After yesterday's post, I realized how many of my "happy things" are storage containers, especially ones for scrapbooking supplies. My husband commented "of course they are" and when invited to be a guest blogger, he wrote the following. ( I must admit that Chris is a great "scrapbooker's husband"...he understands 12x12 vs 8.5x11, knows several colors of Bazzill cardstock on sight, and understands the importance of it all. He gets it. He rocks!)
What is it about small, plastic containers which bring such joy to a woman’s heart? I have seen them in all shapes and sizes and colors. They are designed for myriad uses and still I can find no pause for satisfaction when a new one makes its way into our home. They are large enough for all of our Christmas decorations and small enough for just one color from a collection of decorative brads or eyelet’s. I see stacks of them in my wife’s scrapbook storage area. There they are, gleaming.
I once had a dream that there was a long line of them outside our door waiting to get in. There was a sense of panic from around our home from the other small plastic storage boxes as they began to tremble and fear that they would be replaced by a container with more flair or with just the right amount of multiple compartments. I feared for them too as I have seen the fate of these poor objects as they have become obsolete. They wind up painted or altered in some way and then relegated to containing something that they are sure is of less value and importance. I know the day will come when a small box, once cherished as a “find”, that had held my wife’s favorite scrapbooking embellishments will wind up on my workbench containing an assortment of old, tarnished screws and will sit for years and years on the off chance that I may need one of these gems.
Oh, the humanity! Is there such a thing as a perfect container? We’ve been using the same set of Tupperware in our kitchen for years. They are used frequently. They are abused. They are stained from time to time and yet they manage to retain their place as our containers of choice when it comes to food storage. When we bought them, there was no particular joy in their discovery. They were Tupperware and they were to be used for food. There were an adequate number of them and they all had matching lids. OK, cool. We have Tupperware. Here we are years later and the set is showing it’s age. A lid has made its way to freedom at some point. One bowl has kind of a funny shape from being left just a bit too long in the microwave. The inside of many of them are scratched from the use of abrasive sponges. And yet, there they still are.
When my wife goes to the scrapbook store or to one of several large craft stores in our area, I see her face light up as she discovers a small plastic “organizer” that will be just perfect for her collection of buttons that she uses for embellishing her pages. Mind you, there are already in a glass jar that is only half full. Keep in mind, also, she doesn’t use buttons all that often for her pages. I saw one on a Halloween page she finished a month or so ago. There was a set of two on a page from Fall. All in all, I wouldn’t say that her volume of button usage requires a more organized container that allows her to sort her dozens of buttons into colors or sizes, or more likely, colors and then sizes. And yet there was true excitement in her eyes as she began to ponder just how nice it will be to get rid of “that old jar” and replace it with this new thing.
As I stood there watching her in the store and wondering just what she had in mind, it occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve ever been that excited by a $.99 purchase in my life. It also occurred to me that I don’t often find joy in organizing and re-sorting my stuff. It must be a product of that “nesting gene” we men are told makes women want to constantly repaint, re-organize, re-work and re-cover our furniture, our rooms or our homes. Then it hit me like a Crop in Style binder being flung across the room at me, how nice our home, our rooms, our furniture, our craft space and my wife’s scrapbooking area are. I would like to say that it inspires me to want to pitch in and spend my free time re-organizing my tools. It doesn’t really though. It’s a nice day out. Our five year old son is long overdue for a game of catch and I need to decide what to do with one old slightly used and recently rejected glass jar. ---Chris
