Sweating the Small Stuff

Since I was little, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with “stuff”. Especially - "small stuff". I remember this NASA souvenir ashtray (what was it with the 70’s and ashtrays?) we had sitting on the side table next to my dad’s worn-in, avocado green, velvet Lazy-Boy. In it was a potpourri of “stuff” including items like broken necklaces that could be fixed, matches from one of our favorite restaurants, batteries that might still work, all mixed in with a medley of pocket-change under a thin blanket of dust. This assortment of miscellaneous odds and ends that were not suppose to all be in the same place and also not in their proper location drove me and still drives me absolutely nuts.

This preoccupation with small “stuff” and what to do with the individual items was only exasperated by my mom’s preoccupation with not throwing away that “stuff”. (Duh – OCD is hereditary!) For as long as I can remember, throwing away “stuff” had been a taboo in our household and reserved for moments of complete necessity. Most everything had to be recycled by way of “recycling” or recycled by way of creatively coming up with another use for a particular item. Shoeboxes and jewelry boxes for organizing drawers, empty pill bottles for bobby pins etc. etc. These two obsessions with “stuff” : 1. not throwing stuff away and 2. putting the “stuff” away in it’s proper place – can make for extreme clutter if the “stuff” is not attended to on a regular basis.

Yesterday evening, I was in one of those “cleaning” moods (thank God for those), and decided to tackle my “inbox”, which was suppose to serve as a neat and tidy little place for my keys, phone and other “stuff” I use on a daily basis. Well, slowly, the “stuff” I used on a daily basis” became an overflowing pile of “stuff” all over the counter top I had originally got my “inbox” to save from getting cluttered.

An hour after proudly finding homes for each individual item, I was left with 4 things I could NOT decide where to put and could NOT throw away – I am completely aware of the insanity, but this does not make my brain stop working the way it has for the last 37 years.

1. This one inch spring thing is one of those things that most sane people throw away. But I feel like if I throw it away, one day when my daughter and I are playing with one of her toys and it's not working, we'll discover it's because we're missing "that little spring thing I shouldn't have thrown away".




2. This hands-free cell phone talking thing I used for awhile and for some reason, it lost its clarity (just like the other 6 I've tried). I guess I feel like it will magically start working perfect again.








3. Currently, I have another bottle of lotion I snagged from a hotel room in my purse, but I'll need a replacement after that one is (and the 15 other bottles I have stashed away somewhere are) done.








4. And finally...the spa brush. I am still trying to figure out what part of my body I would use it for.

The following entry completely justifies my insanity:

After racking my brain and almost giving up on a use for this spa brush, I decided to set it aside and put it to sleep alongside it’s fellow homeless items, giving it one more night outside the trash can (who am I kidding, one more night – yeah right!).

This morning in a rush to get my daughter ready for her play date, I was unpleasantly surprised when I found her cute little suede Mary Janes covered in dirt. (What happens when Daddy’s home the day before and spends the afternoon with his daughter). So, guess what came to mind? Yup – the spa brush. It worked like a charm!

So, there you have it: why I DO sweat the small stuff and how those things DO sometimes come in handy.

Yes, I'm on something for this - is it possible it's not working?...