“…we collect excess crap like a Republican collects bad karma”
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And I agree with it 100%. I have way too much crap, and nothing cheers me up so much as getting rid of some of it.
My word of the week is “OUT”. We bought a house with the contents, and the previous owners had unbelieveable amounts of stuff crammed everywhere. 5 TVs for a family that watches little to no television- graduation gifts for the nieces. Leafblower? Out. I like to rake.
My husband and I keep very little than cannot be used for multiple purposes. Even our screwdrivers pop around and change heads on the same base.
There is a jaw dropping number of mostly useless space-takers out there. Here are some that still stun us:
rice cooker- um, a pot does that and a thousand other things.
grill things for squished sandwiches. A skillet makes great grilled cheese. If you like them squished then use the damn spatula.
conglomerates like “pumpkin pie mix” or poultry seasoning, biscuit mix or any number of things you could make on your own in 3 seconds. Check in your spice drawer- if the poultry seasoning has a fine patina of grease and dust, throw it out.
I could rant forever, but the useless things I want to throw out the most are Salazar and Nelson.
having a rice cooker — but it uses far less power than turning on the stove, especially if I’m not cooking anything else on the stove (like when I make a batch of rice for my famous Curried Chicken Rice Salad). It also doesn’t give off as much heat, which makes a big difference in the summertime.
I just cleared out a whole lot of stuff, mainly sweaters that I no longer want/need. They’ll be heading over to Goodwill tomorrow, along with our old slow-cooker (I upgraded to a new model that fits our needs better). Next project is to tackle the stuff in the storage room; we basically shoved a ton of crap in there when we moved in, now it’s time to sort through it and see what we absolutely can do without. I’d like to make enough room to put up some metal shelves (to make it easier to store items) as well as room for our new bicycles in the spring. 🙂
But if you want to talk crap, you should’ve been there when we cleared out Mom’s house; she had one closet full of plastic containers and trays that came from the supermarket deli/catering departments; she may have even had the ones from my wedding back in 1991!
You neglected to include the recipe for the Curried Chicken Rice Salad, or a link to a previous post containing same.
I’m sure this was an inadvertant oversight on your part that will be corrected with all due haste, so I am graciously calling your attention to the error.
😉
What Ductape said. (Please. My husband inadvertently picked up a bottle of curry powder when I had asked for cumin – cumin seed, actually.) I welcome any favorite curry recipes.
but let’s see if I can dig it out:
Curried Chicken Rice Salad
3 cups cooked rice (white or brown)
1 cup diced cooked chicken
1/2 cup red grapes, halved
1/2 cup diced green bell pepper
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup plain yogurt (fat free or low fat)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. curry powder or to taste
In medium sized bowl with lid, mix rice, chicken, grapes, bell pepper and celery. In small bowl mix yogurt, lemon juice and curry powder; add to rice mixture and mix well. Cover and chill for at least two hours, overnight even better.
I was saving it for a special occasion, but since we rarely get trolls around here, I’ll post it for you guys…
Just dawned on me that by leaving out the chicken, it would be a decent side dish with grilled chicken or even pork chops…may have to give that a try.
Thanks for taking the time to post this, Cali – the recipe looks quite flavorful.
Have yourself a fabulous day!
I know I have way too much crap – but Mr. Anom always finds book cases and filing cabinets and office furniture in perfect condition being thrown out by the neighbors. Neither of us can stand to see perfectly good things thrown away.
And that has led me to wonder: Would it be the pinnacle of tackiness to have a garage sale – in which we sold many of the neighbor’s discards? My husband thinks there’s absolutely nothing wrong in making a few extra bucks off of items that others chose to throw away. (Because heck – they could have had a garage sale) I, however, feel a little less comfortable, and think it might be crossing the tacky line.
Do it!!! and then let me know how many of them pay you $5 for the thing they threw out on the curb…..because it is just such a great deal!
Seriously.
Go for it…their loss, they got rid of the stuff.
If that’s tacky, then I’m tacky.
