Until you have been involved in moving or downsizing for yourself or a loved one, the cycle of stuff may not be at the top of your radar.

This is about my ninth time since 2000.

Mom out of – my teenage and college – home. Mom out of assisted living.

In-laws out of house. In-laws out of senior living apartment.

House-wide carpeting fiasco times three.

Basement flood from Hurricane Florence involving my stuff, our former video business’s stuff, mom’s stuff, and my in-laws’ stuff.

Lots of stuff.

And now, joyfully, an evisceration of the guest room and office to provide a more welcoming atmosphere for both adult children and spouse/significant others to visit.

No one sleeps on the floor!

Repaint. New window treatments. Install two queen-sized Murphy beds so I can enjoy the space when there is no company. Blessing my daughter all the way in thanks for getting this started for me!

Build it and they will come!

All good. Can’t wait until we can have our little family reunion – once travel and getting together is once again safe.

In the meantime, there’s STUFF all over my house. Stuff waiting to be put back IF it survives the purging process. Stuff hoping for a new niche so it can easily be found and utilized – especially in my soon-to-be christened craft room/sometimes guest room.

This is not a post about the wonders of Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant, and letting go of stuff. We all need to do that, for sure.

But what is becoming so abundantly clear to me is that I’ve spent a significant portion of my life chasing or pushing STUFF around. Not being a great or better person. Not doing good deeds to bring joy, laughter, and hope to a troubled soul. Not inspiring others to greatness.

No. I’ve been pushing around a mountain of STUFF. Gives new meaning to the image of Sisyphus and the Rock.

My hourglass of life is not as full as it used to be. How many more grains of my limited and unknown quantity of precious sand do I want to devote to STUFF?

Clearly, not much.

So, this is going to be a purge that will, hopefully, become a blessing to my kids so they won’t have to push my stuff around too much after I’m gone. There’s that loving preparedness and consideration again.

If you are in the throes of getting or wanting more STUFF – better STUFF – because the old STUFF wasn’t good enough… Think twice. If you get new STUFF, make sure to throw out/give away/sell the old STUFF before the new STUFF even darkens the door.

In terms of clothing, I try to give away two for every new one I bring in. We have all over-bought in the past or have overkept while waiting for the size to come back. Move on. Someone could really use that item of clothing right now. Give it a happy home that fits.

Here’s a cycle of stuff that may sound familiar:

Young children want stuff. When they get older, they want stuff for older kids, but the little kid stuff is still there. Then they get cool stuff when they are teens. Moving out to college, they take only the best recent stuff, leaving the old stuff with Mom and Dad.

Twenty-somethings get jobs and can afford entry-level adult stuff. Thirty-somethings can afford to get better stuff which is layered on top of the old stuff their young children get to use.

As the forty-somethings age, their children get stuff. When the kids move out, the parents get better stuff that will last.

Fifty-somethings tweak the stuff their college kids get and help start them on their path of independence with the better stuff they once had. Parents need the ultimate stuff – now.

In the meantime, the parents are gathering stuff their own parents had that joins the childhood stuff their kids grew up with.

In their sixties and seventies, parents are trying to downsize their stuff, but none of the kids want the china, silver, or furniture. What to do with all those framed pictures of young children? How about the baseball trophies?

In our eighties and nineties, we may lose our stuff or not recognize our stuff at all. Too soon, our kids get our stuff.

And so, it goes. The rotation of stuff.

I’m going to try to sort through my stuff as quickly as possible, recognizing that needing something “someday” does not mean I should keep it.

Create a craft/guest room functional for my needs and quickly converts to a restful space for company. Create an office/second guest room that will inspire my writing and speaking engagements designed to uplift and support others, and will easily convert to a restful and uncluttered space for company.

Life is about the experience, the journey, the LOVE … not the stuff.

In health,

Deidre

Don’t miss even one FoodTalk4You.com newsletter! Look for the sign up to the left of this page above.

This week brings about, not only one of the most traveled weeks of the year, but a holiday of which most of us look forward to every year – Thanksgiving. Of course, this year, 2020, has seen such changes in our daily living, working, and caring for others.

It’s been the year of seclusion, and masks – and social distancing, which seems to me to be this year’s new buzz word. I hadn’t been out to eat in I don’t know how long, at a restaurant that actually serves their patrons, until recently. Now, there is serious talk of possibly closing everything down again.

Is anyone listening?

But, there is one thing that no mask, no lockdown, or social distancing can take from us – each other.

Aside from all the brutal lockdowns, negative outcomes, or spreading virus, we have much to be thankful for. Our families, (even if we don’t agree with them), the turkey (although it may not think so), and then there’s the fact you’re still here to read this – and, if nothing else – our memories, which no one can ever take away.

I started wondering, just what did the Pilgrim’s think of their first Thanksgiving Day?

It all began in 1691 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with Pilgrims sharing their appreciation for the land, and the indigenous people who taught them how to grow crops, how to work the land and survive the brutal winters. Their feast had a long list of foods including turkey, corn, and cranberries, which are still the mainstay of most of our Thanksgiving dinners today.

But, what about dessert?  Hmmm… Fast forward several hundred years later, in 1850, American poet and editor, John Greenleaf Whittier, penned a poem entitled, The Pumpkin, which is dedicated to the longstanding Thanksgiving topper, pumpkin pie.

The Pumpkin

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,

The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,

And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,

With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,

Like that which o’er Nineveh’s prophet once grew,

While he waited to know that his warning was true,

And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain

For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden

Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;

And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold

Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,

On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,

Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,

And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! The old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,

Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon,

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam

In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better

E’er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,

Brighter eyes never watched o’er its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

Deidre and I want to wish each and everyone of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. I hope your table is filled with good food and good people.

May your burdens be light, and your face masks be tight!

Here’s to the turkey – clink!

Sheree

Don’t miss even one FoodTalk4You.com newsletter! Look for the sign up to the left of this page above.