's right. All the stuff he's trashing and recycling consists of the remnants of several years of growing up. Indeed, we moved to Maine when he was only 13, and a person is supposed to change and develop during the teenage years. I would have been very disappointed if he had the same interests and taste of a 13-year-old when he turned 20, for instance! So he has a good excuse - better than I have for the last few years of my accumulation; I've been an adult for awhile now and should have known better.

A peculiar situation - My husband and I are clearing out and downsizing, and here Matt and Sarah are looking forward to starting a new life together. We're trying to get rid of things; they're concentrating on acquiring things. We just want them to make sure they know the difference between trash and treasure along the way!

No fair!

I cleaned out the bathroom closet yesterday. I have many half-empty bottles of shampoo and conditioner and assorted hair products. I have 3 different size curling irons, a backup blow-dryer, a small blow-dryer (for travelling), a blow-dryer attachment (I think it's to a blow-dryer that broke a long time ago), half-empty bubble bath bottles, an old set of electric hair curlers, and other grooming aids too numerous to mention. In another area, there are bottles of nail polish that have turned yellow and congealed, as well as many items of makeup, most of which has probably expired. (Lots of small makeup samples; even if I don't use that particular product, I hate to throw it away!) I have several brushes, one flat, one round, one heat resistant, one heat conducting. Two boxes of hair coloring (never had the courage to try them and instead got it done at the salon). Sunblockers, body lotions, face lotions, hand lotions. Makeup remover, fingernail polish remover. Assorted clips and bobby pins and headbands. Mousse, hair gel, hair spray. Contacts solution.

Then I started thinking about what my husband Ed has to fool with. A hair brush (not too much need for that anymore!). A razor. A bar of soap. Hmm...I think that's about it. I asked him what he uses for shampoo, and he said, "Whatever you have in the shower stall at the time."

OK, now this is total gender inequity! Can I help it if sometimes my hair is longer and sometimes shorter and I need different size tools for different lengths of hair? Can I help it if I need an astringent shampoo at one time, then a conditioning shampoo at another time, then a special shampoo for color-treated hair yet another time? Can I be blamed for having to walk through the makeup counters at the department store a few times a month right when they are pushing their newest product which is guaranteed to make me beautiful? Especially on days where if I spend $25 they will throw in a free gift of $40 worth of products?

All right, my rant is over for now. I have wasted a lot of things in my life, but I think grooming/cleaning products have got to be at the top of my list. This will be a hard habit to break. The older I get, the more susceptible I am to commercials which assure me that their products will roll back time.

And I promise to cut back drastically, right after I pick up my recently pre-ordered purchase from Clinique (along with the free gift!) at the mall next week. I promise!

Stuff

The word stuff has always intrigued me. When we lived in Tennessee, one of the Nashville malls featured Louie Anderson, the comedian, in their ads. At the end of the ads, the camera focused on him standing there, and he said, "Hickory Hollow Mall. Just more stuff!" I wondered then about our role as consumer - and the fact that the mall people thought that word stuff would excite us so much that we would jump out of our chairs and head for their stores.

Today, I looked up the word stuff. It has several definitions, of course, but this was the one that caught my eye (from GuruNet):

1. Informal.
   1. Unspecified material: Put that stuff over there.
   2. Household or personal articles considered as a group.
   3. Worthless objects.

How appropriate! Is that our goal in life - to accumulate more stuff? Nothing specific, nothing of value - just stuff. It's all so enticing, so tempting, so available. And we never can get enough! There's always more out there - a newer model of something, a different color of something...it's on sale...it tastes good...I work hard for my money and I deserve to buy things...

How much do I need? How much do I cherish?

They say it's much easier to prevent weight gain than to lose excess weight. And it's much easier not to buy the "stuff" and bring it in the house than to figure out how to get rid of it once you've paid "good money" for it. Oh well - we start the journey from where we are now. That's all we can do!

Poor kids!

So, how does simplifying affect the kids? The simplicity books say that it is extremely hard to simplify and cut back when you have kids still living with you. (That I can quite understand!)
Ours are grown now - but what we do does affect them.

What do you think was the first question we heard from the kids when we talked about one of the small houses we are considering? "Where would we sleep?" Hello? You don't live here anymore, do you? And if you come visit overnight, well, we'll find somewhere for you to sleep.

Seriously, it made us think. This will be the first house Ed and I will live in where the kids do not have their own rooms. It's a final symbol, I guess, of their moving out on their own. And I think that realization has hurt them a little. I can empathize. My sister and I have our childhood bedroom (we always shared) still available at our mom's house. It can be a comforting feeling to walk in there.

