Last Updated on February 25, 2025
I recently decided to celebrate the 9th anniversary of our move into Charlestown with a purge to benefit the Treasure Sale. Everyone thought I’d done a really good job of downsizing before we moved from a house with storage space in a two-car garage and basement to a 1,250 square foot apartment offering extra storage in a 4’x4’ bin five stories below. And I agreed.
But, I also knew that we had acquired a few new kitchen gadgets since we’d made the move, and several items in the cupboards hadn’t seen the light of day for a very long time. So I began scouring the closets and cupboards and found:
- Eight gorgeous crystal champagne flutes that had been used exactly 3 times since I brought them home from our 30-month stay in Melbourne, Australia
- A wonderful crockery pitcher we received as a wedding gift (we celebrated 60 years in September 2024) that had been out of the cupboard once since we moved here
- A lovely teapot purchased six or seven years ago at Home Goods … because I might do a “tea” with friends … but never did
- Three (count ‘em) large vases … unused in forever
- Eight plastic Martini glasses with removable “foot” … used once for a cocktail party we threw when our Canadian friends came to visit us for a week
- Eight water glasses in a Christmas pattern that hadn’t been used since before we moved (my daughter took these, because they matched her Christmas pattern)
- An “ice” machine for making frozen Margaritas that we had used twice since we bought it at Big Lots pre-Covid
- Three cups and five saucers from a chocolate set my mother displayed on a shelf in her living room for as long as I can remember … I never actually used them; they were stored behind the doors below the three shelves of the what-not cabinet
- A fabulous traveling stool that can be pushed down into a handy, easily packed cylinder that is light to carry by its crossbody strap in a busy city with lots of places to stop and sight-see
- A raft of paperback books, including a fabulous set comprising The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (which my granddaughter took home to read, since I had read The Hobbit to her via phone every evening for about a month during the Covid lock-down)
- Framed pictures that had been languishing in a closet since day one of our move
- And a miscellany of computer games, also languishing on a shelf in the den’s computer desk
Every one of these items, except the few resurrected by family members, were carefully wrapped, packed and labeled, and carried down the hall to the Treasure Sale cart that “lives” there during pick-up periods. And I feel … lighter. This is a wonderfully cathartic exercise that left me with more cupboard space … and fewer absolutely unnecessary items for my daughter to have to pick through when I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil.
Good for me … and good for the Treasure Sale!
~Dayle Dawes~