September 20, 2013September 21, 2013 by clumpaday

Decisions, Decisions

Clump #51: Empty out yet another box of keepsakes.

If not for the power of this 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge, I would honestly put off going through this box for … forever, really. To tackle it, I have to make difficult, heart-wrenching decisions. My inner two-year-old has been whining at the thought of going through it all day. But I don’t want to!

The hen is a family heirloom. My mom always had a thing for hens, and this one would sit in the center of the table at Easter, surrounded by our dyed eggs.

I put the hen on a basket and let it roost on top of our kitchen cabinet. She seems content there.

Here are some of the ironware items my mom collected that, to me, telegraph a sense of home:

I had to reorganize a bunch of cookbooks to fit the pieces in. One of the books was given to me by a dear friend for my wedding shower. I love the book, but, wow, Martha — we were so much younger then!

I was struck by an article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer about an effort to preserve Pennsylvania’s top ten most endangered objects, “tangible pieces of Pennsylvania history.” The cost for the state to care for these items range from $1,665 for the earliest known free frank signed by George Washington; to $5,000 for Thaddeus Stevens’ wig; to $25,480 for preserving the visitors’ book for a jailed nineteenth-century abolitionist. Pictured is a 1536 illuminated Mennonite Froschauer Bible. The state “is launching a six-week ‘crowdsourcing’ effort to preserve them.”

Pennsylvania First Lady Susan Corbett was quoted as saying, “These artifacts tell us who we are and where we came from.” The same thing applies as I decide which tangible pieces of our family history to save and which to let go.

Ironically, on the same page as the article about endangered artifacts, there was a poignant article about a ten-year old boy who was so unhappy with his school in Philadelphia that he wrote a letter to the president. He was upset after a year with a frustrating teacher. “Still, he enjoyed gym, art, and music classes. Watching the news on TV over the summer, he learned that those extra subjects were being cut back in the troubled school district.” He went to the top for help in getting into to a better school. Unfortunately, crowdsourcing efforts will not fix the Philadelphia school system.

Our choice of what to keep and what to let go, what to fund and what to cut, does say a lot about who we are and what we value.

September 19, 2013 by clumpaday

Enduring Memory

Clump #50: Take donations to Goodwill, LensCrafters, and Best Buy.

Another old family photo featuring my dad, in honor of his birthday week and my effort to clean out the room housing many of his things.

The photo below features three of his four daughters; one more was yet to come. I’m in the middle. Looking at the picture in this resolution, I’m guessing that’s not a pacifier in my mouth, but a smear of food. Time to get out the camera. My dad would laugh remembering how he’d always hit his head on the corner of the cabinet above him in this crowded house. The good old days!

Here is a hunk of junk I managed to get out of our crowded house today. My husband added a pile of old t-shirts to the Goodwill load, saying we’re becoming “Clumpaholics.” Funny guy! The Joe Jitters shirt from Moose Lake, MN, on top, was hard for me to part with … so many good memories. Somebody help me — I’m drowning in sentiment.

I took seven pairs of old glasses that had belonged to my parents to a LensCrafters/Lions Club drop-off.

That felt very good.

I also took my father’s computer hard drive to Best Buy, where they kindly took out the disk for me, to recycle the rest. They’re not allowed to clean or destroy the disk, for liability reasons.

Here’s the part I must now destroy. The sales clerk/geek squad member recommended drilling a hole in it somewhere around the large rounded area. Or bashing it with a hammer. What have we created here? The world simply baffles me.

Back, for a moment, to the post entitled Back to the Garden. I was made aware by one of my readers that I was not clear in my description of something I learned at an iPhone photography class at Longwood Gardens in Kennet Square, PA. Here is the correct description: the volume up button on an iPhone can be used as a shutter (not the top on/off button), and tends to be more stable than tapping the camera icon.

Another good tip: the teacher recommended avoiding use of the zoom-in feature on the iPhone camera. Better to use the normal setting and manipulate it later (zooming in, cropping) for image clarity/quality.

