Rhododendron

Day 73: Rhododenron

 

Rhododendra should be considered annuals, at least in this climate. Or, if you have a crazy idea that you'd like to keep one alive for multiple years, don't plant it in fill dirt. Also, don't plant it in a hot dry spot. And if the winter is really long and cold, cover it.

Or, why not just compost it, replace it with an ornamental grass and comfort yourself with the thought that your dead rhododendron is still a part of the circle of life?

Tush Cush

Day 72: Tush Cush

I did not know the name of this object
until I did a web search today.
I don't need it any more, praise be.

I've finally gotten over the pain of childbirth, just in time for the children to leave home. I mean that quite literally.

I take that back. I don't mean it. Pain awakened me last night at midnight. I stumbled to the bathroom. Downed three Advil. Stumbled back to bed. Turned on the heating pad. Lay awake until the pain subsided.

Fifteen years ago, these incidents filled me with panic. I imagined bone cancer eating away at me. I imagined my helpless children growing up, motherless. I imagined myself floating on the ceiling, looking down upon myself from a distance. I moaned. I cried. I vomited. I locked the door against my children; I didn't want to scare them. Once, I lost consciousness in the wee hours on my way to the medicine cabinet, and came to sometime later on my back halfway down the stairs, head a few treads below feet.

The GP told me it was irritable bowel syndrome. I said, that doesn't seem right. You don't know, she said, pursing her lips, briskly handing me a gastrointestinal referral and an IBS information sheet. But the GI specialist - and later, the bone doctor - diagnosed a broken tailbone. Nothing for it but to wait.

Ah, childbirth.

Fast forward fifteen years. I don't run any more; running irritates a broken tailbone. I do yoga, or take long walks, or use the elliptical. Sometimes, when I ride my bike to work, I still get awakened in the night. But the pain isn't nearly as acute. I can manage it.

And I'm fearless. I understand. I accept. I wait.

Happy to be alive.

Dresser

Day 71: Dresser
Dear Mom:

Remember when you helped me restore Emma's room? You painted this old dresser gray, put some purple star knobs on the top drawers, and treated the brass hardware with a frost wash to soften the color. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, your kindness and your creativity. Thank you for caring.

Remember how miserable Sam was when we left that house and moved to Morton Avenue? He was only four years old, and cried and cried. You and I painted his new room together. We gave him blue walls with soccer balls and basketballs and baseballs, and a dinosaur light switch, because he loved balls and dinosaurs so. But he just kept missing his bright yellow room with the giraffes and the rocking chair, only two blocks away. He's almost sixteen now, and he still misses his old room.

Remember how tired you were when we finished painting? How you decided that was the last room you were ever going to decorate yourself?

The dresser has been in our attic - empty drawers and all - since Emma rebelled against WTP in middle school. I still have the hand-hooked rug. Christopher Robin and Piglet using a blanket as a trampoline, throwing Tigger up into the air.

Love you, Mom.

I don't like your sharp edges.
I don't like the inconsistency between the purple stars and brass hardware.
Your drawers are empty.
I don't need you any more.

Heart-Shaped Pillows

Day 70: Heart-Shaped Pillows

Hours spent removing old-fashioned ivory flowered wallpaper with a paper dragon and DIF. Pulling up ancient, heavy, filthy rose-colored wall-to-wall carpeting, cutting it into pieces small enough to drag down the stairs and out of the house. Meticulously removing thousands of carpet tacks with pliers to keep soft new feet from being pierced, sliding my own feet along the floor to be sure I'd got them all. Scraping, patching, painting. Heart-shaped pillows, pastel blue comforter, old-fashioned Winnie-the-Pooh wallpaper border, huge brown eyes, thumb in rosebud mouth, great big twin bed with rails. Lying cupped beside her warm little body until she sighs and stills, sleeping myself, exhausted.

I'm no longer allowed in her room, which I lovingly refer to as a toxic waste site. Sometimes, I sneak in and remove old apple cores, cereal bowls with milk puddled in the bottom, empty SmartPop bags, gum wrappers, damp towels. My shirts, my belts, my shoes, my make-up, surreptitiously removed from my shelves, now lost in the rubble.

Come on and take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.

Maybe each of my three young nieces would like a pillow.

