Was blind, but now I see...

One nut, two screws, three detached temples, and after four years out of commission, a five minute repair job has my collection of drugstore sunglasses back in action! I knew this day would come eventually, which is what I remember telling myself when I packed up the various pieces from the junk drawer in my old apartment last year and opted to pack them into a U-Haul instead of throwing them away. "I'll get around to fixing them sometime..."

I assumed this would be an easy task once I stopped procrastinating, and since the sunglasses were of the inexpensive non-prescription variety, it was certainly going to be a do it yourself operation.  Like most of those, it should have been easier than it was, took significantly longer than it should have, and involved more than one trip to a store for parts. If you've attempted this task yourself recently, you probably discovered that it's hard to find tiny screws without a minimum purchase that includes a 4-way screwdriver with magnifier that you don't need, (because you already have two in a desk drawer someplace), wrenches that don't fit the nuts, and 4 screws that turn out to be too big or too small to be useful. The kit cost me just one dollar and eighty-eight cents; but was worth less than that, so it's now in the junk drawer where the glasses used to be.

A "Fix all glasses/ eyeglass repair kit" that I ordered online for seven dollars finally gave me what I needed to repair the glasses from the junk drawer, and any others I will ever own in the future. It came with lots of different sized screws, which was good, because I lost quite a few of them when I bumped my elbow on the table while opening the package. Even with many of the nuts and screws lost forever in the carpet, there were still enough to do the job, and three pair of sunglasses have avoided the trash. But what about other glasses we have around the house that are no longer being used? Reading glasses that have been replaced by a stronger magnification...My old prescription lenses from the nineties with frames that cover three-quarters of my face....What can be done with those???

This week's downsize challenge is to take inventory of your eye glasses; Sunglasses, reading glasses, old prescription glasses, etc. Fix what can be fixed, and consider donating what you don't need or want anymore. Even old sunglasses that you have replaced with a cooler pair; they will find their way to people near the equator, where eye protection is hard to come by, and UV rays cause serious vision loss. The following organizations collect, refurbish, and redistribute glasses of all kinds:

New eyes for the needy
OneSight
Lions club


We have one pair of glasses in the house that I am not quite ready to donate. Family photo albums confirm my memory that my Oma wore the same frames for at least thirty-five years.  They were big, round bi-focals, and I don't think you could find anything like them in a store today. I remember the specific morning when I first learned the Dutch word "brill" while I was helping her get dressed. She asked me to get them from the dresser, along with her wristwatch. It was during the last six months of her life, when she began letting me help her with daily tasks, and I began making a more concerted effort to learn her language while we still had time together. Oma would stop in the middle of whatever we were doing, point to an object, say the word, and patiently wait while I would repeat it over and over until I had it right. I remember quietly setting those glasses on the dresser after taking them off for the last time. When I hold them in my hands now, I can still see her bright blue eyes behind them, saying so much that didn't need to be translated.

The biggest surprise

When I was talking with New York Times contributor Paula Span recently about the experience of cleaning out the condo, she asked me a great question: "What was the biggest surprise?" Nothing specific came to mind right away. It had been nearly a year since I'd locked that door for the last time, and my mind was cluttered with more current things, but a few weeks after the conversation, the memory of it suddenly hit me.

I had found the biggest surprise in the drawer of Opa's bedside table, underneath the index cards with illustrated directions for how to connect the High-8 video camera to the TV and VCR, a neatly folded sheet of typed lyrics for the Star Spangled Banner, five flashlights that didn't work, his stash of double-salt licorice, and a lot of miscellaneous batteries. It was inside of a small blue box with foreign writing on it that didn't look like Dutch to me. I mindlessly opened it, figuring that it was probably another "gift" that had come in the mail from some charity; another calculator or clock or something along those lines. I was two months into the clean-out process at that point, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the contents of the two bedrooms and their respective closets, but to find myself holding an Italian tear gas pistol came as a complete shock to me.

The biggest surprise

When I asked him about it, Opa said, "Oh, that's my revolver. It's for if someone breaks in at night."  I sat there trying to imagine a scenario in which my 95 year old grandfather, who has the steadiest, but largest hands I have ever seen, would successfully load teeny tiny tear gas caps, in the dark, without his glasses on, into this pistol, after first finding it underneath all the other stuff that was on top of it in the drawer.

