Trash and treasure in 400 words…

[Day 19, writing101 Free Writing, 400 words non-stop]

Four hundred words is not really that many,  it depends on the subject, the time, and style of writing.

One thing I’ve been wanting to do (I don’t like that “been wanting to do” instead of simply saying “wanted to do.”  Anyway, the Word Police probably won’t be interested in this free-writing stuff, except maybe the least faint-hearted among them.  As I was saying, I have thought about writing about clearing out stuff.   I have a lot of stuff, as I’ve explained before, having had two brick-n-mortar shops which closed and moved into my garage…and bedroom…spare room…office/book room…closets…basement, although I’ve been trying to give that space a break as it is already overloaded with stuff.

Now, when I say “stuff” I don’t mean “junk.”  Most, the vast majority of said stuff,  is books…thousands of books, some listed for sale, some waiting to be listed.  I am pleased to say that the junk from among the good books has long since been disposed of, which means that good-junk went to the Goodwill, and real junk went into the trash.

My other stash of mostly-good stuff is dollhouse furniture, dolls, toys, “little everythings” as I call them.  This topic is fodder for another post…dollhouse paraphernalia is a very wide subject.

Then there is the real issue here–dealing with miscellaneous nick-knacks and mementos, souveniers, that sort of thing.  This includes anything any of the kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids ever drew, wrote, or made.   This includes such things as a pinecone with yarn arranged artistically around the edges.  When I asked the granddaughter what it was, she replied: “a pinecone with yarn on it.”  Now–how could I throw that out?

Caveat–this post does not in any way apply to  anything that was my grandmother’s.  Those things are stashed high up, with threatening notes inside or taped to the bottom warning of dire consequences for trashing them–some things are sacrosanct.

[Well, I’m afraid I cheated, I ran over my allotted 400 words, so without thinking I went back and edited out some words.  In fact it was about sixty words, including one entirely foreign subject.  Sorry.  I would go back and try to find an earlier draft (by about 5 minutes) but don’t want to mess up the post.    The deleted sentences had nothing to do with the point of the post anyway.]

End