Last week I got an e-mail from my friend, Judy R., in MN, who reported her home cleansing going on in making things ready for the holidays and guests. First she tackled her office/ guest room, chasing the dust bunnies away (her husband is a trapper, he should have taken that job on!), sorting and filing of papers, and such. Then to her kitchen, organizing and purging her pantry and refrigerator of expired food items. Judy is quite the cook so I imagine she has plenty of foods 'put up' or ready to go for meal preparations. She loves to make soup and usually has a bounty of veggies at hand for making a kettle of something that sounds delicious. Usually, sounds delicious. Sometimes I am not so sure I would like it, but I know that she does. My bean soup made yesterday would fall into the delicious category.
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On Fox and Friends right now there is an author on who wrote a book about staying healthy all the time, never getting sick. One tip is to take cold showers only, which brings to mind a "Seinfeld" episode titled 'The Heart Attack', where George thinks he is having a heart attack, after watching a show about it on television, but finds out he needs to have his tonsils removed. ("What? I can't have a heart attack? I'm entitled!") He is too scared to have the surgery so he seeks out a holistic kook who advises cold showers. George also drinks some funky tea that turns his skin purple....funny, but I don't remember if he ever has the tonsils removed or not. Anyway, this author just made me think of George!
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Back to the cleaning---last night when Judy C. was here, a consummate cleaner, she expressed the thought of going through her collectibles and knick-knacks, as they are 'just too hard to dust'. She finished her announcement with: "Of course, I won't do it..." but at least talking about it gets her closer. Judy has lived in various parts of the world, as her hubby was in the Navy, where she bought or was given things. Sadly the collectibles likely mean more to her than they will to her heirs which is tough to swallow sometimes. Last summer, even before the Great Flood, I had this conversation with Carol W. at the pool, as she was telling about going through her mom's household and stuff, trying to decide who gets what or what should be thrown away. I had already purchased plastic bins to begin my sorting process but something held me back. Guess part of that project got jump started and happened much more quickly than I expected! After the work is done, I swear to get back in those rooms and start going through things. Not necessarily knick-knacks, like in Judy C.'s case, but more about accumulated papers and files, etc. Daunting task but it must be done! If Judy R. can do it, I can do it!
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There is a study out there in the world which claims Americans have an average of $25,000 accumulated assets in their homes. Not the home itself, not the real estate, but 'stuff' inside the homes which can be sold or bartered. Who does the assessment of the value is unknown to me, but I guess one could only tell after all the assets are sold and the money counted. Is this actual or perceived value? Like that program on TV where folks take their 'valuables' for evaluation and find out it is not worth more than dime store purchases today, or that is worth a whole lot more than they ever expected. Who's to say? When Justin was much younger, he was an ardent collector of Pokemon cards. Our neighbor, Dan, used to talk to Justin about his cards, since his kids also played with them. Justin would tell Dan how valuable some of the cards were, and what a good investment they were. It was useless to try to explain how the value only was there if a buyer was willing to pay that much....One time, Justin told us that he was accumulating the Pokemon cards to sell "in case I have a business failure"...That is so funny for a little kid to consider, so perhaps talking to him about supply and demand at that young age was not a mistake. He could use those Pokemon cards now to help with the bail-out!!!
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As we were going through boxes 'n bins in recent months, he came upon some of his Magic Cards and became wistful about his playing and collecting days. He still has thousands of these cards that he took with him when he moved out but these were left behind for some reason. I wonder if they would be counted in the $25,000????
