I miss junk

We had our neighbor over last night for her 74th birthday. I hung a "Happy Birthday" banner above the door and she loved it and wanted to know where we got it. When we told her it was from the U.S., she commented how they just don't have fun paper stuff here like they do in England and the U.S.

She then oohed and ahhed over the painted pumpkin my aunt sent me and the little pumpkin garland my mother gave me last year. It was all new to her, this crazy decorative stuff.

I guess I never thought about this, but it's true. I'm lucky to find a card for anything other than a birthday, not to mention crazy stuff to hang around the house. There aren't any "Happy Birthday" paper plates, cups, or coordinating napkins. There aren't any fun banners or other kinds of "junk". And it took my neighbor to point this out, but I really do miss fun creative stuff that I can waste my money on like that.

I've been meaning to post this photo I took at the Charlie Checkpoint museum in Berlin, and it seems appropriate here.

There's no history without junk. Love that.



Also like this one.



Anyhow, I come from a family of packrats. My grandmother saved napkins, placemats and pretty much anything she could get her hands on from restaurants. She had drawers and drawers of this stuff and I used to love to play with it all as a child, imagining where each piece came from. I used to have a nice collection of hotel bath soap and shampoos myself until I moved to Europe where I'm lucky if there is any soap at all in hotel rooms. And if there is it is usually a no fun at all dispenser on the wall that I just can't take with me. Sigh.

But my husband couldn't be happier about having less junk. He doesn't miss the excitement of a bathroom cabinet exploding with goodies each time he opens it. But sadly, I do. So imagine my complete surprise when he brought me back a few shampoos from his fancy hotel in Paris a few weeks back. It really made my day.