I’m the local trash fairy and pick up what’s still usable every Thursday. Then I’ll sell it or give it away to friends and family or post it on freecycle. No sense clogging up the dumps any more than they already are.
That’s cool and I love that title, ‘Local Trash Fairy’.
I once had a brainstorm(I thought) where all the junk that went to the dump that could be refurbished or items in salvage yards could be redone and put to good use…like furnishing Homes for Habitat. Hire poor women and rent huge warehouses and have a area for each item to work on…Such as all beat up dressers could be in one place and reinforced, repainted or sanded with little expense, same with beds/bedframes, bookshelves, tables, coffee tables and so on. Include someone with some electrical expertise to show women how to rewire old, ugly broken lamps and repaint or whatever ..well you get the idea. This would create jobs for thousands of women across the country and they could also set up one area as child care. Someone who had no inclination or skill in painting could watch the kids and get government grants or big business to donate or pay the rent on these places and you have a ‘trash to treasures’ while recycling and putting people to work and creating one of a kind home furnishing on top of it. There was more to my idea but that’s the gist of it, I even had a name I thought was kinda cool-Phoenix Furnishings.
That’s a great idea! That’d be an excellent way to create jobs and save the environment. You should see if you can get a grant.
One of the local town dumps south of the city here has a salvage center where people coming into the dump can drop off usable items. It’s run by the local area’s recycling society and is kept organized by volunteers.
The volunteers aren’t always present and it’s open during dump hours, so they just have a locked donation box where people like me can leave what we can afford to pay for items. All books and clothes are free and they have everything, including the kitchen sink. It’s in a huge warehouse kind of garage and is a great resource for those of us who can’t afford retail.
Yeah, my feeling was you didn’t have to be skilled to start with. Almost anyone can learn how to paint or sand furniture or use the tons of old wood thrown out to learn how to make simple tables, bookcases etc.
This plan included a van of big trucks to go collect or pay minimal fee at salvage yards for this ‘trash’. Big business could get tax breaks if they helped pay for rent on buildings or to pay salaries to these women-men also but it’s mainly women it seems to me who have the least skills or can’t work because they have kids and any babysitting fees a low paying job nulify’s their paycheck.
I went so far as to envision some of the women taking care of the business end because as I said not everyone is interested in painting etc..train women who are interested in the business end of selling things that don’t go to Habitat for Humanity to the public in general with one of a kind furniture pieces remade by the most creative in each area. Make this the chic place to go around the country for rich people to buy one of a kind items.
To me the added bonus also would be that children would be right there in an adjacent area being taken care of and you’d be able to check on them, have lunch with them,they’d be safe..and also from a kids point of view they see their mothers working and being a productive member of society and for good causes.
Since I’m talking about this I would add that as most materials collected cost nothing then anything bought like paint, varnish, cleaning products-some things just need some elbow grease-should be ‘green’ products.
So many possibilities to make these places work friendly, environment friendly with some simple planning and commitment. Business again getting tax breaks for say putting solar panels on the roof, using the light bulbs that are cost friendly in the long run.
You can donate those items to charities, then take the charitable donation off your taxes. Of course, this only works if you itemize; I remember several years ago being able to take a percentage of charitable contributions directly on the 1040 form — I think it was actually in the Reagan era as a way to encourage folks to contribute to charity. Don’t remember when that was eliminated, though… 🙁
We were going to have a garage sale with the stuff from Mom’s house, but we decided that with the time committment and probably some emotional upheaval as well, it was better just to have it hauled off for charity. (We did take our pick of items we wanted or needed; I’m looking at Mom’s wooden salad set on top of the bookcase…)
Cleaning out parents’ homes…
When my grandmother moved into a retirement home, my mother and uncle had the task of cleaning out her home. They found ancient bottles of DDT in my grandfather’s old workshop (note: he was born in like 1898…). They had to call the local hazmat folks to come get it!
Mr. Anom always finds book cases and filing cabinets and office furniture in perfect condition being thrown out by the neighbors. Neither of us can stand to see perfectly good things thrown away.