September 18, 2013September 19, 2013 by clumpaday

Turning a Corner

Clump #49: Unload two boxes of sentimental stuff.

Day 18 of my 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge … where I am currently clearing out a room used to stash my parents’ belongings a year after my father’s death, in honor of his birthday this week.

This is too hard! I just called my sisters for reinforcement, and they were both out (unless they are now screening my calls). Here are the two boxes I unpacked:

Some things in there were pretty easy to put right into a Goodwill box or a Fall Festival box — our Quaker Meeting is having its annual festival in October. Great timing. I hope someone will want to buy this beautiful Japanese fan:

One box was almost completely filled with framed photos. Below are hand-made paperweights two of my sisters and I made in grade school. We will have to have a big picture-redistribution.

The red framed photo is from the first Christmas card my husband and I sent with three kids in it. That winter was the most severe weather I can remember. Getting the photo taken and putting the card together seemed akin to scaling Mount Everest. I believe the adorable outfits were from a very exclusive line found at a yard sale.

Okay. Here are the most difficult items. My mother’s purse and jewelry box. I need a sister consultation about these. And then the candle.

Here’s a piece of advice for anyone in the sad position of doing business with a funeral home. Do NOT take a candle with a picture of your dear deceased loved one with their birth and death dates, the words “Celebration of a Life,” and in this case, a background picture of a golf course. We lit the candle during the two memorial services we had for my dad … but now what? I really don’t want to use it again, but throwing it away seems like a sacrilege.

On a lighter note, here is the empty corner. Free from the weight of heavy memories and expectations. Those canes lurking nearby are next.

And on an even happier note, I brought the pansy pillow and the album of pictures from previous clumps/posts to my mom today. She was pleased to get them. One of the pictures in the album summed up my parents’ relationship. Two different people (check out the body language) who made a yin-yang-like whole and who truly celebrated life:

September 17, 2013September 18, 2013 by clumpaday

Out of the Shadows

Clump #48: Rake through three bags of paper and recycle sandals.

It’s official. Summer is really over. My trusty sandals finally gave way. I have a problem with shoes: just when they start to look bad, they start to feel good. A friend, who once staged a shoe intervention for me, recently pointed out that one of these sandals was starting to split. I was unconcerned. Not even considering duct tape. But today the split was complete. The great thing is, they are completely recyclable, and tonight is trash night.

I had purchased them in a grocery store, but I just ordered a new pair online with free shipping (coupon code 2KUV95BA). The company’s name is OKABASHI; they’re made in the USA. These look a little worse for the wear, but I highly recommend them.

Also going out to the curb: the paper contents of the last three (now) benign-looking reusable shopping bags from the room of gloom.

So many credit card offers to dismantle! My pet peeve: the plastic that comes with them, and the goopy stuff used to glue them together.

I’m finally feeling a lifting of the shadows in the room formerly filled with sad memories and neglected clumps. My husband and I went out for a walk this evening and the idea of shadows was on my mind.

Shadows can be lovely.

We stopped on a bridge to look for fish in the stream, and I realized our shadows were in the spotlight.

September 16, 2013September 17, 2013 by clumpaday

Photos Unstuck

Clump #47: Take down photos on boards and put in an album.

This is a tough one. My father passed away last summer and I still have the two poster boards with photos I brought to his funeral in the study I’m clearing out. I’ve been averse to disturbing them, but they remind me of the funeral, a very sad time, more than the fullness of his life.

I went to Target and bought an album. I’m trying not to get too picky-scrap-booky about it. Just put the pictures in as best I can, and write a few labels.

The thing is, my dad would not have wanted a shrine built to himself. Unlike me, he was very practical and organized. The shrine I have inadvertently made in this room is one of clutter and neglect, the complete opposite of what he stood for. Kind of like the shrine to inner peace, simplicity, and spiritual knowledge in the midst of stuff, stuff, and more stuff that I saw recently in a Pier 1 store.

