Sentimental Value

There is monetary value, and there is sentimental value. You tell me which is worth more, and I will tell you what your heart is made of.
― Richelle E. Goodrich

You can't put a price on a sentimental value.
― Astrid Yrigollen,

What counts now are the value-less facts, the material and the rational. All else is regarded with condescension as being of only sentimental value.
— Jean Gebser

I’ve been trying to de-clutter my house lately, but I’m finding it hard to let things go. Like that paper angel that used to top our Christmas tree (now sitting on a shelf) that the daughter and I made more years ago than either of us care to remember. It’s more grey than white (because of the dust), the styrofoam ball used to make its head is degrading, the paper making its body is eroding, and it’s halo is long gone. And we haven’t used it more than ten years. So why do I keep it around? Sentimental value.

We finally made our wills a few weeks ago, and one of the things we were told to do was make an itemized list of all of our things and what we want to have happen to them. And while it was easy enough to just write down “Everything goes to the daughter” we were told that isn’t good enough.

We have a LOT of stuff. I don’t expect to die any time soon, but accidents do happen, so now I’m looking at all this stuff I’ve collected over the years and I have to ask myself, who’s going to want it? Especially the stuff that has no sentimental value to anyone but me?

Like . . . I have this little, carved wooden dog on the shelf. It’s a little crudely done, and painted white. It was done by a little old man in the trailer park where my aunt and uncle had their trailer when I was a kid. I loved going to that trailer. And I loved watching that old man work on his carvings. So that little dog brings back many fond memories. But anyone else who looks at it is only going to see a crudely carved, little white dog. They’ll have no sentimental attachment to it.

You see my dilemma? If future generations aren’t going to want it, why am I hanging on to it?

Because I want to, that’s why!

The problem is, most of this stuff is just taking up space. Some of it’s hidden away so I don’t even realize I’ve got it, and some of it just sits on the shelf collecting dust. So it’s not like I’m getting great enjoyment out of it, although I did quite enjoy the collecting of it.

Periodically I go through my writing files and try to de-clutter them as well, with about as much luck. I have ideas dating back to my high school days. Some of them not bad, some of them very bad. But I just can’t seem to bring myself to part with them.

I remember going through a phase where I wrote down my ideas in blurbs. You know, that one or two paragraphs on the back (or inside cover) of a book designed to persuade you to buy it? The problem with the blurb is, it’s not the whole story. Nor is it the whole idea behind the story.

One of them was for an organization called “The Star Brothers.” It was about a group of men who went around the universe doing good. Not much to go on, is it? Yet I just can’t bring myself to scrap it. Maybe some day I’ll suddenly have an epiphany and more details will come. Although the title is a little sexist. Why “brothers” and not just “friends?” Sign of the times, I tell you what.

I have many ideas that need to be thinned from the herd, but I don’t see that happening any more than I see the house being decluttered. It was a different time, and I was a different kind of writer, and sometimes I can pull out those ideas and take a sentimental journey into the past.

Ideas, even bad ones, don’t take up a lot of space. Well, some of them were written before I got my first computer, so they’re in physical files. But the rest just reside, dust free, in electronic storage, waiting to be accessed whenever I’m feeling sentimental. They’ll become the problem of whoever inherits my writing stuff.

I apologize in advance. :-D

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WORDAGE REPORT

Still don’t have extra words to report, but at least I got all my blog posts done last week, even if I did produce less words overall.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1,124+453+522+715=2,814
Poetry – 33 (included in poetry post)

Total words: 2,814

Goals For Next Week:
Bring that total up – maybe try to add some bonus words.

EDITING:
27 pages
Yay! Back in the saddle with the editing.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep workin on Magickal Mayhem.

MARKETING:
*sigh* No Marketing. It just doesn’t seem to be a priority with me.

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECH & TRAINING:
Once again there was no training, and only a little bit of tech. I got the Roku device working, but I’m really not happy with it. The one we got for the basement you basically just had to plug it in, attach it to the TV and that was that.

This one I needed to set up an account and give it credit card/PayPal information “just in case” I wanted to buy something through it. Apparently, they don’t trust me when I say I’m only going to use it for Disney+ and only on free stuff.

AND there doesn’t appear to be an off switch, so we have to unplug it when we’re not using it.

I don’t know if it counts as tech, but I did update the side-bars on my blogs, adding one in for the serial story.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn something new.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Only cheated a little last week. While I did use a form I’ve shared previously, I wrote a whole new post to go with it and added in an extra couple of examples. Upon double-checking my previous research for the Cinquain, I discovered there are two distinctly different formats to it, so I did the American Cinquain last week and this week I'll do the French one.

Goal For Next Week:
Give the French Cinquain a try.

CRAFTING:
I didn’t have a whole lot of time for crafting last week. The granddaughter was more interested in the pool than the glue gun. But I did get a little work done on the pillow cases I’d stamped for my pioneer outing. The hardest part is figuring on the colours, so I printed out a couple of pages of pansies as a guide.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on the cancer afghan for my sister-in-law. Get the sewing machine working and finish my skirt and blouse.

WHAT I’M READING:
Did not get my Goodreads account updated. I suspect that when I do it’s not going to be 100% accurate because I wasn’t very good at writing down titles. And the dates are going to be iffy at best.

As for reading . . . I started reading The Lost Girl Found. by Maisey Yates, but then I found a copy of High Noon, by Nora Roberts at a thrift store, so I read that instead. But it took me the entire week, so I’d call that progress.

Goal For Next Week:
Update my Goodreads account!

GOAL REVIEW:

Once again I didn’t get as much writing done as I’d hoped to, but I did get back to my editing. I did clean off my desk a bit, but I still need to deal with my shredding. And have I mentioned the dust piling up in my office?

No gardening at all – there’s not really much garden to work with. And I did a wee bit better on the crafting.

But this s a brand new week, and I only have up from here to go, right?

Happy writing.