Broken Footstools

Day 69: Broken Footstools

Collapsing in on themselves

Beautiful sturdy design,
sitting empty in a corner

This was a home run stuff project day. I replaced a couple of broken but highly useful footstools with a beloved but useless pine trunk, which I purchased at a sidewalk sale on Oak Street in San Francisco. (A sidewalk sale in San Francisco is what we Ann Arborites call a yard sale, because most people in San Francisco don't have yards.)

The footstools are cheap covered cardboard, and have been gradually collapsing for years. I had to use extra torque to get the top off the most broken of the two. The cushions from the footstools fit the top of the trunk perfectly. Now I have no more broken junk, and a beloved and useful footstool with storage.

Woo hoo! It's all worth it.

Voila

Craft Supplies

Day 68: Craft Supplies

My heart is in two places: northern California and Ann Arbor. A few months ago, Rich had an opportunity to take a job in San Luis Obispo. This possibility filled us with joy - reunited with that distant piece of our hearts! - and sorrow - separated from the bits of ourselves rooted here in the Midwest.

Because there are no jobs in SLO for policy analysts cum botanical gardens managers, I began to research franchises. The franchise I was interested in was Plato's Closet, which resells gently used teen and twenty-something clothing, This is right up my alley, doing its bit to keep the economy going while deemphasizing new (non-sustainably, non-humanely produced) merchandise.

I can see why it's so hard for local businesses to compete with a franchise. Economies of scale combined with tried and true business practices. Most of the profits and the jobs held locally. Exponentially higher chances of running a profit. If you follow the formula, it's very difficult to fail.

The formula: aye, there's the rub. We like the quirky individualism of local businesses. We like the idea that all the profits come to our local communities. We like knowing and caring about the owner.

That's why I loved A2UP!, which brings the reuse business to arts & crafts. I'd met the young entrepreneur, Kati, and was totally charmed. I know that she quit her corporate job to open this new business, and that she's invested her money, her heart and her soul into it. She's made a beautiful space, and she can use all her intelligence and creativity to make a place that is more than just a resale shop: it's a community.

On the downside, she can't afford staff, and so has to keep her hours limited. I arrived yesterday at 1:30 because the web site said she was open from 11:30 to 5 on Sundays. The door was locked, though the sign said "open." The shop has no phone number, so I emailed and stood knocking for a while. Ultimately, I left - and left a message saying that the craft supplies were on my front porch for her if she wanted them. She sent a gracious and apologetic response and quickly came to take the supplies away.

All's well that ends well.

Carpet Scraps

Day 67: Carpet Scraps

Why did we put these carpet scraps and an area rug on the garage floor? They are so filthy I had to wash my hands for several minutes after touching them, and I'm still coughing.

Better question: why did we purchase all this wall-to-wall carpeting for the attic and studio, while at the same time pulling up and discarding an equal amount from the bedrooms and hallways? The environmental impact of carpeting is especially scary: billions of pounds of carpeting in the landfills, indoor air quality concerns, chemical emissions from disposal. The list is depressing.

Our reasons were mundane: better sound insulation, too costly to restore the damaged floors, easy implementation. We didn't think as much about environmental impacts ten years ago. 

The closest place to recycle carpet, according to carpetrecovery.org, appears to be Romulus. Given the dubious quality of recycled plastic and the environmental cost of driving to Romulus, no way. Into the garbage can. 

Never again.

Another Bookshelf

Day 66: Another Bookshelf 
Elizabeth and Karl both wanted Grandma Betty's bookshelf. Now what?

I bought this shelf at a flea market in Oakland, not long after I moved to San Francisco. It is the first bookshelf I ever bought, heavy old hardwood with hinge marks in the wood. Used to be, it had glass doors, or so I suspect. I moved it across the country to Ann Arbor and painted it blue on the outside and green on the inside, and decorated it with swirls and daisies for Emma's room. But now Emma loves her black IKEA shelves. This has been relegated to the attic with all the other empty shelves.

I've decided.The Oakland flea market shelf goes to Karl, who needs a shelf for his classroom at Summers Knoll School. It is larger, more solid and decorated for kids. If it stays at the school after he leaves, all the better. Old furniture like that is sturdy enough for hard use. I can remember it fondly, without it actually cluttering up my attic.

Grandma Betty's shelf goes to my sister, because she loved Grandma Betty too, and will appreciate the craftsmanship and keep the shelf in the family. Maybe I'll even get it back someday, if ever I need another bookshelf. I can visit it.

