Stuff

This afternoon Denny and I started cleaning out Black Beauty so we can clean her up for her next owners.  Can you explain why I have six milkshake sized straws and 2 inches of fast food napkins in the console?  And five pens, a golf pencil, three note pads, Tic Tacs and toothpicks in the overhead storage tray?  Don't get me started on the things that were stashed in the pockets of the front seats and behind and under the rear passenger seats but suffice to say we filled two large boxes with "stuff".  Yes, "stuff".  Remember when we got rid of all of our "stuff" when we sold our house?  It crept back into our lives at some point.

Granted, I used those note pads and pens and napkins and plastic rain ponchos and atlases and hiking boots and golf shoes and whisk brooms and....well, you get the idea.  There was a lot of "stuff" in there.  And now I have to winnow out the extras and the worn outs and the superfluous for our next vehicle which will no doubt have a lot less room for "stuff".  

I realized today that I have become my mother, who was like so many others a child of the Depression era and therefore prone to hoarding extras.  Of everything.  Therefore I am going to work extra hard to change that habit and throw away/recycle/give away all of those "in case" items that have turned into "stuff". 

I also changed purses today; what a horror that was as I kept pulling items out of my very small purse to place into a hobo style bag.  I apparently am a wizard at putting the maximum number of items in a minimal amount of space.  Sadly, one of the first things I did was remove all the grocery store courtesy cards from my keyring; I had twenty-four of them from across the U.S.  Twenty-four grocery courtesy cards.  But I can tell you where all those oddball small town and large town stores are when you flip through that stack of cards.  Which stores carry our favorite brands or some of our hometown foods to enjoy while we were hundreds of miles from what was once home or where we discovered a new local favorite to enjoy.  Memories locked in grocery store cards--who knew?

Right now Denny and I are in a state of stasis; we are waiting on a lot of furniture to arrive but it's a good thing that it's not here because in ten days the painters will arrive to do in one day what would take the two of us several weeks to do.  So boxes of items will remain stored in the closets a while longer to be out of the way when the painters arrive, although I really should go through them again and get rid of the old, the tired, the never-used and the what-was-I-thinking?  And the two of us need to get serious about purchasing a golf cart--I'm going green with electric despite all the naysayers who say gas is the way to go in this ever growing city of seniors.

While we're still working on making that transition between being full time travelers to full time homeowners, Denny and I discovered today that our travels allowed us to recognize locations in the paintings and works of art that were being displayed today at one of the town squares.  It was fun to talk to the artists and compare notes on favorite areas that they had recreated in oils, watercolors, pencil and even as oversized photographs.  And it was nice to get away from all that "stuff", even if just for an afternoon.

Tomorrow?  Once more into the fray.  Linda versus "stuff."