I was not raised during the depression, but many of the people that I have admired the most in my lifetime, and considered my bosom friends (sadly, all gone now) were raised during the depression. Maybe their influence? Maybe it is genetic? Maybe it is just an inventive mind that sees on opportunity in every object for re-purpose.
It is with great effort that I exist in a state of re-training away from my natural tendency to allow the foot of my bed end up looking the way my much admired, beloved and dearly missed Granny's did.
The foot of her bed was a completely personal pile of interesting reading, newspapers, books, letters and clothes that were "in waiting". Clothes that were not quite dirty enough to wash, but not clean enough to wear to town, so waiting to be worn out to the garden. To wash too often would be wasteful. My Granny was very short, so the growing pile did not interfere with her sleeping. When the pile spread around and up the back side of the bed, she would deal with it, but it grew again, and again. She had the most delightful laugh when confronted with it.
My projects do this, spread like this. My spinning and knitting; I start too many, finish too few, have interesting ideas and diversions in the middle. If I lived in an ordinary sized house, there might be room for this "spread". Or if I was not also running the business of knitting anyway in addition to "living" and working my projects in this small of a space, it might not be a problem either.
I offer here for exhibit to examples of things that I should have thrown away right from the start.
Exhibit A)
This very cool and tough banding that came around the bales of shrink wrapped alfalfa that I bought this winter to supplement one of my goats that was frail.
I saved every band off of every bale. I thought it would be so cool woven into a tote bag or something.Stiff and strong... Imagine my chagrin when I discovered this exact same banding made into totebags on display at walmart (spit) pooey. I haven't thrown it out yet, but soon....
Exhibit B)
Our rescue dog is a border collie cross (crossed with something very, very dumb. Bless her heart.)
Anyway, J.B. brushed her daily for a couple of weeks this spring and out came lovely clumps of deep, dark, almost black, soft undercoat. He would peel it off of the brush and toss it willy nilly out in the yard somewhere, wherever he happened to be. Later, I would go around and gather it up, sometimes with dew on it, sometimes I had to fight the kitty for it.
Oh, the new beginning..that will have to wait to the next installment.