Letting go, but not quite.

Bookshelf

Day 65: Bookshelf

This bookshelf was exactly the right size
 for National Geographics, but now we don't
have any National Geographics to store on it

Funny how strongly sentiment plays into keeping stuff around. I've got many pieces of family furniture, mostly from my Dad's side, where there were few in his generation. This bookshelf is the only piece I have from my mother's side. Grandma Betty made this when she and Grandpa John lived, briefly, in a trailer (can that be right?) in the Ozarks.

My mother took my sister, my brother and me on a road trip to visit them. We drove through the mountains, crawling around the car without seatbelts as kids did in those days. I suffered from car sickness; we stopped often so I could barf on the shoulder. I remember seeing the arch in St. Louis as we drove through. I remember collecting bits of scrap metal off the hot streets of their small mountain town, and trading the pop tabs and tin foil for coins, and trading the coins for Necco wafers, wax bottles, bubble gum cigars and candy buttons on paper tape. We each came home with a golf tee triangle game - Grandma Betty made them for sale to tourists - each with a stamp on it that said "One peg - genius! Two pegs - smart!; Three pegs - dumb!; Four pegs - ignoramus!" And "Souvenir of the Ozarks!"

Grandma Betty also made me a dollhouse and this bookshelf. When I was 14, she sponsored me for a job at Kline's Department store on Main Street, where she worked for decades as a bookkeeper, and where I proceeded to work for seven years as a sales clerk. When she caught me smoking in the break room, she didn't tell my mother. She let me buy stuff for cost plus ten instead of the mingy twenty per cent most of the sales girls got. And she made me peanut brittle for Christmas.

I no longer have the golf tee triangle game or the dollhouse, or any peanut brittle in aluminum tins. Grandma Betty was really my step-grandma. My mom didn't grow up with her, and after my grandfather died and Grandma Betty remarried her first husband, we lost touch. Now that I've written down these memories and taken this photograph, though, I think I can finally let go of the bookshelf.

Maybe Elizabeth or Karl would want it.

More National Geographic Magazines

Day 64: More National Geographic Magazines

The final few dozen National Geographics
are going to the library free shelf.
Friends of the Library no longer
accepts them.

Rich and I have been going to open houses to fantasize about our life after the kids leave home, the point at which we will retire from this twenty-year joint project and define ourselves again as individuals. When we finally do move to our modern house on the Huron River, or our 7-acre homestead, or our cheap Victorian in Depot Town, or our Water Hill bungalow, or our Mendocino hillside cabin, we won't be paying extra to move 200 pounds of magazines.

Time to move on.

Pajama Drawer

Day 63: Pajama Drawer

Goodbye, ill-fitting jammies.
Hello, well-organized drawer

I do have one clothing drawer. It's for pajamas. It is stuffed so full I can never find what I want. Today I am ruthless. Half of the drawer is going into the Goodwill pile, including several pairs of flannel pants and some loose tops. All of it used to belong to either Rich or Emma. They didn't want them, but I felt guilty giving away almost-new clothes.

In the future, I should be able to slip into something more comfortable with a lot less hassle.

Jewelry Chest Cupboard

Day 62: Jewelry Chest Cupboard

None of this cash payment for Sam! Toys are the thing

Junk cupboard has nothing worth
saving except the tooth fairy note

One of the delightful things about the stuff project is finding little treasures. This note is from the boy whose first word was "ball."

Sam is resolute that I should not give away any of his toys or games. He says he may wish to hand them down to his own children some day. This includes his Star Wars Trivial Pursuit game, which I cautiously suggested we could let go. Sam fears there will be nothing left at the end of a year.

His strategy may not be bad. My co-worker Jeff has been saving the Tonka trucks of his childhood for decades. (Jeff gets to use the real thing in his job as our natural areas manager.) All through college, graduate school, the jobs in between, and the jobs since, Jeff has held onto these toys. Dump truck, tractor, crane, hauler, digger, bulldozer, sturdy mini metal machines, now in the hands of Jeff's two-year-old son. 

Some things are worth saving.

Jewelry Chest Drawer

Day 61: Jewelry Chest Drawer

Only one thing in this 
drawer was worth keeping

This drawer contains only one thing I want: a beautiful needlepoint piece I made a few years ago and turned into an iPad case. The case doesn't fit the iPad anymore now that the iPad has a keyboard, but I might turn it into something useful someday. I'm also keeping a few items I don't really want: two eye-shadows I've had since high school, a dozen pens and a few buttons and needles. The rest went in the recycling, the garbage or the Goodwill pile.

