A long time ago, I made a category on this blog called DeRooneyfication which deals with projects or repairs that have sat idle for years (or decades)
Maybe I need a new category for DeReifiedPotential as well. If you remember, I talked about What “I’m Gonna” Looks Like based on a post that defined it thusly:
Because that’s my theory as to what hoarding really is: Reified potential. What might have been, in physical form. Again, n=1 here, so take this for what it’s worth, but the hoarder in my life has elaborate justifications for every single item she’s got, and they’re all of the “I’m gonna” type.
All those newspapers? I’m gonna make a scrapbook. The empty perfume bottles? I’m gonna turn them into wind chimes. She fancies herself an artiste — she even introduces herself that way — although the only actual art she’s ever produced is a series of sketches… from back in high school, which was a long time ago. They’re buried at the bottom of a big stack of sketch pads, all filled with nothing but “gonna.” I’m gonna start sketching street scenes. I’m gonna start tomorrow.
Well, in my couple of years-long project of cleaning out the garage and my morbid recent drive to at least get rid of a couple of things before an eventual estate sale, I’ve decided to clean out the little drawer organizers in the storeroom. These plastic three-drawer units were some of the first organizers we got here at Nogglestead, and I immediately filled them up with various crafting supplies and things I bought when taking my toddlers to garage sales and watching too much Creative Juice and reading things like the Trash to Treasure series of books (not in order, but 8, 2, and 6 in 2010–I also read 1 in 2020, but that was far past my junk project material accumulating days.
The drawers have remained mostly undisturbed in the last fifteen years, although I have gone to them for Sculpey or Velcro on occasion. But I have this idea of moving my beading supplies (my beading phase was also, apparently, 2010, judging by my Facebook photos) from under my secondary office desk where they’ve gathered dust since then into the organizer in the storage room.
So I’ve started to empty the drawers in there. Started. I’ve moved several bags of stamps and one probably dry inkpad into the donation boxes (didn’t I just clear a stack of donation boxes from my garage floor this summer in a previous bout of DeReifiedPotentialling? Yes.). I tossed out a couple of foam-and-velcro-backed photos I got from some church garage sale (the little modular home on Republic Road that has since become a dance school? Maybe.) which depicted some church event. They weren’t even my family or church’s photos, and I kept them for sixteen years. I have a couple of old clocks I bought for the movements in them, the Sculpey, a lot of computer chips (to make magnets of), a stack disc magnets, the Velcro, a spool or two of ribbon, and some other things yet to dispose of–I didn’t say this would be a quick thing–but I have decided to dispose of these:
A West Bend Thermo-Serv carafe and a West Bend Thermo-Serv Hot Pot (no cord). I think I planned to put artificial flowers in them. Heaven knows we have a couple of things with artificial flora in them around the house–a vase atop the bookshelves downstairs, two coffee carafes (one painted with stained glass paint and one with streaks from old, soon-to-be-discarded bottles of my beautiful wife’s nail polish), and a vase upstairs in the kitchen, I think–from my artificial flower arranging days. For a long time I had a vintage Thermos in the garage with the same idea or maybe the thought of cutting a space for a clock in it–but that’s already gone.
I checked Ebay first, of course, and they or equivalents are widely listed at just under $20. Minus the time, the listing and processing fees, and the postage and handling, but mostly the time, it’s not worth the effort. So they’re boxed in the garage, a new growing stack awaiting donation.
You know, the Lutheran high school has a really nice, curated thrift store. Perhaps I should donate these things to the veteran’s thrift store where you got more mish-mash of bric-a-brac and tchotchkes like these.
But they probably won’t make it to a facility for weeks/months/years. So if you, gentle reader, need one to complete the look of your retro kitchen, we can deal until probably early 2028.
As to the rest of the contents of the drawer units and the beading supplies in my office…. Well, that’s what 2029 is for.