Then I thought about all the nights during the previous four years when I had stayed up late after flying down for my long weekend visits, waiting for my grandparents to fall asleep so that I could sneak into the kitchen to reload the dishwasher with the dishes that had been put away dirty, sort through the contents of kitchen cabinets to find the source of rancid odors, and dump expired bottles of Thousand Island salad dressing down the garbage disposal. I began to imagine the story that might have run in the Herald Tribune if Opa's hearing loss had not been so profound, "Woman in pantry, surrounded by outdated boxes of Rice-a-Roni, teargassed by her grandfather who mistook her for an intruder..."

Opa is one of the most trusting people I have ever met, which is what made the discovery so hard to believe. If the pistol had been in the drawer on my grandmother's side of the bed, it would have all made so much more sense to me, but the people who have known Opa throughout his life agree that he'd be far more inclined to offer a burglar a cup of tea than to respond with self-defense.

He did not remember where he had bought the gun, or when, but my aunt put the pieces of the story together. She had lived in Uganda with her husband and young children between 1967-69. During a period of frequent break-ins and politic strain, they were advised to obtain tear gas for their personal safety. This wasn't something they could easily purchase locally, so they wrote to Opa for help. She didn't know that he'd bought one for himself too, but that must have been what happened. Neither of the weapons were ever fired.

While I was on the phone hearing the rest of the story, Opa sat at the kitchen table, wearing the coffee stained shirt that I hadn't been able to get him to change all week. Someone on The Price is Right was bidding on the showcase. As I watched him carefully sorting paper clips into neat piles of different sizes and colors, I could see it all so clearly, the X-Acto knife he'd used to cut the pages out of the center of a hardcover edition of Reader's Digest Collected Stories, the hours of letting the glue dry around the section that would hold the pistol, the long drive in his '66 Dodge Dart to a post office out of town, the fake return address, the successful smuggling operation. His strong desire to protect the people he loves; a lump rising in my throat. After I hung up the phone, I swallowed hard and said the only thing I could think of,  "Opa, would you like to go out for ice cream after lunch?"

When it no longer suits you

Suit jacket made by Opa's friend Mau in the 70's

Eighty-five years ago, Opa and his friend Mau were twelve year old boys playing in the streets of Amsterdam, riding bikes, going to the movies, and camping along the North Sea. By the time I knew them as retired old men sitting in lawn chairs on the beach, their friendship had survived a World War, immigration, and over fifty years of telling the same jokes. Mau grew up to be a tailor, and every few decades Opa would have a new suit made by his oldest friend.

When I was clearing out the wardrobe closet in Florida last spring, it was packed with every dress my grandmother had worn since immigration in 1957, (in a full range of sizes), purses and shoes in at least seven shades of beige, zippered bathrobes in every imaginable length and material, multiple pairs of identical slacks ("Buy one, get another half-off"), winter coats that hadn't been worn since the move from Massachusetts in the mid-eighties, an array of sun visors, and so much more. A woman's clothes are so occasional; the dress she wore to the fiftieth anniversary party when they hired that polka band... .the beaded blue two-piece suit from the last Captain's dinner, neatly stored in the dry cleaning bag, optimistically awaiting the next cruise. Cleaning out the closet of a recently departed loved one is overwhelmingly intimate and profoundly lonesome. The scent of familiarity has the power to deeply soothe and wound us in the same breath. I cried both kinds of tears as I sat on the floor of that closet, and the eleven umbrellas Oma had been saving for a rainy day could do nothing to deflect them.

When we would go for our walk to get the mail each afternoon, Opa would inevitably say to the ladies we met along the way, “My wife died. She was about your size. You could come to my house and see if any of her clothes fit you.” He didn't understand why nobody ever followed-up on his offer, so I started sneaking things out to the Goodwill and Salvation Army early in the morning, telling him later that I'd found someone who could really use them, which I desperately hoped was the truth.

