Lately, as I try to clean my cabinets and get rid of "stuff", I've been thinking about hoarding and the struggles we have with it, and why.
Some things that are saved are saved
for sentimental reasons, or because they WILL be reused, eventually. Like the little outfit my daughters wore that my granddaughter wore out.Only a used play outfit, but the continuity meant a lot to me. I have the first gift my husband ever bought me -- a red pullover sweater. I have a very fancy (to me) dress that a friend bought for me when I lost enough weight to be able to wear it. I have another, similar dress that a different friend gave me when I had gained weight enough to be able to wear her cast-offs as she lost weight.
Neither dress will fit me now, and the older one is unlikely to EVER fit again.
That's one kind of saving.
Another kind is silly, and unhealthy. Like newspapers kept and reassembled and stacked by date because someone might need to know something that was in them. They weren't allowed to be used, or even reread after the first week or so, unless you were doing a school report for that date or something. The newspapers were kept in the kitchen. Not good. Bugs, and dust, and printer's ink and all that. Mice like paper, too. Not a good kind of saving.
My sister, at least one of them, saves butter bowls. Well, margarine bowls, or whipped 'topping' bowls of that nature. Ones with lids.
With strict discipline, I've avoided that trap. Mostly because I like bowls to have what they say they are in them. Hate butter bowls that are peas or gravy -- those items just don't spread well on toast.
No, my bete-noire is coffee cans. Metal, plastic -- it doesn't matter, although it is a tad easier to throw out the plastic ones. That labeling thing, again. I must have been traumatized once, trying to spread gravy on my toast! The plastic cans usually have labels as part of their design.
The paper can be peeled off the metal cans, and when that happens, there is nothing that can't be done with them. I mainly use them as canisters. Was always dissatisfied with store-bought canister sets -- you could only put a whole bag of anything (flour, sugar, corn meal) in one canister, because the others were smaller and smaller and smaller. Coffee cans are all the same size -- just like the packaging for the sugar, etc. Other ingredients, such as nuts or chocolate chips or brown sugars, can be assigned to their own coffee can, with lid, still in their packages.
But, short of a professional bakery, or maybe a day-care facility, even I have run out of uses for the coffee cans. They can hold anything -- pots, plants, paints. They can be decorated -- that,s why they would be popular at day care -- but eventually they take up space.
So, if you know anyone who need an all purpose container, let me know.
I can give them away, just not throw them away.
Some things that are saved are saved
for sentimental reasons, or because they WILL be reused, eventually. Like the little outfit my daughters wore that my granddaughter wore out.Only a used play outfit, but the continuity meant a lot to me. I have the first gift my husband ever bought me -- a red pullover sweater. I have a very fancy (to me) dress that a friend bought for me when I lost enough weight to be able to wear it. I have another, similar dress that a different friend gave me when I had gained weight enough to be able to wear her cast-offs as she lost weight.
Neither dress will fit me now, and the older one is unlikely to EVER fit again.
That's one kind of saving.
Another kind is silly, and unhealthy. Like newspapers kept and reassembled and stacked by date because someone might need to know something that was in them. They weren't allowed to be used, or even reread after the first week or so, unless you were doing a school report for that date or something. The newspapers were kept in the kitchen. Not good. Bugs, and dust, and printer's ink and all that. Mice like paper, too. Not a good kind of saving.
My sister, at least one of them, saves butter bowls. Well, margarine bowls, or whipped 'topping' bowls of that nature. Ones with lids.
With strict discipline, I've avoided that trap. Mostly because I like bowls to have what they say they are in them. Hate butter bowls that are peas or gravy -- those items just don't spread well on toast.
No, my bete-noire is coffee cans. Metal, plastic -- it doesn't matter, although it is a tad easier to throw out the plastic ones. That labeling thing, again. I must have been traumatized once, trying to spread gravy on my toast! The plastic cans usually have labels as part of their design.
The paper can be peeled off the metal cans, and when that happens, there is nothing that can't be done with them. I mainly use them as canisters. Was always dissatisfied with store-bought canister sets -- you could only put a whole bag of anything (flour, sugar, corn meal) in one canister, because the others were smaller and smaller and smaller. Coffee cans are all the same size -- just like the packaging for the sugar, etc. Other ingredients, such as nuts or chocolate chips or brown sugars, can be assigned to their own coffee can, with lid, still in their packages.
But, short of a professional bakery, or maybe a day-care facility, even I have run out of uses for the coffee cans. They can hold anything -- pots, plants, paints. They can be decorated -- that,s why they would be popular at day care -- but eventually they take up space.
So, if you know anyone who need an all purpose container, let me know.
I can give them away, just not throw them away.
I insist upon see through lid bowls. They can be reused from the deli or whatever, but those not-see-through butter bowls go right in the trash.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, I have thrown away all such bowls. My bowls that are re-used now MUST be see-thru. I got so tired of opening something and it was not what I thought it was. So, now, I only have the Ziploc or Glad re-usables. Some carry-out bowls, or ones from the deli, are ok too.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we got the re-using from our parents as they were raised during the great depression and everyone saved and re used whatever they could. I mean in this day and age we have stuff made for one time use and to be thrown away. Kind of funny I had these thoughts while i was doing the dishes and was washing an ice cream bucket. By the way this is Chip!!!
ReplyDeleteI have a few icecream buckets, too. I figuew we save because we were brought up to. Glad we're mosrly staying on top of the hoarding.
DeleteAlthough I womder if hoarding wpuld be a "disease" if we weren't such a throwaway society. I'll bet not.That would make it a disease of the 21st century, wouldn't it?