Really. . . it's just stuff

Some say it's antique. Others say it's just stuff.

My wife Judy has a couple other words for stuff. . . like junk and crap. I keep reminding her that this stuff she calls stuff. . .oh pardon me, the stuff she calls crap, is actually my treasures.

When we moved from the Twin Cities to Blooming Prairie five years ago, we had a challenge of how to handle the stuff. The answer was downsizing. Wow, did we ever downsize! It was painful.

Everybody deals with their stuff in a different way. Some easy ways to dispose of stuff is to give it away to friends or to enemies. You make a determination of whether they are a friend or enemy.

Other ways to dispose of stuff are to haul the item to the street corner and write FREE on it. This actually works.

Garage sales also work for disposing of stuff.

Blooming Prairie was the scene of some garage sales and auction sales last weekend. You might say with accuracy that there was some stuff put on the auction block. It's often been said "What is someone's junk is someone else's treasure."

Judy has been threatening me, not in a bad way, to dispose of my stuff herself if I chose not to do it.

Yes, we have had some garage sales, and I managed to painfully part with some of my stuff.

It's been five years now and Judy and I are still organizing the stuff in our house. Most of it is located in the garage.

Categorizing the stuff can sometimes be fun, however. Just last weekend, I began rummaging through my stuff and found some collectibles that I knew I had but I didn't know where it was.

An autographed Harmon Killebrew baseball wishing me a Happy Birthday on my 65th birthday was found. Son Troy got that treasure for me almost 10 years ago.

I also reluctantly sent some of my books to the Blooming Prairie Library. Hopefully library users will find something they will enjoy.

While going through some boxes of stuff, I uncovered some dead insects: spiders, crickets, etc. "Oh boy, there's that power drill I have been looking for," I smiled in alerting Judy to my find.

The toughest part of dealing with stuff is that it can become very  heavy. "Where's that dolly?" I asked Judy. "Oh, that was with some of the other stuff you sold," she told me. Oh shucks!

Before you throw out any of your stuff, make sure you want to part with it.

Let's look at some definitions of stuff:

            NOUNS: • The material out of which something is made or formed; substance.

            • The essential substance or elements; essence.

            • Unspecified material: Put that stuff over there.

            • Household or personal articles considered as a group.

            • Worthless objects (Judy would agree with this definition)

            • Stuff can be used in sports, referring to a baseball pitcher's spin on the ball; refers to a basketball dunk shot; the team showed its stuff in winning the championship.

            VERB: • Stuff can also be used as a verb: to pack or fill completely; cram

The nice part of having stuff is that you don't really have to remember that you have it. Enjoy your stuff before someone else gets it. We live in a "stuff" world.