When it came time to tackle Opa's side of the closet in preparation for our move, I made him try on everything he owned and we had a fashion show in the living room. We sorted his wardrobe into piles of 'things that fit' and 'things that didn't'. Then we subdivided, eliminating the fabrics that would most easily melt if they caught on fire, and other things we decided were unlikely to be worn by him in his ninety-fifth year (the belt buckles to his square dancing outfits, and the stretched out Speedo bathing suit with the lightening bolt on the backside). I appreciated his utilitarian approach to the process, “Why the hell do I need sixteen pairs of pants when I wear the same ones for a whole week and we have a perfectly good washing machine?” Moments of such clarity must be seized!  The decisions that followed were more straight forward than they would have been if my Oma had still been alive, and believe me, I felt guilty about that. We made one exception to our practical and ruthless purging; Mau's suits. They no longer fit Opa well, and we don't attend many suit-worthy occasions anymore, but after parting with so much already, “My longest- lasting friend made them for me,” seemed like a good enough reason to keep them.  

About six months after we got settled, Opa started to lose track of things that he usually carried in his pockets. My purse started getting overloaded with wadded up handkerchiefs, colored pencils, camera batteries, word search puzzle books, and the other items that travel with us on our daily outings. He needed a bag of his own...So we sent a suit jacket to my sister and she transformed it into the perfect solution, keeping the pockets intact and even reusing the original lining! (Click on the 'Something New' photo below to see her other similar projects.)

Something Old		Something New
Opa's jacket in 1979		Opa's bag in 2011

Opa loves his new bag and tells everyone that it was “twice made” for him. The very same pocket that once held theater tickets and hotel keys now holds a pack of UNO cards and some spare hearing aide batteries, and it's getting a lot more use than it did while it was hanging in the back of the closet for the past twenty years.

What could you do with the beloved things that no longer suit you in their current form?

Spring is a great time to take a look in your closet. The Downsize Challenge this week is to sort through your wardrobe. I invite you to start with the things on hangers if the idea of tackling contents of dresser drawers feels like it will zap your life force. Diverting clothing from the textile waste stream is good for the planet and for the people on it. You probably already have some system in place for downsizing your unwanted clothing. Here are some options to consider:

You can maximize interest in a post on Freecyle or Craigslist by mentioning sizes and materials of what you have to offer (cotton dresses, denim jeans, wool coats, etc) rather than just listing “free clothes”. Don't limit yourself to thinking about the clothes as worthless in their current form. Many craftspeople seek these items for up-cycling projects and will be happy to take them off your hands. The condition may not matter if it is going to be deconstructed. When your old wool sweater has been cut up and felted and turned into something beautiful and new, nobody will ever know about that big hole in the left armpit.

Alterations: Do you still really love it but it needs some adjustment? Could it fit you again after a trip to the seamstress or tailor?

Consignment: Could you get some cash back?  

Donation: To maximize the impact of your local clothing donation, it's best to work seasonally. Your unwanted winter coat is honestly more likely to end up in the dumpster outside of the thrift store if you donate it in July than if you do so in October. Ask your donation center what happens to things that don't get purchased. Some participate in textile recycling programs (like this one in New York City). Others aren't in the loop yet. A lot of clothing goes into our landfills in spite of our best intentions.  (Readers, please post comments with your other resources and ideas.)

If you've got professional clothes in good condition, consider donating to one of several organizations that promote economic independence by providing workplace attire as part of career development programs:

• Dress for Success - for women (check out the affiliates drop down list)
• Career Gear - for men
• National Suit Drive organized by Men's Wearhouse each September
• Wardrobe for Opportunity – in the Bay area in California

But please remember, the recipients are not interviewing for careers as 1990's fashion models, so these clothes must be interview appropriate and IN STYLE.

Got any vintage items of interest? (Not just clothes, think about shoes, accessories, coats, hats, suitcases, parasols?...) A community theater company  in your area might welcome them for their costume shop.

And if you've been holding on to something sentimental from your longest lasting friend, consider how it might be transformed into something new to suit you. One of the keys to healthy downsizing is knowing what you really need to keep. 

Have you seen the muffin pan?

Wedding shower gifts from 1971

 The person who gave Mom these baking pans at her wedding shower in 1971 could never have known the long term yield on the investment. Other snazzier models (non-stick, air insulated, etc.) have been introduced into the household over the years, but the cookie sheet to the right is the one that is still burning the bottoms of ginger bread boys and roasting tater tots.

I made popovers yesterday and while digging through the storage drawer under the stove to find the muffin pan, discovered that I must have been distracted when cleaning up after my last baking project.

