We Did It Again

Yep, we spent two more hours in the basement, sorting, tossing and organizing. I hadn't been confident that we would carry on, but the lure of endorphins released when somethings become nothings compelled us. This time I sorted a box of bathroom things we brought from Lexington in 2006. I now have a lot of cotton balls, having just purchased a giant bag of them day before yesterday. A lifetime supply of Campho-Phenique (so good for chigger bites) also is in the drug store inventory now.

We accumulated two large bags of trash, two large bags of recycling and a huge pile of cardboard boxes. We didn't need 400 egg cartons, for example, having only 12 hens. I talked Dennis into keeping only this many. He also kept the Billy Bass that our grandchildren enjoy so much.

I started another box of donations to the Social Service League of Lawrence. (Those folks do a lot of good in our community.) We cleared a table top and much of the countertop of the do-it-yourself cabinet.

All of Dennis' rolled maps and drawings are in one place now. I thought the orange box especially appropriate.

Dennis has carved out a corner to become his work-out area.

It is now possible to walk all around the basement without stepping over things. This is where all the cardboard boxes used to be.

What is working for us is that we concentrate on one area at a time, sometimes together but mostly separately. We help each other as needed but what really keeps us going is our camaraderie in a common task, working together toward a goal.

No "before" photos appear here, although a few untouched areas sneaked into the "after" shots. I'll just say that before we started cleaning the basement we were on the watch list of a "Hoarders" talent scout.

Eventually we will finish the basement task of making nothing out of something. It won't take many more days like this. Then I can quit worrying about dying and leaving a terrible mess behind.

Mysteries of Life

When I was a kid, thinking about the universe made me sick at my stomach and a little dizzy. I’d have to put my head down on my desk and close my eyes. I couldn’t bear to think of the vastness of space. I knew then that my brain was too limited to comprehend it.

Now I no longer feel that sickening awe, or any awe at all for that matter. I’ve come to accept the whole thing: vastness and my limited ability to comprehend it. Thus, I am able to read Jim Holt's new book, Why Does The World Exist? for entertainment. After an introduction, Holt presents various people's views on the intersection between physics and philosophy with regard to existence.

The book is intended to be a gift for Logan’s birthday, which was a month ago today, but he is in the midst of a three-month tour of European cities and I couldn't resist dipping into his book last night. It seems to be built around the questions posed by Heidegger in his Introduction to Metaphysics, “Why is there something and not nothing?”

It’s a goofy question in a way, but on a much lower level it has me thinking about why there are so many somethings in my house. I wish there were more nothings. I’m wearied of trying to keep track of possessions, such as the mouse traps we couldn’t find earlier this week.

Things have gotten out of hand because we have lived in the same house for 36 years. If  we had moved from house to house we wouldn’t have accumulated all of these somethings. We had another house in Lexington, Kentucky, for six years in the early part of this century and accumulated a good many somethings there, too, bringing many of them back to our Kansas home when Dennis left the University of Kentucky. So, you see, we are in quite a mess of somethings.

Today we are going to tackle the basement and start making nothings out of somethings. Why, indeed, is there something rather than nothing? Just because we’re too lazy or preoccupied to let it be that way, that’s why.

Wish me luck.

OK, I'm back. Dennis and I spent two hours in the basement, each working on the projects of our choosing. I chose to clean, categorize and inventory the pantry area. Right away I realized that the shelves were not organized for ease of use, so I moved most of the somethings around, replacing old newspaper shelf liner as I went. Toward the end, Dennis had finished his project of assembling a set of new shelves and carrying out old computer equipment for recycling, so he pitched in to help me finish by moving all the empty canning jars to the bottom shelf.

I'm happy with the results. Most of the food is on the top two shelves, in a clear line of sight and easy reach. There's a drugstore section now, a cleaning products section, and, almost filling the bottom two shelves, canning and freezing equipment and supplies. I love it! (If you want to see the photo full size I think you can double click to see it in Preview.)

During this process we gathered a big bag of recycling in addition to the computer equipment, a big bag of trash and a box of food to donate to the Social Services League. I've started a Craig's List list of unneeded food-related equipment such as the soy milk maker that is too hard for my hands to use. And if anyone needs canning jars, I have way too many and will be happy to pass some on.

So, at the end of the day, I feel virtuous (mostly) for having brought order to one small part of my life. I did discover that the case of canola oil I ordered last week was not needed because I already had seven big bottles! Maybe I should go into the pie business until I've used all of this oil.

Best of all, we have more nothings than we did this morning. Now, back to the book. I hope this abstract view of the universe coupled with the long eons of geology will keep me distracted from the current news. And maybe tomorrow we will devote two more hours to turning somethings into nothings.