{"id":377,"date":"2011-04-18T11:26:50","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T10:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=377"},"modified":"2011-04-18T21:20:20","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T20:20:20","slug":"never-throwing-anything-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janelaverick.com\/?p=377","title":{"rendered":"Never throwing anything away."},"content":{"rendered":"

As I was an austerity baby and fairly poor most of my adult life, hobbies have often been about making something out of nothing.  During the last recession we used to joke that the recession hadn\u2019t bothered us because we had nothing during the boom.<\/font><\/p>\n

One of the great joys of dollshousering is not just the triumph you feel in recycling things you would otherwise throw away but the absolute superiority over someone else stinking rich who just swanned out and bought one.  I remember years ago discussing this with a like-minded lunatic at Miniatura. \u2018Oh no,\u2019 asserted the customer, \u2018I never throw anything <\/em>away.\u2019 A passer by stopped and touched her gently on the arm, saying sympathetically, \u2018You must live in a very interesting house, dear.\u2019<\/font><\/p>\n

So, of course, do I.  Every few years you have to have a cull, just to remind yourself there\u2019s a carpet under there, though you can bet your sweet bippy as soon as something has gone you will need it.  Sadly, since my son left home nearly a decade ago, this has been the case with his bedroom, which is up to the ceiling with things he might need if he gets a permanent place eventually. Before the ink has dried on the mortgage document I\u2019ll be there driving a pantechnicon full of junk.  Poor kid, he didn\u2019t stand a chance.  He was brought up that way.  I well recall my new father-in-law\u2019s visit to our first home, he brought with him as a gift a shoe bag from my husband\u2019s schooldays, containing his marbles.  Not only did I keep them in a safe place so we could say he had never lost them, sadly only two were actual glass marbles.  The rest were steel ball bearings, many slightly rusty.  Sometimes the clue to the tone of the rest of your life is right there in your hand, or, rather, in your husband\u2019s little blue bag, if you could only see it for what it is.  I used them for many years to make the keys in doll moulds to lock the two parts of the mould, until I realised I could achieve the same effect by scraping out a little depression in the first half of the plaster.  So, way ahead of Catherine Zeta Jones, I lost my husband\u2019s marbles and had a little depression instead.<\/font><\/p>\n

I remember an editorial written by Sybil Harp in Nutshell News, about twenty years ago.  She told of a man clearing the loft of an old house.  He found a tin with a label stuck on the lid.  It bore the legend: PIECES OF STRING TOO SMALL TO SAVE.<\/strong><\/font>   I\u2019m sure I don\u2019t need to tell you what was in the tin.  About seven years ago I went on a radio programme about collecting and told this story but was considerably outclassed by someone who had collected lint from their tumble dryer for many years.  Apparently the collecting system formed a flat lint wheel with a hole in the middle, coloured by whatever clothing had given up its fluff.  By this means the lint wheels were never predictable as to their pattern and therefore collectable.  Tracy Emin would have sold them for a small fortune.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I have days when I think I should throw everything away.  I did recently chuck out draft numbers three, four and five of the novel that never got published that I was keeping in the old salad drawers from the previous fridge behind my armchair.  I have also cut down recently on stationery buying in the Christmas sales, especially of the vastly reduced ring binders in very strange colours that couldn\u2019t be sold to sane people.  To be fair this is mainly due to having less disposable income to \u2018invest\u2019 though I do have enough stationery to keep me filling up files for the foreseeable future.<\/font><\/p>\n

I also started throwing cotton reels away.  Empty ones, obviously.  Not, also obviously, the wooden ones that the dolls sit on when modelling for the shop.  I do have a collection of them and my husband\u2019s aunt has been known to give me them too.  (People know how pathetically grateful I am for junk.  Muriel Hopwood once gave me a shoebox lid full of one-owner rubber bands, having read that they self destruct in the course of mould making.  It saved me picking up the ones discarded by the postman in the street for months.) (Why not?  They just lie there, it\u2019s such a waste and dangerous if dogs and cats eat them.)  Having said all of this, please don\u2019t start sending me old rubber bands or cotton reels. There\u2019s no need.  I have a house full already.  But plastic cotton reels you may wish to save yourself.  I didn\u2019t and consequently had to cut the end of a reel with cotton still on it to make the windows I\u2019ll tell you all about on Wednesday when we go through the round window.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"P4150189\"<\/a>\"P4150194\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unless I have drowned in an avalanche of junk or been taken away in a little quilted van before then.<\/font><\/p>\n

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JaneLaverick.com \u2013 one sandwich short of a full collection.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I was an austerity baby and fairly poor most of my adult life, hobbies have often been about making something out of nothing.  During the last recession we used to joke that the recession hadn\u2019t bothered us because we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[289,288,290],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-parrot-has-landed","tag-collecting-rubbish","tag-junk","tag-marbles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t