Random 5 for December 6 – Coughs, skin, packing, memories, cats

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What was she thinking? – I picked up my Starbucks mocha the other day. I had ordered ahead but I had to wait a few minutes. Inside the store, a woman was hacking up a hairball under her mask. It went on for the entire time I was in the store. Ok, maybe it wasn’t covid-19. Maybe it was allergies or a normal run of the mill cold but seriously? Everyone moved away from her. The drive-through was not busy. She could have used that if she needed her fix. Common sense folks. You can create a stampede with a cough.

Speaking of strange medical things – Occasionally during normal times, my skin breaks out. I have a skin routine and sometimes if it gets bad, I’ll get a treatment at the dermatologist. Despite all the stress of 2020, my skin has never been healthier. No breakouts despite wearing a mask when I’m out. Nothing makes sense this year! Nothing!

I started packing – The thing about packing is you are cleaning out at the same time but you can’t quit. Eventually everything has to fit into boxes to be carted to a new house. When I started I was thinking maybe this or that would work at the new house. Before you know it, if it didn’t fit in the damn box I tossed it. I have a couple of piles – donate to unsuspecting strangers, things that I will make family or friends take and real junk. I feel like I’m opening a time capsule.

Something I learned packing – You are walking through a wormhole into a different dimension. My life is different. Some of my dishes are large for big gatherings. I don’t do that anymore. Some have to be hand washed. Those were forced on family. Sometimes the decision to get rid of something is easy and sometimes we fight it. It’s like the candlewax that I moved four times before I gave it to a friend. There was a time I made candles but that is in the very distant rear view mirror with no interest of ever visiting it again yet it took me ten years to shed that load. Slow learner.

Packing freaks out the cats – They know something is up but not quite what. We are boxing in the basement and each cat came down to gingerly walk around and smell everything. Since the boxes were from the liquor store maybe there was something to smell! Then again boxes…cats…maybe they thought they were in heaven.

So how was your week?

68 thoughts on “Random 5 for December 6 – Coughs, skin, packing, memories, cats”

  1. I would be up a creek if I had to pack up. There are dishes and glassware not used in eons and they just remain on the very high shelves since I would have to climb up to retrieve them – not practical. I only entertain myself – not much entertainment there. My mom loved soft-boiled eggs – me, not so much. I ordered four egg cups from a catalog years ago- they are ceramic and look like half an egg and they stand on short legs with feet. Good thing they don’t take up much room as I look at them sometimes – no, can’t get rid of them, though I’ll likely never eat a soft-boiled egg in my lifetime. I only had soft-boiled eggs to be polite and not dirty a frying pan. 🙂

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    • Yesterday I tossed a stack of cookbooks. I had cleaned out the ones I didn’t like a couple years ago so it was a hard purge. The reality is that I use the same recipe all the time and if I want something different I go to the internet so having a lot of cookbooks I never used was useless. Still hard though!

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  4. I’ve been having fun browsing some of your older posts I didn’t have a chance to read on a more timely basis. Your writing is always entertaining in one way or another. Thank you for some lively reading!

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  6. “nothing makes sense” So true. It’s the year of nothing making sense. Packing just intensifies the “worm hole to another dimension”…really is time travel ( and I am dreading it…it would make sense to go ahead and start shedding stuff…but this is the year nothing makes sense!)
    Glad you’re making progress and have some time.
    The cats probably do suspect..and hope you realize they are expecting a big time Christmas with lots of presents like catnip and feathery toys to bat in all those boxes.
    Jingle on

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  7. I like your header picture.
    I have things in my closet and drawers that I have boxed and carried around several times. I never use them and never will. I can’t decide if it is a sentimental feeling or that I’m just too lazy to get rid of it all.
    My husband is even worse. But we have been saved several times because he didn’t toss some old paper from years ago.

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  9. I hate moving. But my best experience with moving was when I did a deliberate downsize. For a good while after I felt so much lighter. All the stuff is like weight. It’s hard to downsize but the end result is wonderful.

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    • I always worry that something I’m tossing will work in the new place and it never does. I have kept a coffee table from my last house. It’s a sleigh and I love it but it was too big for here. I’m sure I can use it there. I may get rid of my dining room furniture but it’s really beautiful and I love it. As Marie Kondo would say, it brings me joy. However our trash is monumental these days.

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  10. I like your description of opening up a time capsule. I’m sure I have lots of time capsules to open, and I’m dreading it. I’m not moving, but I do need to weed out. I’ve lived in this house for 17 years. It’s the longest time I’ve lived anywhere.

    My mom must have lived in her house for about 40 years. She had lots of hobbies and saved all the necessary component parts. My sister and I packed for her, and it took ages. I don’t know how many times she objected that she might need the thing we wanted to get rid of.

