Doesn't know sh*t from Shinola

At my Dad’s memorial service on Saturday, January 17, 2009, when I got up to share my memories of Dad, I said, “I remember Dad taught me how to shine his shoes. He'd pay me 35¢ and I was thrilled.”

My Dad would say to me, “How would you like to earn some money?”

I knew exactly what he had in mind. He’d bring the shoeshine kit down from the cupboards in the service porch, place a bar stool in the middle of the kitchen, and sit down, hoisting a foot up on the little shoeshine kit. I learned much later in life, he made that wooden kit.

I was taught there was a system to polishing my Dad’s shoes. He’d select the color. First, one shoe up on the foot stool. Apply the polish. Shoe is lowered. Other shoe up, apply polish. Go back to the first shoe on the “last.” Use the brush with bristles. Alternating shoes, after the brush, was the fuzzy buffer and finally the big long rectangular soft cloth. It was rolled up when not in use. To use it, one would unroll it so both ends were exposed. Then rolling a little bit of each end, it was held in both hands. First, moving it swiftly back and forth across the top of the toes, the tip in front, each side respectively and then the heel. Sometimes I had a hard time with the heel and my Dad would help take over.

In an effort to clear the clutter, I’m going to make the wooden shoe shine box into a plant holder in the backyard. In researching what to do with old shoe polish, I discovered that shoe polish can go in the trash. Yes, some of these canisters are very old. Some of the cans have 33¢ painted right on the canister. Lincoln and Kiwi brand is now up to $4 a canister. I will empty most of the contents in the trash but keep a couple of the canisters to reuse for something else.

This is my Dad’s legacy he’s passed along to me. I will think of him often, when I look at the shoeshine box in our garden.

Wrapping Paper Woes

I’m cursing my parents right now! Why did they convince me into thinking that wrapping gifts was a creative outlet for me?!!!

Every Christmas, once I was old enough to cut and tape, I was the go-to person for wrapping presents. I loved wrapping presents. My brothers jumped on the bandwagon and before I knew it, I was wrapping their gifts for others, too.

I would come up with extravagant ways to tie bows. Now, I leave the bows off. But, I can be distracted by beautiful expensive ribbon.

Currently, I do the green thing and wrap everything in post product or recycled brown paper. I’ll enhance the brown with a strip of wrapping paper. Not only am I conserving on wrapping paper, I’m also helping the earth. Yay!

My curses are because of the way my parents treated wrapping paper. I remember many birthdays and Christmases where we were not to crinkle the wrapping paper so it could be (gasp) reused. Yep, reused. Which makes it hard (My husband would say for me—impossible) now, to toss away any scrap of wrapping paper or ribbon.

But my “tossing away” phobia continues with shopping bags of many different sizes–paper and plastic. Not to be used for a gift but used, eventually, somehow, someday. It’s horrible; I can’t recycle them–they need to be reused. Just when will that day come?!!!

When my dad moved into assisted living, he took with him the family wrapping paper and bows box. That box (see photo above) could always be found in the cupboard in my room at Burton St. (Check out the tape holding it together.)

That box is long gone (recycled). But, the wrapping paper habit still lingers on. I need to shut my eyes and just recycle the scraps or come up with a new system to keeping scraps. Ta-da! I think I’ll wrap them on used paper towel and toilet paper rolls.

Hey! I’m feeling really green today! Woes be gone!!!

Out of Sight

This is a photo of the left side of the closet in the blue room. Yes, when the door is closed, it's out of sight and out of mind. Sad but true. I want to change that.

Recently, the last week of June, a Facebook friend posted that he got a call from the “Oprah Network asking if I knew of someone who had issues with clutter that would like help with their problem on the show.”

I responded, “Yes, I know someone.”

Turns out the Oprah Winfrey Network is looking for families to be part of “Enough Already! with Peter Walsh.” I have the name of the casting director if there’s anyone out there who’s interested.

After giving it some thought, “nobody wants to be told they have clutter issues.” If my husband had any say, he’d nominate me. In fact, my husband is the guy you want to invite over when you say, “I have a clutter problem; can you help me?” He has systems down. My horizontal piles drive him crazy.

I first learned about Peter Walsh last September when I got a phone call for a job to help a woman organize her office. I had thought I should do a little research before taking on the task. The job fell through, but I acquired the book, “How to Organize Just about Everything,” by Peter Walsh.

Peter Walsh has office supplies exclusively with OfficeMax called “[IN]PLACE SYSTEM.” I’ve picked up a sample set and have learned that I need to use see through folders and containers. My problem? Out of sight, out of mind.

I want to declutter my life.

I think about my legacy. When I die, I don’t want to burden other people with packing up my junk. More importantly, I want to be freed from my clutter, so instead of thinking about it, everything is organized and I can find my keys. Old age and memory doesn’t make things any easier.