Keepsakes? Land Sakes! ( #AtoZChallenge )

    What we keep might say as much about other people as what it says about us.  I enjoy looking at the things another person has decided to keep on display in their home.  If nothing else, having stuff out for others to see can make for good conversation starters.  

           Knickknacks can be found throughout our house.  Those are accompanied by numerous framed photos and other items someone felt worthy to display.  My wife, who is a teacher, receives lots of inexpensive figurines and the like from her students.  Some she puts in view for a while and others stay stored away until it's time to donate them. 

            Keepsakes--that what they are until we don't want to keep them anymore.  Most of us likely have keepsakes that we display throughout our households.  There are probably thousands, maybe millions of those trinkets like the ones my wife gets from her students in homes all across the world.  And likely even more in thrift shops and landfills.

           Land sakes alive!  All the essentially useless stuff that floods the marketplace fills up our lives.   Somewhere in the world people are sifting through the dirt to find enough grains of rice to make a meager dinner for their families while tonight I'll eat well within the walls of my dwelling filled with the stuff I need along with the stuff that I want in my life as well as the stuff that waits to be tossed out. 

           Keepsakes?   Land sakes!  We've got them at our house.  I guess they create a sense of decor.  They also can be connected to specific people or memories.  That works for me and if it doesn't then I start a donation box.  Maybe someone else will find their own meaningful keepsakes in what I've gotten rid of.

            Do you have a lot of knickknacks sitting on display in your home?    Do you collect things with any particular theme in mind?    Do you like to look at the knickknack collections at places you visit?  





 

Juggling Stuff ( #AtoZChallenge )

 Juggling is a full-time job that we all deal with every day.   There was a time for me when this statement was more than a metaphor...

My Strange Career of Yesteryear

      As some readers know, for many years I worked as a professional juggler.    It all started with my parents, who were also jugglers.  I grew up working in the family juggling act and then after college went on for the next fifteen years as a juggler/show manager for touring theatrical productions. 

       That all ended around 1990 when I settled into a regular job so to speak.  Occasionally my juggling skills would come into play since I was still in a theatrically related business in the Los Angeles area.  Any juggling would have been for impromptu demonstrations of equipment we sold or just for fun.  I haven't juggled at any length for quite some time, but I still have plenty of juggling props just in case the urge ever hits.   I should probably go to one of the busking places in my area and try to juggle for tips to make extra money.   Hmmm--nah, I'm not sure about that gig.

        Over the years I acquired several books, magazines, and other items that are good additions to my little juggling research library.  Before my mother died she gave me books that had been my father's.  The juggling books would probably be among the last of my books to go if I were to start clearing out my shelves.  They're not especially interesting to read for the most part (though some have pictures), but they might be considered among my more curious collectibles.  Keepers for now.

       Then there is the Juggling Jackson Gallery of Wall Art--and I use the term very loosely.  I have an array of old juggling photos given to my parents over the years.  For years those hung on the walls of whatever room in our house we practiced juggling.  Also there's the collection of dime-store framed prints of clowns--most who are juggling--that hung all around the house.   If something had to do with juggling or reminded my father of juggling then he'd buy it.

        We got rid of most of the family props by sending them a juggling museum that I wrote about on my memoir blog.   Still I have quite a number of props and other fun items mostly stored away in my garage or closets.  This is a collection for which I wish I had a special room set aside.   I guess for now I'll just dream about that room and hang on to these personal treasures.   It's not clutter to my eyes and it's not junk either. 

         Are there any tools of your trade that you have hung on to?  Have you ever bought a how-to book even though you already knew how to and just wanted the book because you liked the topic?  Do you have a special room in your house that is focused on some certain theme?  

         

I'm Working On It ( #AtoZChallenge )

           If thinking got things done, then I should have built great kingdoms...

Thinking about it is still doing something.

This Project Life

          I've often used the line "I'm working on it" because it was true, but also as a flippant avoidance of the subject.  Actually I've been working on it--the stuff of life--since I was a kid.  Back then my stuff was mostly confined to my closet or drawers.  It was not that much overall, but every now and then I'd organize things better and get rid of things.  That's the way it's been for my whole life and it seems like that's how everybody I know is. 

           My work will come in bursts.  I'll do a lot and then wait a while--rest you might say or I might say a retreat to do something else.  There's no specified deadline to get this cleaning the clutter job done so I'm not stressing out about it.  But it will need to get done.  When I feel like it.

          This project has taken a lifetime and this lifetime is not over yet.  My past, present, and future are all of the chapters of my project life.  There are so many life projects going on at any give time on this Laboratory Earth.  So many different projects...lives.  Like grains of sand on the seashore or stars in an infinite universe.

          Life is like a never-ending coal mine that mostly has been lit up in a miraculous way.   Gems embedded in the walls along certain parts.  There are periods when the digging is good, reaping great rewards, while at other times there are dreary stretches of dark coal stuff.  Fortunately it always got better for me and those stretches weren't all that long anyway.  I hope it was that way for you too.

         Do you feel like your life is an experiment?   Do you have projects that you walk away from to return weeks or months later?    If you were one of the Seven Dwarfs from Disney's Snow White, who would you be?