The
fun part of cleaning cupboards
It’s amazing the treasures you find
when you clean out your cupboards! We’re in the throes of moving and cleaning
out after nesting in the same tree for the last 30-something years. Memorabilia
from yesteryear – cards and letters, photographs and report-cards, certificates
and awards in boxes and files, just sitting in the dark. Things you put away
for a ‘rainy-day’ or when you have the time. But where do you find the time
when you’re bringing up a brood of children, working on your career and
surviving the day-to-day frustrations and interruptions of life?
A fun part has been giving things
away that others can make use of. My over-locker to a dressmaker, my keyboard
to an 8-year-old wanna-be musician. Plates, cups, glasses, odds and sods ….. I
asked myself, why do we ‘need’ so much? I suppose with a growing-up family
there are always bits and bobs that you need for school projects and the like.
Now I can give them all away.
Regular readers of my blog will
know that I revived my interest in knitting and crocheting this year. Yesterday
I came across a file of knitting and sewing patterns I used when my children
were growing up. Although many of the styles and colours have changed, I
realised that I can keep the basic instructions to a good few of these patterns
and adapt them to trendier colours and styles for my current brood of
grandchildren. Even more exciting was a book of crocheting and Tunisian patterns
for blankets, scarves, poncho’s and shawls that have made a comeback.
Bottom line? Mom was right when she
insisted that we children clean our cupboards out every school holiday. In that
way we could find the things we had ‘lost’, put our lives into some sort of
order, and get rid of unnecessary clutter. Hoarding ‘stuff’ only takes up
space, attracts fish-moths and gets ‘old’. Besides, one man’s trash is another
man’s treasure. Thrift-stores and Charity-shops make a profit for a good cause,
give people a job and for the creative junkies out there, with a bit of
imagination and elbow-grease, they can give new-life to something old. It’s a
win-win and recycling at its best.
An early resolution for the New
Year?
