JANUARY PROGRESS REPORT

Here is an update on my quest to be clutter-free and not allowing useless stuff taking over our living space. This year, as it has been our tradition that the Sunday after Thanksgiving would be when we put up our Christmas tree and decorated the house, we sorted the ornaments into three groups, must-keep, maybe and to Good Will. The must-keep ornaments were those with our names, years and places we were on vacation. Of course, we also keep the Red Wings, Patriots and others that had family and personal attachment. The maybe ornaments were somewhat meaningful but not too sentimentals. We might consider donating these "maybe" next year. We took two banker boxes to Good Will and the lady there told me that they would put pricing on the items and on the shelves right away.
To keep myself from eating munchies all day, I decided to go thru the closets, gathered two large bags of clothing and dropped the items off a local Thrift Shop that supports group homes for mental & physical challenged adults. We also donated two boxes of things. I took the photos below to show the things we kept and it felt good to donate them, kind of letting go of the past and moving on to the clutter-free future. When my husband moved to Grand Haven from Detroit, he lived in an apartment and thought the porcelain dog and puppy would make him feel at home and less lonely being away from his family for the first time. That was in 1982, and CP said it was time to give the dogs away to someone else.
My sister CH and I used to go Pier 17, a multilevel dockside shopping mall at South Street Seaport, to hang out with sailors when the ships came into town during July 4th weekend and summer months. From Pier 17 you could have the view as far north as midtown Manhattan and as far south as the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge. There were also concerts, street performers and plenty of people-watching activities. We would wear light jean jackets with these silly looking pins (photo above). CH loved the sailors, their white uniform, and cool looking hats. We did not get drunk and had one-night stand or anything that would be shameful to our family, we just talked to the sailors, maybe flirt a little and when they got a little over-friendly, we got away by telling them we needed to use the wash room. The pins were popular back then in the late 80's. I put these pins in a box with other earrings and jewelries that no longer age appropriate for me to wear, and to Good Will they went. This handmade doll (photo below) was purchased at a craft show a few years ago. She looked cute in the rocker in the living room. Then we moved her to the guess room, sitting on the dresser. Maybe a child would spend more time playing with her instead of just being a decorated item in our house.