Siggy's Blurbs: Siggy's Edge of Country …

We don’t need extras of this and that.  We don’t need backup printers or computers so old they run on dos.  And that is old.  We can rely that God will provide for our needs.  And when we need it.  I am tired of this clutter.  And things we just don’t need.  I keep coming back to what will happen when we both go.  Most of the stuff will just be trashed that we held on so dearly. I still remember how hard and time consuming it was to go through my wife’s deceased Mom’s stuff.  We don’t have to stock pile.  It is just not necessary.

Tags: clutter, don't have to stock pile, God, God will provide for our needs, rely on God, stuff, things we don't need, tired of clutter, we don't need extras, what will happen when we go
Posted in balance, death, God, knowledge&learning, life, local, marriage, time, wisdom | No Comments »

There are too many things in this house.  And it has me depressed.  There are too many piles in different corners.  It is just too hard going through this stuff.  I see a stack of canceled checks on the desk.  Your father has been dead twenty years.  Why are they not in the trash?  We can’t even throw away broken down electronics.  That video/dvd player does work any more.  Why is it sitting on those records?  I even tried it again.  I already told my other it no longer works.  None of the lights on it worked.  I just want to pitch it.  It is preventing me from going through the pile of LP’s it is laying on.  Why are we keeping those two stacks of “Architectural Digest”.  When is the last time you looked at an issue.  I have to run everything by you.  You have to make a decision on everything.  All of this has me depressed.  Why don’t you let me have control of the decisions on most things.  And when I complain of too many things still in the house, you tell me of all the things you have given away and pitched.  There may be a lot of truth to that.  There is still too many things in this house.  And I don’t want to work so hard in eliminating them.  There are still too many piles, boxes and books and LP’s everywhere.

Tags: "Architectural Digest", books, boxes, broken video/dvd player, depressed, electronics, give away, have control, house, LP's, make a decision, old cancelled checks, piles in corners, records, stuff, throw away, too many piles of things, too many things, trash
Posted in balance, health, humor, life, local, love, marriage, time, wisdom | No Comments »

We have the same fight over and over:  it is about things.  I want less to enter the house.  She is, again, active on “Free Cycle”, a web site where people give things away.  The theory is for less to end up in land fills.

Yesterday, she came home with a scanner and some other things we did not need.  It does me no good to tell her I do not want that item.  She gets seduced by things.  She even admits that.

I have been after her to gather documentation for her deceased husband’s pension. (She is the beneficiary.)  The documents she needs are probably in our “junk room.”

I could not believe it among some books piled in one corner of the house falls out her first marriage certificate–over thirty years old the document was.  It was in tatters to give you some idea of the disorder in this house.

A friend months ago came over and made some order out of our “junk” room.  Unfortunately after that she kept putting more stuff in there.

Actually it was me. She kept getting more things and I did not want to “junk” up the living room.  I had to put the stuff somewhere.

And it is true as she said the junk room is no longer neat and it is hard again to walk in that room.  There is so much stuff in there.  She does not want to search for her documents until the room is neater and she could walk around in it.

All this despite the fact the new stuff (since the room was straightened out) was obtained by her.  There is old computers (even ones that run on DOS), extra printers, broken down stereo equipment, books etc.

And it is true I am not as neat as her but she is the pack rat and stuff keeps entering our house whether or not we need them and all I want to do is tear out my hair.  And we periodically keep having these fights.  About things.

Tags: books, broken stereo equipment, clutter, DOS, fight about things, Freecycle, junk room, old computers, pack rat, printers, scanner, stuff, the same fight, too many things
Posted in balance, local, marriage, mental health, relationships, time | No Comments »

I don’t know how to extricate myself from my things.  I feel trapped by them.  I have too many LPs, books in particular.  That is only a short list.

Being married makes it a little harder.  Some of the things are hers or ours.  There are still many books and cassettes in boxes as well.  I just want order and don’t know how to get there.

My house is budging (??bulging??) at its seams.  I tell my wife someone is going to have the mammoth job of going through our stuff when we are gone but that does not make any difference to her.

We had made three trips to Austin to finish the job of going through her Mom’s stuff.  Too much of it is still in boxes in the basement.  It costs us a small fortune to ship that stuff.

I just don’t know how to downsize.  We have a junk room upstairs.  It could be a guest room if it was ever cleared.  All this is driving me crazy.

I just want to throw away, give away stuff.  I want more order in this house.  Pray for me.  I don’t know what else to do.

Tags: books, boxes of stuff, cassettes, clutter, downsize, guest room, junk room, LP's, my wife, order in the house, pray for me, record albums, stuff, throw away stuff, too many things
Posted in balance, death, local, marriage, mental health, money, music, relationships, time | No Comments »

About a year ago my other had discovered “Freecycle”.  It is a web site–worldwide–whose goal is things should not end up in landfills.  People give things away they don’t want in their house any longer.

That is admirable but for everything that left out house three things came in.  Our house is bursting with things.

The second time she got involved with “Freecycle” I felt more hopeful that ratio would change:  she got rid of a stove (we ordered a new one), some bookcases and miscellaneous items.

Then she elicited my help on the guise of, “Do you want to keep me company?”  Sometimes she does not tell me what she is picking up.  Someone was giving away boxes of medical legal books.

Had I not been with her, she would have had to make multiple trips from the second floor to put them in the back of our SUV.  She has a bad back.

She took these books despite the fact we have no extra book case room.  A previous lawyer had owned these books and what she was going to do with these books was beyond me.

The same trip she told me she was going to pick up some tile.  I envisioned a small box of tiles.  Wrong!  It was a big box full of whole and broken tiles on a dolly.

The box would have broken if you were foolhardy to attempt to lift it.  We had to transfer them into smaller boxes.  She had some kind of idea she wanted to do mosaics.  All I could do was shake my head.

The same day she picked up a Sony double cassette and a Sony 50 CD deck despite the fact we had at least two completely working cassette decks.  It made no difference I told her I did not want either.

I just have to resign myself that our house is going to be full of junk and bursting from the seams.  And there is nothing I can do to stop it.  My war on the clutter is an unending battle that I will never win and occasionally have pockets of success.

Tags: boxes of books, cassette decks, clutter, Freecycle, give things away, house full of junk, house full of things, my wife, stuff, too many things in this house, unneeded stuff, war on clutter
Posted in balance, humor, knowledge&learning, life, local, marriage, mental health, relationships, time, wisdom | No Comments »