I live in Chicago, and it’s a pretty efficient system. People, particularly when they are moving, throw out all kinds of stuff. Mostly furniture, but we once found a pile of over 100 old records -Stones, Pink Floyd, Dylan… in the alley. What a goldmine! Anyway, people toss out perfectly good stuff, but it is never a complete shame because it is almost a given that someone will come and take whatever is salvageable.
The desk chair I’m sitting on now was acquired in this way. 🙂
Thanks to all for the comments and ideas. We’re strong in the recycling area, so we always find good use for our new found “treasures”. (Like the neighbor’s snowmobile trailer that just needed a little bit of work. My husband salvaged it for my nephew, who painted it, cleaned it up and tightened the nuts and bolts. Two days later he turned it around for $300 – and ever since then he delights in his visits to our house where I share our latest finds.)
Poemless – the story about your album acquisition tugged at my heart strings, from someone who cherishes her music collection. In my case, a dear friend/coworker started a family and needed to transform his music room into a nursery. Knowing his albums would be in good hands, he gave me his entire collection. This might sound kind of corny, but I was kind of humbled by the experience. And I love browsing through the collection; with fond memories of what took place to result in a certain skip or scratch in a song. (Okay, fond memories, my foot. The skips usually resulted from fights with my sister, the action of which caused the needle to skid across the record. ;^)
Good night!
I have been trying, unsucessfully, the past two years, to stop the inflow of my children’s CRAP — they have so many THINGS that none of them mean anything to them.
Unfortunately, I cannot get through to the grandparents and aunts and uncles who enjoy plying them with CRAP every christmas (which I would rather not celebrate, given I am not a christian), birthdays and other such.
They have enough, I say, too much, I holler, I graciously try to let them know that I understand their wanting to give to the children, I try to argue for savings bonds or a college fund (things that we are in no position to provide and would mean so much), or, if they must give, to give a list of things that are actually stuff that they want/semi-need — a contribution of cash to buy them the things they need like shoes and clothes or a winter coat (or, as the case may be here, a fall coat) ….
They insist on giving ME things/crap and I have siad over and over again: no. Please donate somewhere in my name, or this year, all I want is $$ to get passports, but no one seems to understand….I swear I want to take a blowtorch to it all….the kids wouldn’t miss it. I wouldn’t have to clean it up/try to roganize it and we would have great loads of fun with marbles in a box and a bigass leaf in the backyard.
brinnainne,
Almost all of this message could have been written by me. Too much crap.
20 years ago I left a marriage with just what fit in the back of my car. It was liberating to realize that I could go anywhere I wanted — I didn’t have anything to move!
Three years later when I moved out of my apartment, it took all day to lug the crap from one how to the other.
How did that happen to me? It’s not like I spend money on anything besides my Internet connection and books.
It’s as you say, a lot of it comes from other people.
My only really successful garage sale was the “toy sale” I had when my daughter was about 7 or 8. She had outgrown a lot of the toys – and never really played with more of them, and she really got into helping me pick what to include with the sale. I used the approach, “You’re about to get more toys for Christmas and where will you put them?” (Yeah, grandparents . . .)
Your older boy could get into this maybe – you could let him pick out the good stuff that he really enjoyed when he was younger to save for your younger one – and OUT with the rest of it.
We didn’t have all that much in the sale, but sold it all pretty quickly. It was the only sale we ever had that made enough money to make it worthwhile. And oh yeah, I bribed her with a percentage of the take . . .;-)
Oh and one more thing – lots of plastic toys can go in the dishwasher and come out looking almost new.
for the in-laws is most likely going to be charitable donations, with some small items for the fun of unwrapping. At their age, they really don’t need anything else to dust, polish, or figure out where the hell to store it.
