The Story of Stuff

Have you ever seen this video or heard of the Story of Stuff Project? It's really worthwhile to spend a few minutes watching the video in its entirety.  Pour a cup of coffee or glass of wine (depending on time of day, or not) and just watch, it will change your view on "stuff".

Now I enjoy, have and buy a bunch of "stuff".  I am not proud of some of my attachments to stuff and thus I am continually streamlining.  I hate the idea that:

Thinking of time brought me back in time, college days to be exact. Here's my story of "stuff":

College Student-Athlete meets another College Student-Athlete, fell in love.  We had no money, we had no "stuff", we were (and still are) so happy:

Love This Guy

We lived in an adorable 500 sq.ft Mother in Law house in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. It looked kind of like this:

Adorable!



Beatrice and her husband owned the front home.  They had a huge canary aviary window that we would pass on the way to our unit each day.  I think she had over 50 birds:

Hello to Yellow Every Day



For some strange reason, Beatrice also had 2 pet tortoises that lived in a dog house behind our unit:

Tortoises as Pets?

 

She also had a lovely fountain in her garden that sat right outside our front entry:

The Sound of Water

I will always remember our simple life at 3630 1/2 Seneca.  We had a lot on our plates as full time student athletes putting ourselves through college. But we also had a lot of time to enjoy: 

• Dates at the Par 3 down the street,
• Runs in Griffith park
• Afternoons in Long Beach
• Day trips down to San Clemente or up to San Luis Obispo
• Time with great friends in our teeny backyard (with the tortoises)

Married with children has added more demands to our time, but I try to remember and emulate the bliss of the simple days we had. Our lack of "stuff" did not amount to lack of quality of life.  Because we had no money we never spent time searching, shopping or accumulating stuff.  How archaic!

What's your story of "stuff"? I would really love to know!

Thanks for visiting and thank you for commenting!

Little Sisters



Lisabeth and I - Mom help, what year was this?

My younger sister has had a rough week. I am happy that she has reached out to her family for support and guidance. And although we can't stand in her shoes and make decisions for her, we can stand beside her, and offer perspective and love.

I can't remember what year this photo was taken, my memory bank is horribly deficient (I am going to guess, 1976). But I can always remember endless days with my sidekick, Li. The baby of the family, she was happy to let me "mother" her: make her breakfast, lunch and clean our room. Smooth sailing unless she decided that she wanted something different, you wouldn't believe the defiance and sparks that could fly from this cute, freckled face midget. My mothering ways could not withstand her category 5 lashings and I would have to submit to her will.

I hope she can tap into her strengths: intelligence, tenacity, guts and gusto and know that everything will be as she needs/wants it to be. 

 "All conditions are temporary. Nothing stays the same, nothing remains static. Which way a thing changes depends on you." Neale Donald Walsch