It seems that I totally bypassed the, "Oh, just let it soak overnight in the sink," step and put it away without even rinsing it at all. I love to cook and honestly enjoy doing dishes, but pots and pans are usually the last in the line-up, and they sometimes get overlooked. Have you ever opened the door of the oven to put something into it only to discover the roasting pan from last weekend, right where you left it?

The  muffin pan

I found an electric skillet in my grandmother's kitchen that contained what may have been the remnants of fried chicken, which I estimate to have been in there for at least five years before my discovery. It was stored in the cabinet over the refrigerator, which nobody in my immediate family can reach without a ladder, so I am not quite sure how it got there. The condo kitchenette, which was designed for people who like to eat out, contained three complete sets of cookware, each with a large stock pot and three sizes of saucepans.

What is the status of your cookie sheet collection? Is there something sticky permanently stuck to your non-stick?  Are you regularly ingesting Teflon flakes with your scrambled eggs? How many sauce pans do you really use on a day other than Thanksgiving? This week's Downsize Challenge is to take inventory of your pots and pans and cull out any that you are ready to live without. If intensive cleaning and polishing is in order, as it was here, an online search for "how to clean pots and pans" will yield many great suggestions for dealing with baked on grease. A paste of vinegar and baking soda worked very well for us.

If your unwanted pots and pans are still in usable condition for cooking, consider donation sites that accept household goods (Salvation Army, Goodwill, other charities in your area, etc.) Posting them on Craigslist under "free stuff" or on Freecycle might also help them find a good new home. Some metal pans will be accepted by your recycling center, but non-stick cookware seems to be a challenge in most areas. Consider re-purposing instead. Mom has found a few applications in the greenhouse. Seedling flats sit nicely on an old rusty cookie sheet. The handles can often be removed from pans and can serve as dishes under houseplants.

Gluten free muffins

Is there a place in the house where a magnetic message board would help YOU get more organized? Before you throw away that metal cookie sheet, check out this link for a creative idea with simple instructions by Carolyn on her beautiful blog about do it yourself projects at home.



Last night, I covered an old Baker's Secret with fabric to create a reminder board for Opa. When he woke up this morning, he was greeted by this note:




Today is Saturday
  (a good day for a shower)
  Muffins for breakfast!

Vintage Vicks and Vaseline

Winter has officially ended and I am eager for our N.H. weather to match the arrival of a new season. I started my more ambitious Spring cleaning in the same corner of the house where the downsize challenge began last year; the bathroom. The medicine cabinet is a good place to start, because the decisions to be made are more straight forward than in other parts of the house. Expiration dates are easier to deal with than the more vague questions of current usage that we face elsewhere. It amazes me that although we have lived here for just over a year, we have somehow accumulated enough toe nail clippers to fully stock a pedicure salon in the mall. We have razor cartridges that don't fit any of the handles in our supply. The hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol are expired. There is sediment in the calamine lotion. I've got a few of Opa's prescriptions that were discontinued, but never discarded. Our four boxes of supposedly “assorted” Bandaids mostly contain empty wrappers now, or the little round ones that are too small for most of the things that happen around here.

What's the first aid supply situation at your place? If you had an accident with a minor injury right now, could you, or someone in your house, easily locate the stuff you would need to clean and dress your wound?  How is your stretched-out ace bandage collection? 

The downsize challenge of the week: 

I invited my family to compete with each other last spring to see who would find the bathroom product with the oldest expiration date. Some Pre-Sun 29 that had expired in 1986 placed third. My Oma's bottle of Ponds Cold Cream, circa 1982 held the record for almost a week, until one of her daughters discovered some Norwegian Vaseline that had been left behind by a visitor during the 1970's.

This week's downsize challenge is to clean out YOUR medicine cabinet. Will YOU be the new champion?

And what should you do with unused or expired medications?

They are not safe for septic tanks or public water supplies, so please DON'T FLUSH them. Your local waste management facility can tell you the specific rules for disposition in your area. When I was in Florida last spring, I was instructed to crush Oma's unused pills and mix them with cat litter or damp coffee grounds before putting them in a plastic bag and then disposing of them with our regular trash. This was an enormous task, as the blender, food processor, and most of Opa's tools that might have been useful for crushing hundreds of tablets had just been sold for a few dollars each in a yard sale. The coffee/spice mill that I borrowed from my friend upstairs worked very well for pulverizing, though in hindsight, I would highly recommend wearing a mask while handling this stuff.

