Thursday, December 8
Dec. 8th, 2023 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
The bit of snow we got. Yes, it makes if feel like winter, and for a while the roads will be crap, but we need the moisture. It's been so dry that we really might have been at risk for fires in the middle of winter.
The snow is really pretty, and it stuck to all the trees until it melted off. It's prettier than drab brown.
I had to get up early (for me) to take Sprite back to the vet to get the blood and urine sample they wanted to do the extra tests.
She's acting like normal, and eating very well, but I understand what the vet is wary of; some issues can flare up and settle down, but are worth investigating.
The fact that she has licked bare patches on her belly means that there is possibly some kind of ongoing irritation.
The roads that were not cleared off yet were sloppy and I had to drive carefully. It slowed me down quite a bit.
The vet visit went fine, they got what they needed.
Then I went to two thrift stores, little ones that support good causes, not the ones run as businesses like they have in the city. All of the thrift stores in this town support things like the women's shelter or other community things.
The one kind of struck me as depressing today. It was clean and well-organized, but something about seeing how much stuff we go through, that people buy and then deem "dated", or it kind of always was cheap-looking made me sad.
Since it's so easy to make new things now, and our culture promotes a high rate of change in terms of trends, things just go out of style so quickly. Where once we might have bought a nice set of kitchen table and chairs and handed it down for generations, a person might own two or three different ones as they change their decor, and it might go on to another family, but likely not be used for more than forty years. Our whole houseful of modern furniture might not be used more than forty years before hitting the landfill.
So many things you see in thrift stores were either cheap crap to begin with, or it is decent stuff that is just not in fashion anymore.
Yet, I have to say, it's nice to have the ability to buy things these days at a relatively low cost. When you think about what a huge expense it was for a family to have a set of dishes, and how you'd be pretty much stuck using that one set your whole life so I hope you like them, the option of replacing them whenever you feel like it is still nice, even if it is kind of wasteful.
That said, my husband and I got a nice set of good quality dishes when we were first living together, and we've been using them for about 20 years (mostly the bowls and the plates, we never ended up using the mugs or the cream and sugar things that came with it). Granted, the small plates that we use a lot have chips. We also have all kinds of other mismatched bowls and small plates that come and go as they break.
Anyhow, something about "cheap crap that's nearly disposable" bothers me, and it bothers me more to see it in thrift stores for some reason, even if that's better than it going to the landfill.
On the drive home, I decided to stop in at the little thrift store (kind of) in the small village near our place, where I consigned some "Stella and Dot" jewelry quite some time ago. She had sold two necklaces, in spite of having done a nice job of displaying them and the earring sets.
These were from a lot I purchased that I really only wanted one or two things from.
I think I will try to sell them on Marketplace.
Then I came home, did the chores I didn't do before I left for town, and let the goats and ponies out for a while and let the dog just snuffle around outside.
I talked to my Sister S, and it sounds like she's doing okay. Still mentally trying to adjust to recently selling her tax return business. Normally she would have been at the office all day, every day, getting ready for the tax season, training people and ordering supplies and so on. She feels weird just being home.
I had a nice bath, and then my Sweetie came home. We ate and chatted, and he got to bed in good time.
While it's nice to see him in the evening, we sure don't have a lot of time before he has to go to bed again. About three hours.
I learned that Phil Collins has been named an honorary Texan for his donation of hundreds of artifacts that he donated to the Alamo Museum. He has long been an enthusiast of such artifacts relating to the battle of the Alamo.
From Wikipedia: Collins has a long-standing interest in the Alamo. He has collected hundreds of artefacts related to the famous 1836 battle in San Antonio, Texas, narrated a light and sound show about the Alamo, and has spoken at related events.[299] His passion for the Battle of the Alamo has also led him to write the book The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector's Journey, published in 2012.[300] A short film was released in 2013 called Phil Collins and the Wild Frontier which captures Collins on a book tour in June 2012.[301] On 26 June 2014, a press conference was held from the Alamo, where Collins spoke, announcing that he was donating his entire collection to the Alamo via the State of Texas.[302] On 11 March 2015, in honour of his donation, Collins was named an honorary Texan by the state legislature.[303]
The bit of snow we got. Yes, it makes if feel like winter, and for a while the roads will be crap, but we need the moisture. It's been so dry that we really might have been at risk for fires in the middle of winter.
