{"id":10052,"date":"2011-09-28T10:27:55","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T15:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=10052"},"modified":"2011-09-28T10:27:55","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T15:27:55","slug":"spending-a-legacy-in-office-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/28\/spending-a-legacy-in-office-supplies\/","title":{"rendered":"Spending a Legacy in Office Supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"

After someone dies, you know if someone close to you has died or you attend estate sales, the families are left with a pile of the effluvia of daily living in addition to the fine china, the antique buffet, and the savings bond worth $25 that is not worth putting through probate. In my family’s case, I have inherited a number of office supplies. Yesterday, I used a number of those heirlooms.<\/p>\n

My mother saved every notepad ever given to her as a fundraising come-on or as a piece of swag from someone who performed a service for her. Because I could see the utility of such notepads, I carried out a file box full of them with her name at the top and, sometimes, handwritten notes to herself on them. I have a drawer full of them:<\/p>\n

\n\"The<\/p>\n

I hate to get rid of the little scribbles in her handwriting, because her handwriting is now a fixed, limited resource, and every sample lost will go unreplaced. Although I’m melancholic and maudlin, I do let those go.<\/p>\n

My mother’s only been gone for two and a half years now; my Aunt Dale has been gone for five or six, and I still have a pile of her office supplies. Report covers? Got ’em! A metal stand for a reference-style book or catalog? I don’t know what I’ll use it for, ever, but I still have it. Come to think of it, I don’t know what she would have thought she would use it for.<\/p>\n

But the box of 500 number 10 envelopes? I’m still working on it, mostly because one uses so few envelopes of one’s own these days:<\/p>\n

\n\"Dale's<\/p>\n

And as I prepared to send out a number of review copies of my novel, I needed a mid-sized sheet of paper to handwrite notes to the recipients on. Preferably one without my mother’s name at the top and the name of a questionable charity at the bottom. Fortunately, I have some sheets left in the steno pad I also got from Dale:<\/p>\n

\n\"The<\/p>\n

Just simple little things, little office supplies, but reminders of my ancestors. Well, my mother and my aunt, anyway. Both of them would be pleased that I was frugal and thrifty enough to save these things and to use them. And, probably, to remember the sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After someone dies, you know if someone close to you has died or you attend estate sales, the families are left with a pile of the effluvia of daily living in addition to the fine china, the antique buffet, and the savings bond worth $25 that is not worth putting through probate. In my family’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10052"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10055,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10052\/revisions\/10055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}