"What do you collect?
What favorite things have you accumulated over the years
that you know lovingly display around your home?
I hope you collect something that you love with a passion, for there are few pleasures that can compare to browsing in little, out-of-the-way shops and flea markets, searching for that mysterious object of desire, the value of which you alone know in this world.
The thrill of the hunt is only equaled by the discovery."
Sarah tells us about how she collected tea cups.
The first one came on a summer day with her daughter and a very good friend. The next one came and did not bring her as much joy, nor the next, nor the next, to the point where she stopped buying them.
"The collector walks with blinders on, he sees nothing but the prize.
In fact, the acquisitive instinct is incompatible
with the appreciation of beauty."
Start Quote
This certainly explained my disappointment
with the cups that followed the first one.
I was less beguiled by their individual beauty
than I was compelled to collect them.
Actually, what I really wanted to do was to re-create the wonderful memory of that summer day spent with Karen and Katie.
Now I have that first cup - that tangible memory - sitting on my desk holding pens. Its singular beauty never fails to please me.
I've started to give away the other cups as gifts,
receiving more pleasure in sharing them
than I ever did in buying them.
I still delight in bringing home treasures
-but now, when something catches my eye,
I stop for a moment to remember Mrs. Lindbergh's advice:
"To ask how little, not how much, can I get along with.
To say - is it necessary? -
when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life."
If I think I can't live without the object of desire
and I can afford it, I'll collect it.
But now I pause first.
Simple Abundance is not about saying "no" to our creative impulses, whether in collecting, dressing, or decorating.
It's about knowing when to say "enough"
because we know that all we have is all we really need.
End Quote
"One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach.
One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
My favorite collections are my magnets.
I love my minion magnet from my parents, the skeletons from my best friend, and Ayn Rand because I love her.
We also collect places we've been to. When Robbie goes on a trip himself he gets a rectangle, like Georgia and Washington, and when we go together we get a less rectangular one (that's not a thing, is it.) Robbie's little men from Korea.
Of course we've missed a few. Our honeymoon in Mexico, our vacation in Big Bear Lake, our annual trip to Pismo, Robbie's trips to Illinois and Texas...
And then the musicals.
Again, missing a few. Shrek, Memphis, I think that's it, and that's only because they didn't have magnets for sale! Crazy, right?
I want to one day see my entire refrigerator full.
Shelby collected shells and sea glass.
I was admiring her collection today.
I want to keep adding to it.
I know that you can't take it with you,
but I think she would like it.
***
Gratitude Journal
***
1) An entire spur of the moment weekend at my parents. I hope my home is always like my mom's home, a place where people come and they never want to leave.
2) Cool mountain weather.
3) The quietness that is the mountains. The crickets and bugs, the frogs, the darkness with just the stars and moon to give light in the night...It's beautiful.
4) Reading a new book in one day. A Wrinkle in Time, awesome.
5) Being home. Especially that the car got us home, the engine light kicked on again...
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