STUFF

January 04, 2010

Today was New Year’s Day and we did the deed. We took down the Christmas tree, the greens and lights around the front door, the greens over the fireplace and brought the white wire tree in from the back yard. The Christmas cards are gathered up for a last fond look before they are put away.

I do have a bit of a tradition for New Year’s Day, the Rose Parade. I’ve watched it since the early 60's in Michigan on my parents color TV (not everyone had one of those back then.)

We aren’t football fans, but I’m sure we’ll hear whether the Oregon Ducks beat Ohio or not, and not being sports fans much either we have to revert to Public Broadcasting System (PBS) if we want to watch the boob tube. No loss, PBS actually did have some nice Christmas programs.

Our Christmas was lovely, the high point being the Christmas Eve Candlelight service at the little bible church we attend here in Poulsbo, Washington. It was the traditional Christmas story and lots of music, including singing several of the favorite carols. I was a bit surprised at the number of folks who attended, Christmas Eve is usually an at-home event especially for the kids, but there were a lot of families with kids who really seemed to enjoy the service. Lovely, heartwarming and the way things should be.

We all carry around some memories, sometimes baggage instead of good stuff. Favorite or traditional meals, events, who hosts which holiday dinner - and what do you do about gifts? Christmas cookies? Fruit cake? Stollen? We don’t have work obligations, but that is another layer of problems to be met.

My husband Neil (Trav) made it clear he isn’t a fruitcake guy. I happen to like the stuff, especially the really expensive stuff out of Corsica Texas, but I figured I could get by this year without it. Actually I felt guilty. I’ve ordered it in the past, including an apricot cake which sort of resembles fruitcake except it’s only apricots, pineapple and pecans and absolutely no funny green things. But with the economy the way it is, I looked at the price this year, and including shipping it came out to about $35 a pound. Now if I’m going to spend that kind of money, I think I can think of a couple other things I’d rather eat. Maybe next year.

We try and walk every day - some days just aren’t very conducive to walking a couple of miles, but we walk often enough that we are starting to notice something which I bet you’ve noticed too. It is just how much stuff we have. We all just have too much stuff. It’s very noticeable when a house with a two car garage has a storage unit in front of one of the garage doors, decorated too. You know they aren’t going to put a car in there, right? You don’t notice stuff as much when you drive by, unless the garage door(s) is open and is packed full of stuff and no cars in it, then you might notice. But when you’re walking all the ‘stuff’ is just so visible you can’t miss it.

We live in a little subdivision of 450 homes. It is a private community with a governing board and all that, yes dues too. This is very middle-class. Single story ramblers mostly with a few story and a half homes, and very few of the homes more than a two car garage. So where do six vehicles fit in? And that isn’t just one place either. Add a motor home or boat and the yard is really full. We have two vehicles here and a one car garage but we can’t even get one car inside. There just isn’t room. Even when there was just one car here, it would not have fit in the garage. And as we walk about it is distressingly plain this our only place isn’t the only one with that problem.

Just very occasionally we see a place where the cars really are in the garage. In fact, very often the garage doors are open as if to say, “See you could do it too!” Or maybe, “Ha ha, we can do it but you can’t!”

Recently on the Bulletin Board here a gentleman was/is selling off his books. I’m always concerned when I see that, because it seems to say “I’m putting my affairs in order and I don’t have any use for these.” I certainly hope that isn’t the case. Another column a week or so ago on FAOL talked about pruning the number of fly rods a fellow has. That doesn’t bother me as much, perhaps because I have that problem as well. Just too many rods - and of course Neil has too many as well. We may decide to sell some of those.

Eventually I will have to do something with the number of books here too. Neil also has an extensive fly fishing library (and another of birds including a series of books on Birds of the World - I plan on getting into those when we go back to Livingston in the spring.) The problem is the number of books here, five or six hundred. [Or more] We know there are ‘doubles’ with the books in Neil’s library. The main problem is the books here were never catalogued. Neil is in the process of doing that now. Then we will have to make a decision on what to do with the ‘doubles.’ Tom Travis may have a use for some, (it would be nice to keep them in the family) and there is a Fly Fishing Collection of books at Montana State College in Bozeman, MT. Either way it looks like all the books will probably make the trip back to Montana. A fair share of them made the trip from Montana to Washington when we moved out here in 1988. If we decide to donate some to the college it is nice to have a list of what we actually have. And of course we do have the For Sale section on our Bulletin Board here as well. We’ll figure that out over time.

I wish going through some of the other ‘stuff’ was as easy. There are art supplies, cameras, slides, sewing stuff, photos and albums, and all sort of ‘stuff’. I’ve been a pack rat all my life, and I’m paying the price for it now. Good grief Charlie Brown! JC’s clothes went to Goodwill months ago and I packed up his favorite things in a box for his son Brett in Michigan. Brett also asked for some of his ashes which I have saved for him. We hope that the remaining ashes will be freed on the Au Sable River at the dedication of the Memorial Bench in July.

So enough for the stuff - I hope you will be able to sort through yours as well. Perhaps we should create a New Year’s Resolution having to do with divesting ourselves of all the ‘stuff?’

It just might make our lives better, more organized and easier.

That said, Happy New Year.

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