Well, I guess our sense of loss at having the kids move out is now reciprocated in their feelings of loss over their "rooms." Why does simplification carry with it so much loss? I think I must have skipped over that chapter.

Two playing the game

There is, I would strongly suspect, a difference between an individual simplifying and a couple simplifying. The good thing about the couple scenario is that the other person can help you see the places you are holding back, whereas an individual usually has blinders on when deciding what he/she really needs. On the other hand, only an individual can, in the end, make the hard decisions on what to get rid of when it comes to his/her belongings.

Yesterday Ed noticed 3 boxes of quilt magazines on the landing. "Three boxes? Why do you need to keep quilt magazines? Where are you going to put them?" So I find myself having to justify keeping 3 boxes of quilt magazines. Then I start to second-guess myself. What if he's right? What if they have to go? Waaah! Well, he's not a quilter, so he wouldn't understand.

And it's the same with his end of the bargain. Every once in awhile I'll take something of his I know he'll never use, etc., and put it in the give-away pile, then he retrieves it, saying he cherishes it, then he'll give me the long (usually boring) story about why.

So a couple keeps each other on their toes about facing reality, but some decisions just have to made individually in the gut.

Rejected

OK, the local seminary refuses to take the theological books. They claim their library is well stocked and they don't need them. (They did not ask me what books were included in my offer, so how do they know they have them?) They have book sales for the students every so often, but they just had one of those. I told the librarian there that we didn't care of the books went to students for free - we just wanted them to be used. Nope - they said thanks, but no thanks.

Some of these books are expensive - yet we can't even give them away to the very people who could get some use out of them. Can they tell me they don't have any students who are short on funds and would love to start their personal library with some free books?

Hey, people - we're trying to simplify and downsize here - can we have a little cooperation?

It's one thing to try to sell something and have your offer met with disdain. It's another thing to try to give something away - and still get rejected!

Well, we are not letting this get to us. Our simplicity experiment will not be sidetracked by others' refusal to participate.

The essence

Basically, what simplicity will achieve in our lives is the goal that we will discard those things in our lives that are weighing us down, whether from maintenance, storage, money outflow, and even things that are weighing us down emotionally, thereby freeing up time and money for the more important things to us - travelling to Memphis to see family, spending more time with family and friends here in our area, practicing the harp, etc.

Yes, emotionally "stuff" can wear one down. Take guilt, for instance. How many items of clothing have I bought that I never wore or wore once, decided I didn't like it, but didn't give it to Goodwill because, after all, I had spent that money and didn't want to waste it! Waste it? Having it sit in my closet unworn for a few years is not wasting it? The problem with that is that every time I see that item of clothing, I feel bad. Guilty. Why did I buy that? What was I thinking? It makes me feel bad to wear it and feel bad to see it hanging in the closet unworn. Simplicity says - give it away.

Speaking of giving away, I also gave away a lot of my cross-stitch patterns and magazines. Now, when you get into the area of sewing crafts, that is fragile for me. I am a pattern collector. So what if I'm not into iguanas - one day I might have a friend who has a friend who is into iguinas and might need this pattern! Just like the old people we joke about who keep rubber bands from 1980 just in case they need them one day. It's truly pitiful. What I didn't realize until recently, though, was that looking at those patterns every time I passed by them reminded me of a sad fact - I will never ever have enough time to make everything I want to make. That's just cold reality - and it hurts. The "one day" will never come. I could still, after giving away so much, make a cross-stitch pattern every day and would never get through them all, even if I lived to 100. That's not counting quilting or anything else. Sheesh! It hurts to face reality, but in the long run, I think it will free me up emotionally. It's amazing how much of our "stuff" is tied to our emotions.

Whew!

Fortunately for me, I cherish my quilt books and Lincoln books!

The big idea and the book saga

My husband and I are in our 50s now and the last child is getting married this summer. This 3-story 100-year-old Victorian is way too much house for us and we are ready to downsize. Right now the house and our journey to simplicity are inseparable; when we move to a smaller house, we will have to refine our simplicity movement to encompass a wider berth, not just housing.

When we moved to Maine from Tennessee in 1996, we were certain it was the last time we would ever move. We had always lived in parsonages in varying conditions (mostly bad!) and looked forward to having our own house again. We moved with 2 teenagers and 1 boyfriend, so we needed a big house with big rooms. We also wanted an older home. All the houses we were shown in Maine had rooms too small, so when we got to see this one, we made an offer right away. Then we doubled the size of the existing house before we moved in.

