As of today, our household is back to normal; normal being what it looked like before our remodeling projects began two months ago. I’ve found all my clothes and they are neatly arranged in our new closet. We’ve polished and rehung all the artwork we took down; and the cleaning ladies come on Tuesday to shine everything before Christmas decorating begins in earnest.
In putting our home back in shape, I am struck with how much stuff Earl and I have accumulated in the relatively short time we’ve lived in this house. It’s scary. Take luggage, for instance. Earl and I both subscribe to the carry-on approach to luggage. You can change planes, get through lines faster, and never worry about whether your clothes will arrive at your vacation destination two days late because they detoured to Sioux City.
But before we adopted this approach, Earl had acquired a bevy of big bags, a heavy bevy at that. None are on rollers (another innovation we like), all need to be checked because of their size, and all are like aging dinosaurs. Nevertheless, we still have a closet full of them.
Then there’s workout gear. We have outfits that haven’t seen the light of day since who knows when. And ACE bandages, although the last time they were used was in 1995 when I broke my leg.
We have innumerable magazine subscriptions, which means the magazines themselves show up regularly. My policy is when the stack of them gets high enough beside the couch to resemble a small endtable, I start tossing from the bottom. We have jackets not just for each season, but for each month of the year. And shoes too. And artwork that isn’t displayed.
I have lived in about thirty different homes and usually keep my stuff to a minimum, because moving it all becomes tiring. So by training, I’m not a packrat; however, my mate certainly is. I think the only way he would pare down would be if we moved, but then why would we have endured remodeling the bathrooms?
I guess the dinosaur luggage stays for now.
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