The snow is really pretty, and it stuck to all the trees until it melted off. It's prettier than drab brown.
I had to get up early (for me) to take Sprite back to the vet to get the blood and urine sample they wanted to do the extra tests.
She's acting like normal, and eating very well, but I understand what the vet is wary of; some issues can flare up and settle down, but are worth investigating.
The fact that she has licked bare patches on her belly means that there is possibly some kind of ongoing irritation.
The roads that were not cleared off yet were sloppy and I had to drive carefully. It slowed me down quite a bit.
The vet visit went fine, they got what they needed.
Then I went to two thrift stores, little ones that support good causes, not the ones run as businesses like they have in the city. All of the thrift stores in this town support things like the women's shelter or other community things.
The one kind of struck me as depressing today. It was clean and well-organized, but something about seeing how much stuff we go through, that people buy and then deem "dated", or it kind of always was cheap-looking made me sad.
Since it's so easy to make new things now, and our culture promotes a high rate of change in terms of trends, things just go out of style so quickly. Where once we might have bought a nice set of kitchen table and chairs and handed it down for generations, a person might own two or three different ones as they change their decor, and it might go on to another family, but likely not be used for more than forty years. Our whole houseful of modern furniture might not be used more than forty years before hitting the landfill.
So many things you see in thrift stores were either cheap crap to begin with, or it is decent stuff that is just not in fashion anymore.
Yet, I have to say, it's nice to have the ability to buy things these days at a relatively low cost. When you think about what a huge expense it was for a family to have a set of dishes, and how you'd be pretty much stuck using that one set your whole life so I hope you like them, the option of replacing them whenever you feel like it is still nice, even if it is kind of wasteful.
That said, my husband and I got a nice set of good quality dishes when we were first living together, and we've been using them for about 20 years (mostly the bowls and the plates, we never ended up using the mugs or the cream and sugar things that came with it). Granted, the small plates that we use a lot have chips. We also have all kinds of other mismatched bowls and small plates that come and go as they break.
Anyhow, something about "cheap crap that's nearly disposable" bothers me, and it bothers me more to see it in thrift stores for some reason, even if that's better than it going to the landfill.
On the drive home, I decided to stop in at the little thrift store (kind of) in the small village near our place, where I consigned some "Stella and Dot" jewelry quite some time ago. She had sold two necklaces, in spite of having done a nice job of displaying them and the earring sets.
These were from a lot I purchased that I really only wanted one or two things from.
I think I will try to sell them on Marketplace.
Then I came home, did the chores I didn't do before I left for town, and let the goats and ponies out for a while and let the dog just snuffle around outside.
I talked to my Sister S, and it sounds like she's doing okay. Still mentally trying to adjust to recently selling her tax return business. Normally she would have been at the office all day, every day, getting ready for the tax season, training people and ordering supplies and so on. She feels weird just being home.
I had a nice bath, and then my Sweetie came home. We ate and chatted, and he got to bed in good time.
While it's nice to see him in the evening, we sure don't have a lot of time before he has to go to bed again. About three hours.
I learned that Phil Collins has been named an honorary Texan for his donation of hundreds of artifacts that he donated to the Alamo Museum. He has long been an enthusiast of such artifacts relating to the battle of the Alamo.
From Wikipedia: Collins has a long-standing interest in the Alamo. He has collected hundreds of artefacts related to the famous 1836 battle in San Antonio, Texas, narrated a light and sound show about the Alamo, and has spoken at related events.[299] His passion for the Battle of the Alamo has also led him to write the book The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector's Journey, published in 2012.[300] A short film was released in 2013 called Phil Collins and the Wild Frontier which captures Collins on a book tour in June 2012.[301] On 26 June 2014, a press conference was held from the Alamo, where Collins spoke, announcing that he was donating his entire collection to the Alamo via the State of Texas.[302] On 11 March 2015, in honour of his donation, Collins was named an honorary Texan by the state legislature.[303]
