Knittah, Please!

i’m about half way under the weather today. i came home from school at the half way point, and have done next to nothing all day. i have to be good to go tomorrow. i have a very important meeting about a very sweet little 8 year old. i have to be there. too many teachers have now fought to get this child what she needs. i can’t not be present.

if i were 100%, i’d get off this couch and upload a photo from my iPhone. it would nicely illustrate this tale, but again, i’m taking it easy. or maybe i’m just lazy. take your pick. it doesn’t bother me.

so picture in your head instead. in this photo is the open back end of one of two very large penske moving trucks. it’s cardboard boxes, as far as the eye can see. in those boxes are the contents of our lives. not just my life. not just dan’s life. not just our combined lives. it’s everything. every scrap of paper, every little piece of black plastic left from who-knows-what. yeah. all the crap you don’t want, probably don’t need and should have thrown away long ago, but it slid to the back of the drawer and you forgot about it. (and did i mention that my parents left “stuff” here when they moved away? and my kids? and my nonie? and all the way back to my brothers when they left home? yeah. that much crap.)

then the house caught on fire, and complete strangers were swarming around. at one point, dan commented that our house was like a clown car. at noon (lunchtime), it was as if a whistle had sounded and dozens of men and women exited our doorways, piled into vans and went to lunch.

but it’s what they were doing in the house that this post is about. they were packing up everything. my emergency underwear (you know, the ones i should have thrown out, but hung onto in case the washer ever died and no one could come out to fix it and all of my decent, comfortable panties were dirty. those emergency undies), every mother’s day and birthday card made for me by my children, every receipt stuffed in random drawers in my dresser, the clapton concert ticket stubs from 1992. everything. it was all packed, shipped off to some ozone chamber to rid of any possible smoke smell, then wrapped in 7 or 8 layers of paper per item and boxed and stored until we were back in the house.

also, consider that none of this was textiles. no clothes. no socks. no bed or bath linens. we didn’t get any of that back. (another story for another day)

in the photo i’m too lazy to get up and download is over 600 of these boxes, filled with things we had managed to live just fine without for seven months. and now they were back. everything we really needed, we bought while in the rental. 

what did i learn from this? aside from the obvious gratitude that everyone, including our dogs are just fine, i have learned to think twice before acquiring. for most of my life i’ve been an acquirer. i loved my things and i wasn’t ashamed to admit it. but having my “things” gone for so long, then all dumped in our garage and basement in a matter of hours, has made me rethink it all. i can still spend with the best of them. make no mistake about that. the difference is, with the exception of some yarn hoarding, nearly everything i buy these days has a purpose in my life. oh, there are seasonal items. that’s what makes it home to me. but more and more i find myself closing a window before i click “send”. i pass up the tchochkes, choosing instead to seek out the perfect floor lamp (a mission i’m still on, btw). something about having at least 50 various notebooks and notepads surface all at one time makes me close my eyes and hurry past that damned tempting aisle of paper cuteness at target. i can now actually leave office depot with the needed printer ink, and not purchase ONE adorable post it pad. it’s a miracle. 

i’m able to resist the previously irresistable yankee candle holiday display, opting instead to burn the candles i bought last year. and the year before. and possible the year before that. 

and considering i just now wrote a check for $13,150 to hector, the drywall guy, i’d say the change is for the better.