I have been fantasizing about moving my antique furniture set into Emma's room and purchasing a queen bedroom set. Off Craig's list, of course; God forbid I should buy new furniture. The antique set doesn't suit my purposes any more, but I can't get rid of it. I've had it since I was a child. It belonged to my Uncle George, whom I don't remember, but my parents gave it to me when he died. Being from the 1920s, the set has a double bed, whereas we have a queen mattress. It has only one bureau, because in those days each spouse needed only two drawers for clothes. The vanity is large and has no purpose in life, but takes up the space in the bedroom where a second bureau might go. As a result, I don't have a bureau and all my clothes (including lingerie) are displayed on open shelves in our walk-through closet. I dream of having my own bureau someday.

But this junky drawer full of nothing makes me wonder whether getting more drawers would just be an entree to getting more junk. I wonder, would my lingerie fit in this jewelry chest?

Probably not.

Clothing

Day 60: Clothing
I found another shocking statistic: that Americans purchased an average of 60 pieces of clothing per year in 2013, compared with 30 pieces in 1993, because of the proliferation of cheap textiles. For kids, that makes a lot of sense. When they're babies, they need a whole new wardrobe every three months. Elementary age, it's every six months. In high school, every year.

The irony is that this was Lisa's. I could have just taken directly from her
and then taken my grocery bags of clothing directly to Kiwanis. 

For adults, what the -- ?!

A2UP's first annual clothing swap, which I attended today with my daughter and my friend Lisa, was intended to give that new outfit rush, without the social and environmental costs. The mimosas and baked goods were awesome, but even better: this blaser and silk scarf, nice enough to wear to a meeting in the Provost's Office. I left behind more than I brought, and I got to meet the learn about upcycling and the Ann Arbor Upcycle Project, a lovely new business dedicated to fun, sustainable art and crafting.

Crutches

Day 59: Crutches

Crutches can have a second life as a toy. A boy can use them as a mobile jungle gym, or they make great machine guns. This is true only if they've been taken out of the basement and brought upstairs.

Emma got these crutches years ago when she sprained her ankle playing miniature golf with her littler cousins. They didn't cost us a thing - health insurance covered it - but I've been reluctant to get rid of them. They might come in handy some day.

Health insurance: don't get me started. So complicated, I don't even know how to think about it. There must be some relationship between the high cost of medical care and the fact that we've got perfectly serviceable medical equipment moldering in the basement, courtesy of Blue Care Network.

Someone without insurance might be able to use these. Up they go on Freecycle. Between the four of us, we've only needed crutches for a few days that one time, but if we do need crutches again, I suppose insurance will cover it again.

Nambe

Day 58: Nambe Dish

All wrapped up and ready
for a better home

My sister has a passion for stuff. Her stuff is carefully selected, well-maintained, exquisitely arranged and meticulously organized. She and I can buy the same pair of shoes at the same store on the same day. Within a month, my shoes are down-at-the heels and the foxing is separated from the sole. Two years later, she'll hand hers down to me in pristine condition. If I had her stuff, my house would be a cyclone of dust and disarray. The same stuff in her house is warm, peaceful, useful and artistic.

Part of my motivation with the stuff challenge was to bring myself back to the clearer, quieter place of a clean and clutter-free home. I've struck a chord, or perhaps I've joined a symphony. Many of my friends have joined me in giving away one thing each day for a year. The internet, libraries and magazine-racks are full of articles about decluttering and simplifying. I keep hearing about the age of mass-consumerism, the glut of stuff and the physical, mental and moral benefits of simplifying.

But Elizabeth will tell you: stuff is a good thing. A hundred years ago, stuff was treasured, cared for, uplifted, valued. Why do we all want to get rid of ours?

I think stuff is like food. Good food, carefully prepared and thoughtfully consumed, is good for body and soul. Junk food adds pounds and makes you feel like crap.

As wedding gifts, my sister and I each received a Nambe dish from friends of our parents. Mine is hidden away. I hardly use it; even so, it's a bit stained. Elizabeth, on the other hand, now has a valued, much-used and flawless collection of Nambe.

Yesterday I gave Elizabeth my Nambe for her birthday. It deserves a better home.