As for me and the spouse, we’ll get each other a few small things, but our big gift to each other is a new bed — we’re finally graduating from double to queen! (It’s going to be so nice to have room to stretch…)
I love MM columns-I get them in my email. I have to say though I’m pretty anti-clutter…I can’t think if my apartment is too messy. Mostly due to the fact that I’ve probably moved over 50 times in my life(or more)and when you can’t afford to rent u-hauls and such you end up getting rid of lots of stuff and keep only what you can get in your car. Made me not get to attached to things. Probably the only thing approaching clutter would be my neatly(mostly)stacked piles of magazines or books that have overflowed from my bookshelves.
Is that article sponsered by the GAP or something. Throw alway all my old clothes, never!
You know I often visit friends and family and experience a pang of envy for all the cool stuff they have. But I then remember travelling half way around the world and living with little more than a few changes of clothes and a cot … and a supply of cigs. And I was very happy.
I can honestly look around me and say that if I own anything I don’t use regularly, it is zillions of piles of books and sentimental items from long gone friends and family members. Not necessarily because I’m holier than thou, but because I’ve moved a million times, I share a very small place with my boyfriend, and I am a tightwad.
I think the key is not to de-clutter one’s life, but to have enough discipline and perspective to not obtain junk to begin with.
We live in a disposable society, so I question the mantra to throw away your stuff. Because that’s only treating the symptom. Imagine what would happen to this country if we all stopped buying thigs we don’t need or won’t use for longer than a month or two! There needs to be a “sustainable” movement in consumerism!
Yeah, and don’t throw out the clothes and then buy new ones. Some of my niftiest get-ups were obtained from my grandmother’s closet. Invest in nice things that will last generations (do they still make stuff like that?) and buy everything else at thrift stores. Recycle. 🙂
I can personally confirm that it used to be possible to purchase clothing that would last generations. And not just hanging in the closet and worn occasionally, but worn every day, or every week, thrown about and dirtied and washed (in the old days, by hand, rubbed on rocks) and hung out in the air, ironed, crumpled, sat on, trampled by dogs and small children and you could still lend it to your grandson.
That is not the case today, and the warm and caring relationship ratio that once existed between expensive clothing from a fine old house as opposed to something cheap picked up wherever and garment lifespan has grown cold, hostile and no longer exists.
You are just as likely to get the same wear from a cheap item from a street vendor or discount outlet as from some “designer,” and aside from careful examination of quality of fabric and workmanship (which will be a depressing examination in either case) there is no way to predict if the thing will last you a month or two, or maybe a few years.
There is shoddy and there is shoddier.
I feel sorry for young people who do not have the option of going into the closet for yesterwear that they have very prudently held onto for longer than most peoples’ lives last.
Of course, if you are very wealthy, or in some specialized cases of particular regional wear, have the right connections, you can obtain something better than the mass-produced dusting cloths draped on the mannequins in the mall and stuffed into the markdown bins at the discount store, but gone are the days when obtaining a new wedding outfit could be accomplished by a fifteen minute visit to a retailer (ladies, I do not mean you) as opposed to months of negotiations involving operatives on three continents.
I should have put this in that pet peeves rant.
Mine too actually. I grew up getting hand me downs from relatives when young and had the misfortune to marry someone who didn’t like working therefore if I bought something(usually at a thrift shop)it had to last for years and years and years by necessity. Having the same winter coat say for ten years gets a bit old(no pun intended) especially if picked up at a thrift shop or one year I hate to say it, found in someone’s trash. Pretty ugly man parka but warm.
Oddly enough I found that clothes bought at thrift shop seem to last and last even though they are already considered old or worn out, why is that? Although good considering people who have to shop there need the clothes to last as long as possible.
There is a point where store bought clothes are only bought for the cachet of the label…because after a certain amount of money you’re not paying for quality but the label…nothing is worth the thousands of dollars that celebrities pay-it’s all about having the newest designer or newest trend.
That’s not to say that I wouldn’t like to be able to shop for clothes in real stores without worrying about cost but there should be a balance in the scheme of things I think. See what you did duct, you set me off also.
I suppose that if something lasts long enough to even make it to the thrift store (no holes, not threadbare, etc.) it’s probably well made to begin with. And I totally agree that the stuff I get from thrift stores lasts longer than what I’d get at the Gap.