One day we counted the windows in the house, then counted the lightbulbs (in and out). I can't remember the exact number, but I believe it was around 116 light bulbs we have to maintain.

Of course, my sewing/quilting/cross-stitch hobbies needed a room of their own. And we had to have the piano somewhere, didn't we? When we moved, we had a stepper and weight machine, and have since replaced that with a treadmill and a different weight machine and a weight bench. So we have a room just for laundry and exercise, with a TV hooked up to cable and lots of DVDs and videos to watch while exercising.

I have to say, though, that a great deal of the things we brought with us consisted of books.
We have always loved books. We used to go to the bookstore and could easily drop $100 or $200 in one visit. For some reason we have found it very difficult to avoid buying books and just as difficult to get rid of books. We envisioned one day having a huge library room with built-in shelves holding our treasures.

So with fixing to put our house on the market, the books were one of the first things I thought of - with trepidation. The cape we are hoping to move to will definitely not have room for all these books. So today we went up to the 3rd floor and started sorting.

Looking through all the books we have accumulated is like looking through our lives. My husband Ed has textbooks from college (over 30 years ago). We have a lot of "classics" that our kids had to read in high school. I have easily over 30 paperback Agatha Christie mysteries.
Lots of hymn books (Ed is a retired minister and I did music ministry in the churches he served). Lots of theology books. Several books on Lincoln (those are mine!), a few on decorating, several on controlling clutter (!) , and lots of science fiction books (his).

We gathered a variety in 5 boxes and headed for a local used book/antique store today. In a phone call, they told me they do buy used books.

Now, we hate to sell our stuff. In the first place, most of it we don't want to part with, really, but we're forcing ourselves to. Most of it we chose for a reason, because of our interest in certain topics, etc., so in some way these books represent our identity. They represent the changes in our lives. There's the rabbit book (from 10 years ago when we had one). A lot of self-help books on nutrition, exercise, and the aforementioned clutter book. Books about hiking in the Smokies back when Ed was in Tennessee to do that.

The first yard sale we ever had really stressed me out. Strangers were looking through my stuff, and a lot of it they didn't even care about or want. When they did find something they wanted, they wanted it very cheap - after all, what was it really worth? Well, to me, it might have been worth a lot. I remember that day I removed some of the "stuff" and took it back into house after the 3rd hour of the sale; they were items I would rather have kept than sell so cheap. I felt that these people were putting a price on my taste, in a way.

So here we were today in a bookstore, having a lady look through our books. Now I know it's business - she was buying books to sell later and had to make a profit, etc. But it was awkward and demeaning for me. She never smiled, even when I tried to make conversation, and she definitely tossed more back in the box than she kept. Finally she tallied up some numbers on an adding machine, and said flatly, "$47 is all I can give you for the books that I kept." OK, so $47 is better than nothing. However, one of the books she took was a brand-new hard-back book I bought last week for $25, just published. When you add up all the money we originally spent on all these books....Oh well, we are $47 richer. We didn't really like the lady's attitude and don't want to do business with her again, so we just took the rest of the books from the car and gave them no strings attached to another local used book dealer.

At this point in our simplicity journey, we are not out to make money - which is good as a byproduct but not the point. The point is to get rid of "stuff." Giving it away serves the purpose too.

After that, we went back upstairs to do more sorting. We have a huge pile of theology books. What do we do with those? Do people who shop at the Goodwill really buy theology books? I'm not talking just "pop" theology - I'm talking seminary type stuff. Concordances, biblical interpretation, homiletics, church renewal, liturgy. So now I'm going to call the nearest seminary on Monday to see if we can donate those to them. They can either put them in their library or give them away to students - whatever gets them used.

I used to think you could donate books to the library and they'd be overjoyed to get them, considering their budgets. But apparently a lot of libraries are running out of room and are being picky. I donated a brand-new children's book to our libary a few years ago in honor of our daughter's graduating with a teacher's degree. They had to assure themselves it was new and not used, they had to look at the condition, and finally gave me a cool acceptance as if they were doing me a favor. Really!

Some of our books we have read and enjoyed but won't read again. Some we are getting rid of because our tastes have changed. Some because they are too outdated. But mostly we are letting go of them because we just don't have room in our new house for them . We can't afford property taxes and heating bills just to house a room or two full of books. Sigh.

So in our quest for simplicity, the books are the first victims. Little by little we will sell, give away, or throw away pieces of ourselves. The simplicity books say to get rid of everything you don't either need (use) or cherish. Think about that - keep what you use or cherish. Not a lot of stuff really falls into those 2 categories, does it?