More Tricycles

Day 57: More Tricycle Magazines

Connie was disappointed when she learned
I'd dropped off all the Tricycles at the library.
Won't she be surprised!

If you think it's hard to organize a house, imagine what it's like to organize a 50-year-old two-acre building complex - including three barns - as we are doing at Matthaei Botanical Gardens right now. The plant labels have been especially challenging. We keep thinking we've got them all consolidated, and then a few more pop up in a box in some hidden corner. They're like garlic in the bloodstream.

At home, magazines and bedsheets are like plant labels. They keep popping up everywhere. I thought I'd given away all the Tricycle Magazines weeks ago, but four more emerged amid the big pile of National Geographics a few days ago. An excuse to send some mail to Connie at the farm.

Glass

Day 56: Glass Tabletop

Check out the chip in the lower
corner. This will be cut down
for use on a smaller patio table at
the botanical gardens

This glass tabletop has been in the basement for six years, ever since we added a leaf to our cherry wood table to make room for homework and dinner guests. Somehow the glass got chipped, which means we wouldn't be able to use it again anyway. Hopefully we will never reacquire any sticky-fingered, food-spilling toddlers from whom a nice cherry table needs protection.

Glass seems like a good follow-up to yesterday's depressing post about plastics. Glass is awesome for recycling! 90% of recycled glass gets made into brand new containers, and using crushed glass to make new glass reduces the environmental costs of production. Woo hoo! We just need to be better about putting glass in the recycling instead of throwing it away.

Cows have been known to eat glass debris. Gives new meaning to a glass of milk.

Just One Word: Plastics

Day 55: Plastics (specifically a couple of broken Adirondack footstools)
Large topic, plastics. In 1967, plastics were the wave of the future. Before then, cheese came wrapped in waxed paper and toothbrushes were made from bone and bristles. Now there are 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer in the Earth's oceans, and the doldrums is a floating plastic continent.

If the chairs won't give up the ghost,
why must the footstools keep breaking?

But look on the bright side: our teeth are gleaming.

We've had these Adirondack chairs since the summer of 1998, when we moved to Ann Arbor from San Francisco. They cost $12 each and I guess we thought we'd have them one year, then get the real thing. That was back when I hadn't had a full night's sleep in over two years and couldn't think past the next diaper. Sixteen years later, the chairs have faded a little, but otherwise, they're pristine.

If these chairs had the decency to wear out,
I'd feel more comfortable replacing them

Not so the busted footstools. "Bulky plastics" can go right in the recycling bin. Unfortunately, it's not clear that recycling plastic is better for the environment than making new plastic from raw materials because of the high use of fossil fuels in the recycling process.

Better: if you have plastic bottles, packaging or furniture, keep using them.

Best: avoid using or buying plastic at all.

Good luck with that. Avoiding plastics is like running between raindrops.

Point-and-Shoot Camera

Day 54: Point-and-Shoot Camera

My children, nieces and nephew are privileged to be invited to cruise the world with their grandparents during their 13th summer. Sam visited Anne Frank's house, climbed Hadrian's wall with a new friend, and shot goals at the Scottish Football Museum. He also took pictures with a little red Sony one-shot that we gave him for his 12th birthday.

Already taking pictures!

The exponential increase in cruising most likely isn't doing the oceans any good. Air pollution, sewage, and vessel discharges are all getting activists activated. If you're thinking of taking a cruise and you're interested in minimizing your eco-footprint, check out this cruise report card and choose accordingly.

Sam hasn't used the one-shot since the big trip, almost four years ago. Once again, his iPhone is the wonder-device that does it all, including instant posts to Vimeo or Twitter. The Sony has been sitting forgotten in a drawer. Now it's my niece Kaeli's turn to travel, and we've handed it down. She thinks it's pink and she loves it.

National Geographics

Day 53: National Geographics

Eighteen years ago today, Rich and I left for our honeymoon in Scotland. Yes, that's right, we spent our honeymoon on that sunny tropical isle, Orkney. While there, I didn't feel too well*, so I spent a great deal of time lying on a sofa, reading National Geographics. I fantasized that reading those magazines would imbue my baby with a sense of wonder and discovery, and that she would pour over them as she grew up, ogling the naked people and learning about science. We took out a subscription as soon as we got back to San Francisco, and we've been receiving a National Geographic every month, and saving it, since. 