The problem seems to be that companies make their profits not by providing quality and service and winning loyal customers, but by making crap that falls apart after a few uses and which forces the consumer to replace it constantly. And everything is made in sweatshops rather than with loving care. 🙁
I do feel like you have to be filthy rich to find a very well-tailored suit or jacket or pair of trousers. A few generations ago, these were staples in everyone’s closet. Poor craftsmanship across the board with all the emphasis put on the label and latest style.
Also something to think about: I think it may only be in America that people think they need a ton of clothes. The whole idea that you have to go buy a new wardrobe every season…
Who buy the same shoddy material from the same shoddy merchants because the Americans, who are now the top dollar, only want to pay bottom dollar, so quality fabrics are not even being made anymore in the places that once made them, except here and there in tiny batches.
And the couture process itself is mechanized, with machines operated by slaves as fast as they can operate them, in order to produce as many units at as small a cost as possible, then some go to have a fancy label sewed on, and are sold in US to Americans for $100 a shirt, for example, and others go to the discount merchants, who sell them for $20 a shirt.
The only “difference” will be a dye shade or a variation of stripe, so the consumer can know he got the real exclusive “Jacques Crapeaux” which the company pays a pittance for, and it contributes nothing to the quality of the shirt.
They will not pay for large amounts of good cotton to be spun into strong thread, and tightly woven into a fabric with a thread count that has the potential of being well-constructed by skilled and fairly compensated artisans into a quality garment that will take a young man from college days to dotage and be handed down to his son, and his son’s son, who will handle it with the care it never got in all its 60 or 70 years of life, so that he can proudly button it up the chest of his own son when he grows big enough to wear it.
OK, I will shut up now. It is part of my responsibility as an old person to periodically emit “they don’t make em like they used to” rants.
So has anybody made a hilarious mock PowerPoint presentation of whatever it is the Office of the White House Counsel plans to show in those remedial ethics seminars Bush is ordering?
They should be conducted by South Park’s Mr. Mackey: “Corruption is bad, m’kay?”
Halliburton’s next venture: Selling seminars in Ethics.
while the Tribes were clients of Abramoff.
An article in Huffington Post about House Speaker Dennis Hassert may be connected to the Abramoff Scandals.
link
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
As the congregation member said to the preacher:
“You’ve done quit preaching and gone to meddling”.
I haven’t thrown out an article of well-made clothing since I was in high school – but have pitched a lot of poorly made stuff. On occasion I enjoy wearing a pair of my grandfather’s overalls. Still good after all these years, and he was born in 1872! (My dad was his youngest kid born late in his life.) My dad wore the overalls, and passed them on to my brother, who passed them on to me. Most of the seams are triple or quadriple stitched. And the denim fabric, now soft, is still strong. Of course, I treat the overalls with great care, because they are now valuable family antiques, like my great-great grandmother’s sunbonnet.
One of my pet beefs about clothing is how women’s clothing is in general so poorly made compared to men’s clothing. My husband can wear his slacks and shirts for years before they are worn out. Unless I make a garment myself, it will not likely last more than a year or two, although I do have a couple of sweaters, one from high school andanother from ugrad days that are still in good shape.
I just moved and made many trips to recycling bin and thrift store before packing. My ‘crap’ only filled half the truck. AND then came the plants, filling the other half.
I have to admit this house when empty looked better than it does now with my stuff all over, while I am in the process of unpacking and finding a spot for everything.
For those of you with a lot of junk…
Try this link:
My wife has introduced this to her daily routine (Yes, I do stuff too!) and all of those really troubled spots in the house are starting to get smaller and smaller. There has been no overnight change, but I think that by the end of a few more weeks we may actually be on top of things around here, instead of buried underneath it all…
I think it actually works???
You sign up, they send you the daily Emailed instructions and, if you follow them, within a couple of weeks all of those little chores are getting to be smaller and smaller.
They kind of focus on making everything into small jobs and changing daily habits. With both my wife and I coming from a long line of “packrats” these are habits we really do need to change! lol