This is week three of Keep or Purge :: Trash or Treasure. I thought after posting two paper items, that had questionable value, I’d step it up a notch and post something that has a lot of sentimental value, and for some people, possible monetary value.

This was my older sister’s rocking horse. It spent many years in the machine shed of my godfather’s farm, then was passed on to me when he died. My sister lives several states away and we’ve never even discussed whether she wants the rocking horse. I had it in a storage unit that I spent money on for over a year, and since I got married four years ago, it has followed us from house to house; garage, to basement, to garage.

I’m not planning on getting rid of it at this point, but I don’t exactly know what to do with it either. Do I somehow display it decoratively? Surely I don’t actually let my son ride it! It seems dangerous!!!

What would you do with it?

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Check out last week’s Keep or Purge :: Magazine Insert

For my second installment of Keep or Purge – another paper item.

Last year I ordered a subscription to Hobby Farm Home magazine to support my niece’s Girl Scout troupe. When I flip through the magazine I try not to look at those annoying advertisements to either renew or order another magazine; I just rip them right out and trash them.

But this one stuck around when the others went into the trash. It wasn’t really conscious at first, but then it became an issue. I feel that I should toss it. I don’t have a great track record with using pretty images anymore. Not since I was young and I made pretty, ever-changing wall collages.

So, what’s your opinion? Have you ever kept such a useless item as a piece of stiff paper torn out of a magazine?

Please add your votes and comments below.

 Check out last week’s Keep or Purge :: Cardboard Soap Box

For more info on these posts see the explanation here.

This first item may seem ridiculous to some of you, but believe it or not, I hesitated several times over whether to throw away this empty box. In the future I’ll be exploring the specific reasons for my difficulty throwing away an item like this. If you feel like it, leave a comment explaining your opinions about this item or items like it.

Item #1: Aubrey Organics Cardboard Soap Box

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Further reflections on the title of my blog.

Once you’ve been blogging for a good while, you can’t really change your blog’s name.
The current title just came to me one day when I was reflecting on how difficult it was for me to write on my original knitting blog, The Shaggy Dog Story. Once the name popped into my head, I couldn’t shake it. It gave me a sort of theme to focus my writing, but it was broader than knitting and would allow for me to write things I wasn’t sure belonged on a knitting blog.

I had at one time started a secret journal called Selective Blindness For Joy. I loved that title, but I was starting to outgrow its bleak message. “Selective Blindness For Joy” is what afflicts me during bouts of depression. It’s how I think I’ve lived a lot of my life, but as I found myself married and turning 30, that was beginning to change. My husband has taught me how to see joy in life and I guess I wanted to reflect that new outlook in the title of my blog.

So, not wanting to continue in the negative vein of Selective Blindness, I suddenly felt that I wanted my life to encompass joy. Along with that I had just learned that there was a name for the situation that I grew up in – hoarding. I now have misgivings about that unfortunate name, compulsive hoarding, but at the time, when my mom admitted to me that she was a hoarder, I finally felt that this vague dysfunction that had plagued me and made me feel different my whole life was more solidified. It was defined by boundaries. I’m not a defective person, I’m not permanently damaged and doomed to suffer depression, I’m just the product of a parent who is severely chronically disorganized.

But, why Housewife? Once I realized that I wanted to write about my struggle to become domestically successful given my upbringing, I couldn’t get the phrase Joyful Housewife out of my head. Housewife as a concept encompasses everything I’m passionate about in life good and bad. It isn’t that I fully support the use of the word to describe women, it’s that I am okay with my ambiguity about that word and all of the issues it conjures up. I’m obsessed with the search for what it means to be a self-actualized woman. I’m obsessed with the quest to balance work life, home life, and motherhood. Seeing the word housewife every time I write urges me to examine these feelings, questions, and issues.

I want to drop the word from the title of my blog daily, but what should I replace it with?

I’d kind of like to revert to Selective Blindness For Joy adding the tagline Domestic Bliss, Eventually.

Here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Compulsive Hoarding:

Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding) is the acquisition of, and failure to use or discard, such a large number of seemingly useless possessions that it causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping.

Characteristics:

• living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed
• significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding (for all family members as well).

And from the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation website:

Living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were originally designed. Obviously, with many items coming into the home and very few going out, the clutter will accumulate. It does not take long for the clutter to spread onto the floors, counter tops, hallways, stairwells, garage, and cars. Beds become so cluttered that there is no room to sleep. Chairs become buried under clutter, so there is nowhere to sit. Kitchen counters become so cluttered that food cannot be prepared. For many hoarders, it gets to a point where there might be only a narrow pathway that connects each room, and the rest of the house is piled several feet high with clutter. It becomes impossible to use many areas of the house for their original purpose.

So you can see how difficult it is to maintain normal housekeeping practices in that environment. My mother wasn’t a slob and we didn’t live in abject squalor, but there was no such thing as a regular routine and I’ve developed a fear of housework that extends beyond vacuuming, sweeping, basic laundry, some ironing and dish washing.

Mopping? Toilet scrubbing? Shower and bath cleaning? Gag me!

Counter-tops, stove-tops, dust bunnies, the depths of the refrigerator…. and clutter, clutter, clutter! The list of things I avoid cleaning as long as possible is nearly endless.

But above all, I’m most deficient in home cooking. Or any kind of cooking.

I plan to master all of these skills in the coming year.

Enter The Homemaker’s Mentor. Here, Mrs. Martha Greene and Mrs. Rebekah Wilson, who are both homemakers, mothers, and authors, offer cheap and “helpful lessons to inspire you and expand your homemaking skills.” I could kiss them!

Unfortunately, my purse strings are a little too tight to pay even the small amount that they charge for something that I can get for free. They do, however, offer some free sample lessons, such as how to bake the perfect pie and laundry, so I’ll update you on how I like those when I read through and try them.

And check out their Curricula for 2008:

Deep Cleaning the Master Bedroom
Sew Simple Curtains
Growing an Indoor Herb Garden
Children’s Clothing – Storage & Solutions
Dried Beans & More Beans!
Sew an Apron
Family Home Cooked Meals
Well Stocked Medicine Cabinet
Crocheted Lace Edgings
Canning Blackberry Jam
A Sparkling Kitchen – Part One and Two
Really GOOD Home-Canned Pickles!
Long Term Food Storage & Emergency Preparedness
Pantry Principles – Organizing and Stocking
Sweet Dreams! ~ Homemade Pillowcases
Perfect PIES!
Laundry Part One
Laundry Part Two
My kitchen – A Restaurant?
Apples~Apples and How to Use them All
Gingham Embroidery
Sew Simple Skirts for Mommies & Girls
Making a Memory Quilt
In a Stew! A Hearty Farm-House Meal
Rebekah’s Revolving Chore Chart for Children
Mother’s Master List of Home Duties
Lot’s of fun stuff there.

See! I told you this learning to keep a house business would be fun!

**(Note: When this was originally posted, before I erased my blog, it had 1 comment. All comments prior to June 7, 2010 have been lost.)**