In response to concerns about public health hazards related to improper storage and disposition of medications, the Drug Enforcement Agency initiated a national Take Back program last year and has scheduled a spring collection date for April 30^th, 2011. This is an easy and safe way to get rid of expired or unused medications. Follow this link to learn more about the initiative, and to enter your zip code to find a nearby collection site.

Some of the lessons I learned from this particular challenge:
It's really worth thinking twice before buying one of anything just to get another one for free, but especially when it comes to talcum powder. We have more than enough to last a lifetime.

Antibiotic ointment RARELY gets used up before it expires, so if ever needed in the future, purchasing the smallest tube they've got in the store is probably a smart move.

Storing creams for faces and creams for butts in different locations is a really good idea, especially if anyone in the household is at the point in life where reading glasses are standard issue, but are frequently missing at important moments.

Based on the number of fully loaded complementary floss dispensers I still have in stock, I am not flossing at the rate that the hygienist suggests.  

It's smart to dump out the water from a hot water bottle before putting it away and forgetting about it for a few years.

And lastly, it is not a given that all members of a household will correctly identify their own toothbrushes when asked to do so. 

Yellow Roses (the first downsize challenge)

The Downsize Challenge began for me last spring, while I was sitting on the edge of my Oma's tub, staring at a bottle of Jean Nate. It had been there as long as I could remember, right next to the dish of dusty little yellow soaps, shaped like roses, which I figured she must have won at Bridge, because they weren't the kind of thing she would have bought for herself. She had been a very practical person and didn't have much use for decorative things. I decided that the logical thing to do with the soap was to use it, but the little roses started to crumble when they made contact with the water, and they wouldn't lather. So I chucked the whole lot into the trash.

When I woke up the next morning, I desperately wanted them back. I stared down the trash chute next to the elevators and felt the permanence of the situation. They were gone. There was nothing I could do about it. I sat down for a while, in front of the recycling bins, on a pile of cardboard boxes, trying to compose myself before going back to check on Opa, who couldn't be left for too long. My thoughts eventually settled. “They're just soap. They are not Her. Love can never be thrown down a trash chute.”

If you have ever dismantled a place that has always existed in your heart, you know what it means to pour Jean Nate down the toilet.  

Locked out (a few keys to spare)

Can you currently identify each key on the keyring in your pocket or purse? Do they unlock doors that exist in your present life, or are you deliberately carrying around some extras as part of a weight bearing exercise program? I finally have the keyring under control, but the ones I have removed from it over the years are still around, and I don't have any good excuses. When my old car didn't pass inspection last year, it was ultimately sold for parts. Since it's dismantled in a salvage yard someplace, it's safe to say that theft is no longer a concern, so what am I doing with the key? And what about the three copies of former front door keys to my current home, which had new locks installed two years ago? Hey, at least those are identifiable and an informed decision can be made, but what about the ones that remain a mystery? Might need them someday, but don't know for sure. Won't know until I need them, right? What if one of them belongs to my neighbor who might ask me again to feed the cat while she's away...can't exactly go over there now with all the miscellaneous keys and start trying them out on her front door. I'd at least better wait until she isn't home.

A FEW TO SPARE

Have you got a similar collection? This week's downsize challenge is to sort through your keys, not just the ones on the keyring, but the ones hanging on nails by the door, or hiding in drawers, or on desks and dressers. Figure out what they open. Keep them only if you need them.

What can we do with our old keys?

The internet is full of ideas for craft projects to be made with keys, but this remains a downsize challenge, so I encourage you to fight the overwhelming urge to make wind chimes or necklaces from your old luggage set.

Don't throw them in the trash! Keys are metal and can be recycled, often right along with the rest of your metal recycling. Ask the folks at your recycling center or transfer station. Mine told me to put them in with the cans.

If you have a lot of keys, especially brass or other metals of value, you might want to scrap them for cash.

If you'd like to donate them to a group raising money for Multiple Sclerosis research? See the link below:

http://www.keysforkindness.com/

Whatever you do, label the ones you keep. It'll save you a lot of time later.