While you're living it up on that Montepulciano, read on and use your wine-fueled creativity to help me solve a few dilemmas that have come up in our downsizing process.
SOCKS
I found a surprise when I was sorting through my lumpy piles of clothing that represented half of what I used to have. I have over 30 pairs of socks. Seriously! There were so many I lost the ambition to count them all. Do you know anyone who needs 30 pairs of socks?!
I did a little research, and you can actually recycle old or unwanted socks. I like to be inventive, but I'm not good enough to take old socks and make a scarf that anyone would want to put around their neck! Nice Laundry sells pretty sweet looking recycled socks and will accept old socks for recycling. BLACKSOCKS has a similar program.
I parted with some socks that my grandmother had given me. Actually, she gave me a gift card and I picked them out myself. But they were still from her. They were stretched out and bare in the heels and I hardly ever wore them anymore. But they were from her. It's tough to realize that, someday, I might not have any thing that will connect me to her. Things are slowly wearing out, breaking, and losing their purpose. It's important for me to remember our connection goes way, way, way beyond the thing.
Ahem. Sorry. Got sentimental again. Moving on. And please recycle your socks!
BIG PHARMA
Grandmothers, or just about everybody, tend to have lots and lots of prescriptions. With my husband having Crohn's Disease and a slew of naturopathic remedies acquired and tested over the years, we ran into a lot of fun when we went through the bathroom closets. I ended up with an entire basket of pill bottles to dump somewhere safe... the toilet? Ugh! Isn't our water supply contaminated enough?! The garbage? Same problem... There's not a ton of information out there on this but I was able to bring our outdated medications to a secure drop-box at our local police department. My husband scraped all the personal information off the labels, leaving the medication information in case it was needed for proper disposal. If you are downsizing and find unwanted prescriptions, please please PLEASE dispose of them properly!
Okay, public service announcement over!
ROCK N ROLL
So the other dilemma I've run into - and haven't been able to solve completely yet - is all the wonderful, artsy, weird, music I have on CD. Music from college, music from before college, music from pre-iPod era. What in God's green earth do I DO with all this stuff?
I found Pandora when it first came out and I've hardly looked back since. I don't know if I've listened to an album in its entirety all year. Sad. I love music, but between work, my daughter, my husband, and the business, I barely have time to catch the news each day. I get a respite when I drive back to my hometown. It's a 3 hour drive and I can listen to anything I want! Fugazi. Hank Williams. Brainwash Projects. Wilco.
So, for the moment, my CDs sit in a box downstairs in the basement, along with our DVDs that we can't seem to part with but hardly ever watch. Ugh. A downsizing fail.
But at least we're not in the 8 track era anymore...
There's always something to be thankful for!
Happy Monday everyone!
