Sounds disgusting, doesn’t it? It is. I’m trying to get us to a minimum of “stuff” so we remain mobile. The old clothing et al was pretty easy, especially as I had assistance and at least six bags of clothing went to charity. Luckily some didn’t and was trashed. Reasons? Old, yellowed, 80’s shoulder pads should NEVER come back…..
Now I’m pretty much down to paper and sundry items that I have to look through. I spent much of the day on this boxing and taking out trash.
When my husband and I met and married 12 years ago I moved in, slapped things in boxes from my place 1,000 feet away and we never got a chance to merge households. We moved, put stuff in storage for several years, and now have it here. I’ve about 14 boxes left, about 7 paper, some office products, some clothing and bathroom stuff.
I just found a few “duralogs” in one box. My husband reminds me we had a fireplace once. I don’t think so. I had one before we met so I may have dragged these things across the country several times!
Once I get to work documents from 25 years ago I’ll have to cull them carefully and take most to a document destruction facility. I’m shredding personal papers and tossing old news items et al.
This week I took down our tabletop -real- Christmas tree and boxed, sealed and labeled all our precious ornaments. I’m trying to take all the taped, labeled boxes of stuff we wish to retain but don’t need every day (like Christmas ornaments, heater, humidifier) to storage but am terrified of operating their elevator. It’s the oldest industrial elevator in town and is gorgeous, huge with oak floors, but it runs on a pulley system with ropes and lead weights and is difficult to get just right, to land correctly on the floor you want to land upon.
Our place is looking better. It only took 2.5 years. I moved my office into the second bedroom because my husband bought a workhorse of a printer (the Beast) that weighs and ton and takes up a lot of space. I have a 100 year-old English oak gate leg table as my desk, it’s beautiful but rickety so I had to place the Beast on a sturdier surface, my brother’s old glass and metal desk in the guest room so moved my computer in as well.
My cherished oak desk held the Christmas tree, stockings and ornaments. I’ve been restoring it with lemon oil so have left it open. Cooks will love this. I oiled the desk yesterday, found a pashmina scarf my dad got me from Turkey last year in blues, greens and gold and used it as a table runner as it goes with the living room decor.
I didn’t have anything special to place on it so showcased a large Armetale platter my mother got from a hospital benefit years ago, an antique green lemon juicer, a new (used) copy in yellow of The New Settlement Cookbook, two soup tureens in yellow with ceramic Chinese spoons and an antique yellow Pyrex dish from the early 60’s with a daisy painted on the glass lid. Also a crayoned card from a girls’ birthday party we stopped by at a neighbor’s. My husband made them each a balloon and they each drew themselves with the balloon he made. I’m keeping it to frame for him.
With tassels on the ends of the scarf, it looks to me like an altar to food. I joked with my husband that I could grab the gardening kneeling pad I keep beside the frig and he could use it to pray to the food gods to have Dee make him spaghetti and meatballs tonight!
Purging is tiring, hurts the back and feet but a good night’s sleep will take care of that. I’ll let you know when I get to the ancient stuff. Perhaps I’ll find the signed copy of James Earl Jones’ Chilean Sea Bass recipe my father bought for me at auction. Cheers! Dee
Cooking with Dee 