I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of stuff that can be put into two categories: stuff I haven't done and stuff that I'm keeping around because I'd feel guilty about throwing it out or giving it away. I'll talk more about the first category later. For the second category, I've discovered that if I commemorate the item, I feel less guilty about getting it out of my house and giving myself a little more room. Thus, this list.
I started the list Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 10:22:11 PM PST. I can tell because I can got into Properties and get the document's creation date. I would never have remembered on my own, and I'm kind of surprised to see that it was created New Year's Eve. It was not done FOR New Year's Eve, but it's appropriate that it was done ON New Year's Eve. Reading it over, I was a bit chattier than I remember. I think I'll break it up and edit it. For now, I'll concentrate on the one thing I got rid of.
<<< I'm listening to the American Idol Loser Song on YouTube and feeling guilt. Why am I feeling guilt? I'm considering getting rid of a book that my Grandma L (deceased) gave me, called Once Upon a Christmas: Stories by James Dillet Freeman. She carefully taped a plastic book cover around it and inscribed it: "To My great grandsons! With much love. Grandma L." Meaning that it was given to me to give to my sons, long ago when they were small.
My sons have no interest in the book. They never did. And my youngest son is thirty now. It was published, not by a regular publisher, but by the Unity School of Christianity, in Missouri. Mr. Freeman burbled on for twelve pages of preface before the stories strted. He revisited his childhood, declared Christmas to be a fifth season of the year, talked about the Unity School and his involvement with its publishing, went over an old poem of his, talked a little about football. . . and that was all in the first three pages of the intro. I never could bring myself to read further.
I could also never get through more than half a page of any of the stories: a little pig at the nativity, an angel with a broken wing, that sort of thing. The writing was just too precious and self-indulgent to enjoy. I've carried it in boxes through possibly five moves. I've shoved it into Christmas storage boxes. Today I decided that no one is ever going to read it, ever, and I have chucked its bright red self into the trash. If it didn't have the inscription, I might have given it to Goodwill. >>>
I've ended up with a fair bit of Grandma L's stuff. Most of it is still in boxes. I'll talk more about that later.