This past Saturday was a low day for me, what with the crushing realization of how little I know about modern technology and the rejection of books (and, a little bit, of me) at the used book store. I came home, checked the mail, and found a lovely note from the hospice agency we enlisted to help last year with my father’s death. The note was a reminder of my dad’s upcoming birthday and the writer sympathized with how difficult that might be. I didn’t need the reminder, but it was very thoughtful of them. Here’s my dad in an early photo with his sister:

His birthday is this Thursday, and I will honor his memory by restoring order in a place of chaos.

September 15, 2013September 16, 2013 by clumpaday

Mom Is A What?!

Clump #46: Recycle old plant pots.

My husband actually said these words to our college student daughter today: “I found out that Mom is a pot plant hoarder.” No, no, no! He meant to say “plant pot hoarder.” Good heavens!

The dear man was cleaning out our garage and unearthed a whole bunch of plant pots that I had been meaning to recycle for ages. Even I was shocked at the number. I think I started stacking them together when our township recycled only numbers 1 and 2 plastic. Now we can recycle 1 through 7. Out they go.

I don’t think of myself as a hoarder, but I guess we are all on a spectrum. The sad souls who end up on T.V. in houses with life-threatening clutter and dead cats are on one end, and on the other are those who are disabled by obsessive cleanliness. I guess I would have to put myself on the hoarding side, after all.

I’m reminded of a store I drove by this summer:

What a clever name! I was disappointed that it was not open for business.

The moral of the story is to address clutter when it looks like this (from the show, Little Shop of Horrors) …

Or it could turn into this!!

September 14, 2013September 18, 2013 by clumpaday

Back to the Garden

Clump #45: Take Shakespeare books to used book store.

I had been really looking forward to today. Perhaps my expectations were too high. I’d signed up for a class in iPhone photography at Longwood Gardens, in Kennet Square, PA, a sublimely beautiful place. Afterward I would bring my parents’ old, complete set of the works of William Shakespeare to a rare/used book dealer in the same area.

I was afraid the class would be too technical for me, but I was fine … until the end, when I felt very, very stupid. And it was not that everyone else was younger — just more tech-savvy. This was a picture I took with back-lighting:

And this is the same photo with an Instagram feature enhancing the colors. Pretty cool, almost psychedelic.

These are a few simple things I learned before I crashed into dumbland: first, the volume up button on an iPhone can be used as a camera shutter. Wow! When you tap the camera icon on the screen to take a photo, you often jiggle the phone a little. The volume up button tends to be more stable.

Maybe everyone knows this? I didn’t. When your phone is trying to focus on a couple of areas on the screen (green squares appear), tap the part of the picture you would like it to focus on.

I knew I could get a very subtle grid on my photo screen by tapping Options, then turning Grid on. Our teacher recommended placing subjects on the four intersecting points where the lines meet, in order to add interest in composition.

I spent my time in Longwood Garden’s Idea Garden, meant for home gardeners. Longwood is known for more elegant areas, with fountains, formal plantings, and an indoor conservatory — all spectacular…

But vegetables are beautiful, too.

After class I went to see the very nice and knowledgeable book dealer. In essence, he said the books were not in very good condition; that he wouldn’t be interested in buying them. So, though I got a step closer, the clump wasn’t released. I felt a little personally rejected along with my books.

I think I need to sit at the children’s table, where life is simpler and hopes are renewed.

September 13, 2013 by clumpaday

Excuse Me While I Kiss The Sky

Clump #44: Give away cushions and throw away bags.

Thank you to Jimi Hendrix and the song Purple Haze for the title of this post. Another day of confronting a clump of stuff that had been moved out of my father’s last apartment into one of our rooms. This room, the study, has become a black hole, sucking in all manner of clutter. (Ahem, I, of course, have had nothing at all to do with it.)

First, something I should have done long ago. These bags were from the funeral home we used when my father passed away last year. Today I gave myself permission to throw them away, not give them away. What a relief.

