Patricia Abbott (pattinase): What Do You Have Too Much Of?

Monday, June 27, 2016

What Do You Have Too Much Of?

I am putting my house back together for the third time since moving last year. Now I know I have too many books despite giving hundreds away several times a year. But I also have too many pictures to hang on the wall, picture albums and loose pictures, downloads of various articles, pottery, quilts (I made them back in the seventies, pens. And so much more. Not matter how often I divest myself of these items, they always come back,
Aside from books, what do you have too much of?

30 comments:

Jerry House said...: Sex appeal.; 8:34 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I guess I will never know if that is true!; 8:47 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: Clothes, at least judging from how packed our closets are, especially Jackie's closets. And she definitely has too many shoes.

But as for books, we have enough bookcases that we do NOT have too many books! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.; 8:54 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I have a lot of clothes I never wear but not that much I do. Strange. Lots of mistakes, I guess.; 9:25 AM
Anonymous said...: I know what you mean about loose 'photos, Patti. I really need to put mine on digital and into some order!; 9:42 AM
Anonymous said...: I always say it's not a case of too much stuff but a case of too little room. If I had a bigger house, there'd be space for all the books, photos, knick-knacks, and jimcrackery that I've accumulated over the years. I don't want any less of what I have, I want more space to keep it in--although we've been gradually divesting ourselves of books over the past few years. As for stuff I don't want and have too much of: paperwork. I find it hard to throw away old bills, tax returns, warranties, owners manuals, receipts, statements, etc. I keep thinking, what if I ever need this? The fact that I've NEVER needed any of it in 40 years of adulthood doesn't seem to sway me!

--Deb; 9:47 AM
Anonymous said...: Little gifties, brought by the scores, offered by people affirming their affection. I have shelves of them and feel obliged to keep them. None are utilitarian; there have no use.; 10:03 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: Deb, a few years ago I overcame my pack rat genes and cleaned out a lot of the papers we'd kept forever. I still have some stuff - including my Marksman and Sharpshooter certificates from the NRA from 50+ years ago! - but most of the miscellaneous papers are gone. Fanzines is another thing I've been overstocked with, but I got rid of a lot of the ones I am unlikely to look at again.

Patti, when Jackie starts running out of hangars she buys more, but when there is no more room to hang them she will weed out clothes she no longer wears and I know a trip to the Salvation Army is imminent. But certain things she always keeps, like the tartan-ish jacket she bought in Edinburgh on our first visit in 1972.; 10:07 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I need to buy more hangars. That is clearly a lot of the problem. I kept a tartan skirt (which I never wore once) for years.; 10:24 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I wish I had people giving me little gifts. That sounds pretty exciting.; 10:25 AM
Charles Gramlich said...: Nothing other than books.; 11:02 AM
Todd Mason said...: People give you books, Patti...the little gift that requires investment. This why I have difficulty giving away lit any longer.

I like the typo that has you needing hangars. So, how many dirigibles these days, and how many small jets?

My several hundred LPs, and perhaps twice that in cds and dvds each (and several hundred VHS tapes) do take a lot of space...but it's mostly books and magazines. I'm down to a handful of BetaMax tapes, perhaps one UMatic tape and a couple of laserdiscs (12" videodiscs). A couple of open-reel tapes, some 8mm motion picture film, and couple hundred cassettes. No 8-track at this point, I think. Only a couple of the LPs are quadrophonic.

A fair amount of excess electronics around the house, too.

I hope Jeff's fanzines found good homes, and weren't simply used for rifle practice...

So, how did quilting mess over your wrists? Is that a common problem for quilters?; 12:12 PM
J F Norris said...: Clothes! I used to have an annual task where I go through the closets and donate all the clothes I haven't worn in the past year due to my no longer liking them or because they no longer fit. For the past two years we kept putting off that task for one reason or another.

Also kitchen stuff. We have way too many pots, pans, gadgets, and glasses for only two people. It's ridiculous how many glasses and coffee mugs we have. I could hire myself out to a catering service!