Today I gave the last ten year's worth to the Summers-Knoll School. I hope the kids and teachers there get as much pleasure as we've gotten out of them over the years. I can't say that Sam and Emma have read and reread them, but Rich still reads each one cover to cover, and the rest of us dip our toes in. Now it's time to share.

*My daughter will be 18 in December

60s-Style Bar Stool

Day 52: 60s-Style Bar Stool

Expensive correlates to quality. Antiques are probably durable. When you buy a piece of furniture, you should really, really like it. That way, you won't mind having it around for ten, twenty or thirty years.

These are some recommendations for furniture that stands the test of time from apartmenttherapy. A bench can double as a coffee table. A bar stool can be used as a bistro chair. Leather furniture can be used indoor or out. (!)

Let me add, you should not have young children and, later, teenagers who jump on it, sleep on it, put their sweating beverages on it, put their sweating feet on it, spill crumbs on it, spill Coke on it, cry, bleed and blow their noses on it, rock back in it, lean on it, sit on it (when it's a table), put their plates on it (when it's a sofa), and use it as a napkin.

All of that is completely irrelevant to today's item, which the kids never had a crack at. Rich bought it because he thought it would be useful in the studio, where guitar players might prefer to lean against a stool rather than sitting down. But no one preferred it, and it got moved downstairs into the foyer where it gets in the way. It appears to have been made in the 60s; its wood and black metal design fits in with our aesthetic at the Dow-designed botanical gardens. It's there now; if we can't find a use for it, it will go to Property Disposition and we'll get a few bucks for it. 

Rich and I were just a temporary custodian.

Cell Phone

Day 51: Cell Phone and Case

The case is harder to give away
than the phone, because it
belonged to my greatly loved
father-in-law, Bill. So much
stuff has great sentimental value

Beam me up, Scotty.

In the 60's, the flip phone was the limit of our imagination, the apex of unattainable high tech, a fantasy as remote as traveling by molecular rematerialization. Now it's a piece of junk in the bedside table.

This is Rich's old phone. He was more Finnish than American in his attachment to it. Finns replace their phones every 74 months, Americans, every 21 months. The environmental consequences are severe.

Although the perky, dumbed-down language of the Story of Stuff: Electronics can be irritating, the analysis and recommendations are spot on. This tour bus we call Earth is heading for a cliff. No matter how well-meaning we are as individuals, legislative change - in this case, extended producer responsibility - is the only way to change course. In the meantime, given the questionable nature of electronic recycling, hanging on to your phone for 74 months - and writing your Congressional representative - is the best thing you can do to avoid poisoning the environment.

Sorry for the high horse. Have you seen the Global Change Research Program's report on climate change impacts, just released this week?

You can view it on your mobile device.

Terracotta Pots

Day 50: Terracotta Pots
I don't mean to be a dirty thievin' varmint, but it seems I am one. I have no recollection of buying a single terracotta pot, yet my potting shed is full of them.

I can only conclude that I stole them all from Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum. Sorry, universe! I returned them this morning, no harm done.

RLs Dream

Day 49: RLs Dream and Other Good Reads

Remember how 200 years ago hardly anyone could read? 

Giving away ones we've read.
Keeping ones we haven't, and
Calvin & Hobbes

Is the ability to read a good novel a precursor to successful relationships, financial stability and professional success? Should I be harassing my kids to put down their iPhones and pick up a paperback?

Or are they just getting smart in ways I can't even predict or understand?

When I was a kid, people worried that t.v. was stupefying us. There were studies showing that kids who watched too much t.v. were dumber, fatter and more lethargic. We didn't know much about brains at the time, but people talked about brain hardwiring and how t.v. was going to change it forever. We were going straight to hell in a handbasket, all because of Scooby Doo.

My younger kids, who read books voraciously, have been replaced by older teens with fewer screen-time restrictions and more texting, cute cat photos and Clash of Clans. I read that kids now actually read much more than kids used to read, but they're reading thousands of phrases like "Indiana Jones and the Bad Hat-Shop #BadPrequels" instead of entire novels. 

Anyway. For the stuff project, books are starting to feel like cheating because it takes only a moment to sort out the keepers. A lucky thing, too, because in the next 48 hours I've got to hem a seven-layer crenoline and silk prom dress, work two full days, attend a Greenhills School Shakespeare performance, and have a Cluck Ole Hen rehearsal. Oh, and buy a car. 