Next, I put together an assortment of pillows to give away. I’d given the one with needlepointed pansies to my mom at some point. She has always been a big fan of pansies and often remarked about how much she liked it. I will bring it back to her.

My mom’s affection for pansies must have rubbed off on me. I took this photo of two of them with a petunia during pansy season this spring. (Doesn’t the one on the right look like a cat face?)

Perhaps I had pillows on the brain, but I couldn’t get over the sky today … like thick down. I almost wanted to stop people on the street and exclaim about it. Magnificent. I guess I did need to get out!

September 12, 2013 by clumpaday

Feeling Like a Blobfish

Clump #43: Tackle box of parents’ paraphernalia.

I now have an icon for the way I feel:

I saw this poor creature today on The Daily Beast website, which reported that “The Ugly Animal Preservation Society has just named this gelatinous glob of goo — the blobfish — the world’s ugliest animal. The society aims to draw awareness to at-risk animals who wouldn’t normally receive attention because of their extreme ugliness.” Awww.

What brought about my own blobfish mood? Having to start working through the remnants of my parents’ possessions. Very sad. I promised myself I just had to look through one box only, and called my sisters to confer with them on some of the tough decisions.

Some items were easy to dispose of, like a bottle of Saratoga water from a trip the whole family took together many years ago. I already had one of my own on the kitchen window sill. It casts a lovely blue light when the sun is shining through.

These mugs were in the medium category of difficulty for giving away. I had bought them for my parents to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. This was The New York Times front page on the day they were married in 1950. Off they go.

I made these place mats and napkins for my mom one Christmas. They bring back good memories of great meals at my parents’ house. When I look at them, though, I want to sew them over again and do a better job. Into the give-away box they go.

I have a new to-do list for other box contents, like checking on the value of old books, but these two items were the only clear keep-ables in the whole box: a ketchup bottle from my mother’s family’s ketchup business and the wedding topper from my parents’ wedding cake. What a handsome couple.

For now they will live in our hutch, away from harm, out of the box, and a pleasure for all to see.

September 11, 2013September 11, 2013 by clumpaday

Hallelujah

Clump #42: Buy new folders for piles of sheet music and instruction manuals.

The gratitude I felt today for the men who pick up our recycling was boundless. I was almost afraid to look when I approached the curb this afternoon … but all ten bags of paper were gone! Woo-hoo!

Now that I have done the machete-wielding job, the sorting and fine scalpel work remains. The sheet music below is one example. My family is a musical bunch. I am the designated audience member. Through the years we have amassed a collection of sheet music that wanders hither and yon. This is not usually a big problem until someone needs one piece in particular. Then the sorting through paper piles, scratching of heads, and tearing of hair ensues.

Every holiday season my husband, son, and two daughters sing a quartet of Coventry Carol for the Christmas music program at our Quaker meeting. And every year no one can find the sheet music. Somehow, by hook or by crook, the music is reprinted from some source at the last minute. This is not a peaceful, holiday scene. The resulting performance is always one that brings tears to the eyes. Now I will be able to easily locate the sheet music and can contribute to the effort, not to mention the general holiday cheer.

I went to Target today and bought two expanding files. I was thinking it would be great to find one with musical notes on it. Aren’t these whole notes?

The other big bunch of paper I needed to corral was a stack of instruction manuals for various appliances and other purchases. Again, not something you need very often, but when you really need one of them, SO annoying not to know where in heaven’s name it is.

And now this pile’s new home — voila:

Today’s crossword puzzle included a quote by Shakti Gawain: “Problems are messages.” So simple. So profound. One of the little slips of paper I just taped in my idea book was from a fortune cookie: “No problem leaves you where you found it.” I’m going to do some deep thinking about the messages contained in my problems. Something about self-sabotage as a misguided form of protection. But today, I feel like I am finally breaking free from a paper chrysalis.

Clump A Day

postcards from the clogosphere

Tag / Life