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  11. My husband has sneezing fits. He’s had them for years and years. If he sneezes once, I know it’s going to happen another 6-10 times. I’ve told him if he feels the first one coming on, he better get outside or someone will call 911 to have him picked up. 🙂 Good luck on the packing. Does Starbucks have your photo on the wall as their best customer? They should. 🙂

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  13. I was (fortunately) sitting in the car in a parking lot, and I watched a guy take off his mask to sneeze. It makes sense in some respects: I mean, who wants a wet mask full of your own sneeze? But on a whole other level, even though it was in a parking lot, I still thought it was thoughtless. Keep the mask on while you sneeze! – Marty

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  14. You are smart to get packing before you have that drop dead date. The last time we moved (24 years ago) I was 5 months pregnant and had two small kids. We tried to do it all in one weekend, taking no time off work. Mistake! No purging was done.

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    • I packed what I can but it’s too early to back essentials so I purged a lot. Expired products, things we don’t use anymore or won’t need where we are going. Our trash is going to be overflowing for the next couple of weeks.

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  16. I am one of those women who sometimes hacks up a hairball in a public place. I can’t predict it and I do my best to avoid it by trying to keep my throat moist by chewing gum or sucking on a mint when I am in a store. But despite my best efforts, it can happen and the more I try to quell the cough the more intense it gets and my throat actually starts going into spasm. It can get so bad that tears stream down my face (and snot streams from my nose – thankfully behind my mask!) and I can’t catch my breath. I wish the floor would open up and swallow me when this occurs, especially now. It’s happened to me twice in public since the pandemic started. I’m not sick so I can’t explain what causes this. I thought it might be allergies…but lately I found out I have a hiatal hernia and this can also contribute (acid from stomach irritating the throat). I feel for the woman you encountered. I’m almost 100% certain she couldn’t predict this would happen and felt terrible that it did.

    Deb

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  17. Packing up is a good lesson in (a) organization and (b) letting go. Two things I’m clearly deficient in. I can’t think there is any amount of coffee/caffeine that would keep me in a store where a coughing fit was unfolding. At least not without making some sort of scene at the offender. Good grief-I swear we have lost our minds and our sense of common consideration and decency! I wouldn’t have done that even before the panDAMNic.

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  18. Sounds like you’re making real progress, Kate. Like life, packing is a process . . . you can only pack one box at a time. Good luck!

    We have moved 10 times in the past 40 years. And every time I’m surprised at the accumulated detritus in our life, especially since we’ve been downsizing and clutter busting for over 20 years. Socks are about the only thing that disappear on their own.

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  19. Andy lives to get rid of stuff, but he’s never gotten the hang of actually starting a project such as going through the kid’s drawers and pulling out everything that doesn’t fit. He was good about taking boxes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, but then I learned how sadly transphobic those organizations are. A friend’s church does donations to Native Americans in need and that’s where we donate now.

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    • I’ve gotten to the point where I will donate to anyone who picks up especially now. Clothing is the easiest thing to downsize. Interests come and go but the clutter they create seems to stay. I think my husband had every Times Life book series on anything he was interested in. In truth we mostly go to the internet for information now.

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  20. I dread having to move. I know it is silly but I enjoy weeding in the garden so if I need to sort out stuff I do an hour’s weeding first. It is silly I know what plants I want but not which kitchen gadgets.

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    • I know. I always think that some things may change when I move and I’ll use different stuff than I do now. I haven’t moved in 17 years so that doesn’t help either. Another layer of useless stuff to sort through.

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  22. It’s been over 20 years since I moved but I remember it being fairly easy at the time…..keep this, dump that, box the good stuff up and move. I’m SURE my next (last) move will be hideous. But I also think that by the time I do THAT move, I won’t be quite as attached to my “stuff” – we have no family – and our friends are the same age as we are and feel the same way about “stuff”. It’s very freeing getting rid of things (and you also have more room for new things if you get rid of the old!).

    Hugs, Pam
    p.s. I agree that naps are a GOOD thing……..!

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  23. I’m a slow learner, too, when it comes to “letting go.” I knew I needed to do something during the last move. I realized that the boxes of “might need that one day” stuff that I had moved from one basement to the next and then to the next had never been opened. To the curb, they went.

    Really odd, but in a good way, about the skin improvement. We are funny beasts, eh?

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    • Since I’m much older than any of my other moves, I’m finding that 5 hours working on it is just about my limit. Even that is pushing it. Yesterday when I was done, I sat in a chair and in 5 minutes I was fast asleep! We haven’t sold our home so we don’t have a drop dead date we have to get out.

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