August 6, 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Among the hot fashion fads of 1969 was a lacquered wooden purse with assorted bright and colorful decorations, which always included a shiny penny on top. My mom had one, and I coveted it with a passion, especially the tiny Ace of Hearts next to the penny. I wasn’t really all that interested in carrying a purse to kindergarten—but oh, did I want a deck of miniature cards! I must have driven my mom to distraction with my begging. But of course, in those days searching for odd little items was a lot harder than it is now. My mom did look for them, but Christmas came and went without any miniature cards in my stocking.

The mysterious ways of Providence brought me a deck of tiny cards in January, neatly enclosed in a plastic capsule from a bubble-gum machine. They even looked like the card on my mom’s purse. I was thrilled! Of course, my sister and I promptly lost half the deck while pretending that our dolls were playing card games; but it was great fun while it lasted.

Many years later, my sister remembered how much I had liked the wooden purse, and she bought a similar one as a gift for me. This one has no miniature card on top, and of course the 1969 penny is no longer bright and shiny; but otherwise it’s much the same. I keep it in a corner of my study as a decoration and smile whenever I look at it.
 

Wooden purse with stickers and 1969 penny. 

As children, we don’t stop to reflect on the little miraculous events in our everyday lives. We’re much too busy playing; and life seems magical anyway, so why shouldn’t the things we want just pop out of a bubble-gum machine? But after we grow up and develop task-oriented adult minds, our sense of everyday wonder doesn’t come as naturally as it once did. We may not even notice the moments of grace in our daily lives unless we carefully cultivate habits of appreciation and gratitude.

And when we do, we’re likely to start discovering unexpected blessings everywhere.

While looking through some work-related papers at the back of a desk drawer in my home study, I found a stack of training materials from January 2001, when I helped to train a group of new hires. There was some other useless stuff in there too, like instructions for installing Windows 2000, along with a stack of paper newsletters (what a quaint concept that seems now!) from that time period. Evidently, I had put all that stuff in the drawer and left it there for many years without looking at it.
 

Training instructions document dated January 2001 

I would say there’s another training lesson to take away from this discovery—the need to train oneself in the habit of regularly disposing of clutter, otherwise it builds up without even being noticed. Drawers, shelves, closets… they’re all magnets for clutter, and they can’t be kept organized without taking an inventory of the contents every once in a while. Especially in the modern world, with so many things becoming obsolete in just a few years, it’s all too easy to end up with a heap of useless stuff that has long outlived its purpose.

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!