Our ward has a day when the alderman's office invites a commercial shredding company to our neighborhood and we take the previous year's bills, bank statements and unnecessary paper of a private nature to be shredded and recycled. That never accumulates anymore. This year we got to see how popular that annual service is to our neighbors because the trucks were late and there was a line that went around the block with some people pushing wheelbarrows full of boxes of stuff to be shredded.; 12:12 PM
Todd Mason said...: Jerry keeps trying to distribute sex appeal among his friends and acquaintances, but it stubornly clings to him, refuses to be shared.; 12:15 PM
Todd Mason said...: OK, at this point this house really does have an excess of coffee tables. That can happen, if one is inattentive. As far as I know, one coffee table my parents inherited with our house in Hawaii is still in the basement of my first ex's family.; 12:17 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Yes, way too much cooking stuff!
We weeded out the music when we moved but we still only play 5% of it.; 12:23 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Ha! We have an extra one too!; 12:24 PM
Kent Morgan said...: Stationery if you look at the closet in my office. Years ago I put in a large shelving unit that sits on a three-drawer filing cabinet and it's full of envelopes of all sizes, paper of various kinds, note pads, pencils and pens, cardboard, folders, bags, etc. That doesn't include what is the credenza behind me. I have a Rockola juke box in my basement so I have boxes of 45s that have been given to me or I bought. I guarantee that none of the records in those boxes will ever replace the classics I have in the juke box. So why am I keeping this stuff?; 12:40 PM
Prashant C. Trikannad said...: Books and comics and my dad's stamp collection.; 12:59 PM
Rick Robinson said...: Hmmm. I tend to keep the 1 gallon black plastic pots plants come in from the nursery. There are stacks of them in the garage, more than I'll ever need. I have way more CDs than I listen to, or probably will listen to. At least I finally stopped buying them! I have a couple drawers of notecards and postcards that I should sort and delete. Clothes not an issue, Barbara goes through and takes stuff I'm no longer wearing or that doesn't fit (I usually get to pick 2 things I'll keep anyway, usually T-shirts) and it goes to Goodwill. Oh, and reading Todd's comment, I remember I still have a couple boxes of VHS tapes (I do have a player) that never get touched. Maybe they should go.

We've got WAY more Christmas stuff than we use, but Barbara's kids don't want it and neither do Salvation Army, Goodwill or anyone else. So it sits in boxes in the basement. One of these days it will go to the landfill, I guess.

Old towels. Hard to throw out as there always seems like there will be a use for an old towel, washing the car, wiping up a spill, cleaning up a mess, covering something, etc. But we have a couple of large plastic bins of them.

We have a lot of art, but that's not too much, as it's loved. We just have more than we have walls for it, so it's on rotation.; 1:32 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I seem to have the stuff you all have too much of. Still too much Xmas stuff despite years of weeding it out. Bedspreads I will never use again. Curtains still good but not to fit the windows here.; 1:42 PM
George said...: We keep hoping Patrick and Katie will buy a house so we could given them furniture. We have way too much furniture. We just gave our old kitchen table and six chairs to one of Patrick's friends who is getting married. But we still have couches and bedroom sets and lounge chairs to find homes for.; 2:30 PM
Naomi Johnson said...: Scrapbooking/crafting materials. It's all in bins, but the bins seem to be everywhere, and multiplying like Tribbles.; 2:37 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: For years I had quilting material everywhere. But I finally acknowledged I wasn't going to quilt again because my thumbs were too worn out.
We got rid if a lot of furniture when we moved. Still a few pieces we could stand to lose.; 3:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Speaking of furniture, we got new sofas last September and since then we've had the old sofa in our front room trying to get someone to take it. We've tried Goodwill, Disabled Veterans (charity), Habitat for Humanity. No one wants to pick up the sofa because nobody wants a big old sofa. It reminds me of an article I recently read, "Boomers--Millenials Don't Want Your Big Heavy Furniture." I'm almost at the point where I'll strip off the upholstery and take a hatchet to the frame and bag it all up for the trash.

--Deb; 8:14 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Habitat told us we needed to have ten items to make a pickup. So we threw an entirely good wool rug out!!; 9:20 PM
Rick Robinson said...: We always think someone, somewhere will want our old stuff, but that person isn't to be found when the time comes for it to be gone from our home.; 9:49 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: That is so true! We had a long discussion last night with friends about whether anyone would want her mother's teacup collection. It meant a lot to her but that doesn't get passed down often.; 9:54 AM
Bernadette said...: Nothing.

I've never been a natural collector of stuff and the fact I moved 11 times in 5 years a while back cured me of even the minor level clutter I'd managed to acquire. But what really did it for me was having to clean out my parents crap - twice - once when I moved them from their home of a million years and once 10 years later when they both had to move suddenly into assisted living. I don't know how they'd managed to collect so much crap in 10 years but I was completely over "stuff" by the end of that cleaning out process, which coincided with the hottest summer on record here.

Shortly after that I read Marie Kondo's book about the live changing magic of tidying - I never read self-help books but was persuaded by a good friend and for me it was the missing piece - her philosophy is that things serve a purpose in life but it might not be what you think - so receiving a gift might have served a purpose for the giver but you socking that thing away in a drawer for a decade out of some misguided sense that you're hurting the giver if you don't keep it is not the way to handle it - she also says a lot about only having things around you that "spark joy" (that's a simplification really but you get the idea) - I was able to get rid of so much stuff - from a house that already was pretty lean - I now honestly only have things around me that spark joy or perform a useful function in my current life - I feel very content; 9:13 PM
Bernadette said...: grrrrr @typo - that was "life changing magic of tidying" not live :); 9:14 PM