And it's raining.

Still. More. Bedsheets.

Day 48: Still. More. Bedsheets.
Just shoot me now.

Stuff Hider for Unknown Car

Day 47: Stuff Hider for Unknown Car

The Subaru? The Villager?

Invisible stuff becomes visible when you start looking. This thing was designed to hide stuff, but has itself been hidden in plain sight. It's been leaning against the back wall of the garage, right in front of the windshield as we pull in and out, yet it's been at least six years since I last noticed it. The garage will be fertile ground for the stuff project.

This thing fits in well with the theme of the last couple weeks: cars. Should I get one? If so, should it be new or used? Should I lease or buy? American or not? And what features matter most? Price? Storage? Gas mileage? Leather? (Yes, I love leather. You can just wipe off the honey, dog footprints and spilled coffee. And it smells good.)

Meanwhile, I don't know which car this thing once belonged to, so I can't even give it away. Off to the landfill, with all the other car stuff that's heaped up there.

Fencetop Planters

Day 46: Fencetop Planters

Free stuff is hard to refuse. Especially if it's nice stuff. Especially if it's stuff you'd use for your hobbies. Like gardening.

My dad gave me these fencetop planters. I used them one summer three years ago, but never since. They're good for annual flowers, but they weren't good for annual vegetables. They're a bit shallow and need frequent watering.

I'm making a resolution to say "no" to free stuff, unless it's stuff I would have been willing to pay good money for. That ought to make my life simpler.

Composter

Day 45: Envirocycle Composter

I'm no chemist. The sad truth is, no matter what kind of compost operation I try, I can't get it right. I've

tried open piles, beehives, and rollers.

I give up.

There's nothing wrong with this Envirocycle composter. It's a little heavy to spin, but otherwise, it works fine. It's just that you fill it up once and then it has to sit there for weeks. By the time the compost has cooked, you've forgotten all about it and it just sits there for a few more months, filled with dirt and taking up space. When you remember it, the amount of compost isn't quite enough to cover your beds, so you've got to go buy some more. If you've got to buy compost anyway, why not just let the City take care of everything?

For sale: one Envirocycle composter. If somebody bites, I'm taking Joe and Larry out to dinner. They're the ones who gave it to me. Thanks for the thought, guys!

GPS

Day 44: Garmin GPS

Have we sheep thoughtlessly surrendered our personal freedom in exchange for the latest shiny object? eProbation - whereby people wear an ankle tether that tracks their location and raises an alarm if they leave home - is available to alleviate jail overcrowding and reduce costs in some jurisdictions. What with the incursion of GPS devices, some say we are voluntarily slipping those e-tethers into our pockets every day.

The Man always knows where I am.

But that assumes that the Man is actually interested in me, and smart enough and organized enough to track me down. As far as I know, the only interested man is Rich, and he doesn't need to be that smart and organized. He can just give me a call.

A co-worker pointed out that the location of any kid who plays Angry Birds can be pinpointed. So if you've just been through a contentious custody battle, perhaps checkers is the way to go.

I've had the thought that it is both harder and easier to commit crimes these days. There is now such a wide variety. The choices are dazzling. Some of the possible crimes would be quite interesting to design and implement. On the other hand, what with location services and all, it's a lot harder to disappear forever with your spoils.

My Garmin GPS is now for sale on Craig's List for $50. Yes, that's right, just $50, $15 less than the other 205Ws on Craig's List. The Garmin actually works a lot better than the iPhone for giving directions, but I never use it any more. The iPhone is always in my pocket.

Tea Cosies

These tea cosies have to be
removed to pour the tea.
They're going to the Goodwill.
Probably few shoppers will
know what they are

Day 43: Tea Cosies
Four tea cosies, three teapots. I haven't used any of them in years, but they are hard to give away. My mother - bless her Scottish heart - gave them all to me.

Keepers - the left because it's tried and true,
the right because it's never been used.
My mother knitted them for me

I'm a coffee drinker now. We drink tea only to warm up on cold winter evenings. My grandmother is probably rolling in her grave, but in my house, we use mugs and teabags.

Worldwide, tea is still the beverage of choice. Tea is healthier for people, but apparently its production is no better for the environment than coffee.

In six months, I'll probably revisit those underused teapots. The handknit tea cosies can be carried out with me, feet first.