Wrestling With Stuff

Good evening, ya'll. Come on in the house where it is warm for the wind is blowing like March out there and it is a little chilly. I will be glad when it gets warm enough to sit out on the porch, but we'll just have to use the "Net Porch" today. I hope all is well with you and if you want a cup of coffee just wait a minute for it is dripping as we speak.

Thought I would go a little fancy today so we are having hazelnut flavored coffee. Every now and then I pick up those little packages of special coffees and save them for special occasions like I'm celebrating having a cup of coffee. Doesn't take much for me to have a celebration does it? Coffee always makes a joyous time and I found a coffee flavored yogurt several weeks ago to add to my list of "favorite things." Most anything that tastes like coffee is good unless it is instant coffee. That is nasty stuff.

I have a new chicken casserole in the oven which I concocted today with leftover chicken. If it's as good as I think it will be I will share it with you. It is a "what do I have in the house" recipe and before I began baking it the taste I sneaked was good. Let's see what baking does to it. I may have a winner here.

Prayer is needed for me as I tackle a big task, please. No, nothing is wrong I was just convicted as I taught our Sunday School lesson this past Sunday. We have been studying the book of Ecclesiastes and Solomon was a pretty wise man. This past week we studied about how we collect and keep so much stuff, why we do this, and how to get rid of it.

Light bulb went off in my head and as I taught the lesson I began to picture all the "stuff" I have collected through the years and how cluttered a lot of my house is. Please if you ever visit me you have to promise not open a drawer, cabinet or closet door. If a door is closed, don't open and if I die before I complete this task, some of ya'll come over here and throw the junk away or lock the door and visit on the porch.

You see I am a pack rat from a long line of pack rats. Mama and daddy's house in Camden is full of stuff along with the attic, the barn and the shop. What are we going to do with all this stuff? I don't have the faintest idea. A huge yard sale is part of the solution, I guess but I have never had one of those things. The other idea I have is just leave it there and when I die the children will have to deal with all the stuff.

When we were home Christmas, Robby, our son who plans to move back to the house someday, went up in the attic. Now I haven't been up there in years for I am afraid of who or what lives up there. When he came back down the stairs he asked, "How did they get that mattress up there?" Well I don't have the foggiest idea and I also ask how did they get that great big rocking chair, the wicker chair, and all that other stuff up through that little trap door? You see why I don't want to go up there? Then I will have to think about what do do with all of it. You see, if anything ever came on the place, it never left and it resides somewhere on that 40 acres. I think it even procreated and had little stuff which grew into big stuff. Now what do you do with it? I don't know.

Well, when teaching this lesson Sunday I began to think about this challenge and realized that I have also collected a lot of stuff. When we were moving on a right regular basis, you had to clean out and throw away what you didn't need or almost all of it anyway. However, we haven't moved in 16 years now, the longest we have lived in one place and guess what? There is a lot of stuff around here and I have been convicted to get rid of some of it.

I told my class of sweet ladies how the Lord had spoken to me and convicted me of having too much stuff and that I was going to begin with my craft stuff. Ya'll know I am ADD so I have jumped from sewing to crochet to knitting to jewelry making to decoupage to embroidery and a few others I can't remember. I have bought supplies for these projects, play with it a couple of months and then stow the stuff in a box in a closet somewhere. I kept telling myself I would do it again but "again" never came. It just continued to pile up.

This is my beginning point in cleaning out and when I shared this with my ladies one of them threw up her hand and said, "I want your junk." Well we about fell out laughing for she had just agreed she needs to do the same thing. We laughed so hard the men's class next door beat on the wall to get us to quieten down. Didn't work but we tried. Guess what I am going to do? Right, I am going to take her a sack full of stuff to add to her stuff.

Come Monday morning I began the task. I decided my favorite crafts are knitting, crocheting, sewing and jewelry design and that is all I am going to do and these supplies are all I will keep. Now I have a 4 drawer chest of drawers packed with yarns and several other hiding places but I plan not to buy anymore until I knit this up and give it away. The sewing material is too plentiful so I am going to be brutally honest and give away what I know deep down in my heart I will never use. The lime green and the glowing fuchsia I think is a tosser, don't you? Also the double knits with the great big flowers needs to go. Also, the patterns for the 70's would more than likely be a good choice, don't you think?

Yesterday I bit the bullet and cleaned out all of my stamps and ink pads, most I've never used and gave them to a friend who scrapbooks. It was like tearing off a limb or at least a finger but I hung in there and carried it away. Thoughts were running through my head of how I may use this sometimes in the future but I resisted temptation and got them out of the house.

My next project is to clean out greeting cards for I have kept most of any I ever received. The plan was to recycle them or just take them out and look at them every year or so. Nope, going to send them to the St. Jude's ranch for children. They will take the fronts of cards and make new cards to sell and I can cut the fronts off these cards while I watch TV and it will be easier on me than tossing them in the trash. I just hate to throw pretty things away and that's where it all began.

There is already 2 boxes of stuff ready to go to Goodwill and I have promised myself not to drop stuff off at the back of the store and then go around to the front and buy some more stuff. I will probably go into Goodwill withdrawal but if ya'll will hang in there with me I will beat this addiction. I am going to clean out this house!!!!

Now ya'll pray for me as I chug along with this task for the body is willing but the mind is weak. Now I can just hear Roy saying my mind has always been weak but after all he did marry me, weak mind and all so what does that say about him? Now it is time to clean out another box and see who gets it. If you want any of this stuff you better let me know and come on by the house and get it. Roy is not up for grabs though for he is a "keeper."

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach