Of weeds and junk
It's garage sale season.
I've seen a number of them popping up along the roads, just like the daffodils that have sprung from the dark dirt. The flowers always know when it's time to peek out from under the ground. It's amazing how God created things to know their time. Garage sales are no different.
Spring?
Time for a good house cleaning, and along with that comes the junk. Stuff we've had piled in corners gathering dust. In spring, we seem to see it with a new eye. Winter is washed away, and so all the hunter/gatherer things we've stocked away for winter need to be washed away. How many plastic cool whip tubs do I need to keep? It's not like I'll ever need 20 of them at one time. Heaven forbid I ever keep that many leftovers in my fridge at one time. It will start smelling like the garbage dump. Cool whip tubs are tossed. As I cleaned out my junk drawer, I realized that it had become a haven for empty prescription bottles.
Why do we feel the need to keep these?
They are empty, the refill number is on the new bottle, but they are so sturdy! We might use them for something later! No, not in this house – pitched. Next comes all the random pieces of pencils and pens. Yes, I mean pieces.
When someone puts half a pencil in the drawer, do they really think we will ever take the time to sharpen all two inches of it into a brand new stub?
No. Every last one of them went into the trash.
Something got into me this spring and I went haywire, cleaning out every last secret bunker of junk in my house. The big junk drawer, the wire basket on my island, the middle drawer in my vanity that houses new makeup and old. Even my sock and underwear drawers got a good going through, along with the back of my closet.
We all know what lurks in the back of the closet – nothing good, that's for sure.
No one, at least to my knowledge, invented anything wonderful out of old cool whip tubs, millions of kept twisty ties, or even prescription bottles. Then again, there is always MacGyver. I keep the good junk where I can get my hands on it and make something out of it. The rest has been purged. Now if I could just feel the urge to rid my garden of its weeds once and for all….
"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them." -A.A. Milne