Gold Digger
Yesterday at 8:23am ·
Trying to get rid of Stuff because Primo keeps bringing home more stuff from his mom and dad's (if it has a cat on it, it is in his suitcase and his parents had a LOT of stuff with cats on it) but am discovering that between the two of us, we have a ridiculous amount of emotional attachment to coffee mugs. Primo way more than me, though. I have three mugs I couldn't possibly get rid of. He has about ten. Not that he uses them - his Using mug is the one we got at Madeline Island five years ago and nobody else is allowed to use it, so when I have book club here, I have to hide the Good Mug. But we have to keep the other ten. Because - because coffee mug emotional attachment.
A possible compromise ... friends of mine who found themselves with many mugs (far more than you are describing) put a mug shelf in their kitchen. It was about four inches wide and placed about a foot down from the ceiling. Over the years it eventually spanned the entire diameter of the room, but it allowed them to display all those [damn] mugs withoug taking valuable cabinet space. It was actually pretty attractive, too. Perhaps easier than arguing about them.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the photo link isn't working, and you can see Jon's last name on the broken image (Jon So-And-So's Photo)...don't know if others have this as well (or just my crummy laptop), but wanted to let you know!
ReplyDeleteI have re-purposed a few of Significant Other's favorite mugs as pen holders. That way, they are "saved" but they aren't cluttering up the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteOf all the things Primo could want to bring back, these are small and don't take up a lot of space. I realize you don't want anything that reminds you of Sly and Doris, but Primo is rightly going to want some things, and you're going to have to compromise. This seems like not a bad compromise.
ReplyDeleteOK OK OK! You guys have convinced me that a wholesale ban on items from chez Sly and Doris is not reasonable. I am now focusing on maybe just getting boxes from the living room, the dining room, the guest room, and the hall into the basement, where they will probably live forever but at least I will not have to see them every day. :)
ReplyDeleteSee, that's a kind of compromise! Also, as DH's grandmother ages and divests herself of things by giving them to him, we have lots of conversations like this:
DeleteMe: DH, what is this?
DH: It's from Grandmother.
Me: Yes, but what *is* it?
DH: I don't know.
Then it lives in the basement or a closet for a few months, and then I say, 'OK, since you haven't used this in X months, or looked at it, clearly you don't need it, so we can donate it, right?' And then we do.
There's just a long middle step...
This is how I deal with the mug issue. There is one shelf for mugs. When it starts to overflow, then we take all the mugs out and my husband and I put them back starting with our favorites. When the shelf is full, the rest get donated because obviously they were the least meaningful.
ReplyDeleteI love it! Pareto optimization for coffee mugs!
DeleteI do the same thing with my dresser. Favorites first until the drawer is full, then bye-bye to the rest.
DeleteI bring the "least favorite" mugs to work & put them in the kitchen - we banned disposable cups a couple years ago in efforts to be more sustainable, but that means we don't always have mugs for guests. Currently the kitchen on my floor is well stocked ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm just popping in to say I feel you so much on this. I hate having Things - I have spent too long moving around every year or two to want to have Things to worry about. Since moving in with The Boyfriend, though, we have amassed Things. I fight every one that comes into our home, but lose most of time.
ReplyDeleteThis time next year, I will need to move again, for career reasons, and this will be the first time he needs to move with me. We will see then how much he likes having Things. :P
C, I have no idea why all your comments are going into moderation! I don't know how to fix it, unfortunately. :( I am on the site only about once a week, so don't always notice things. I am sorry!
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