Every time we leave our campground we pass a house that intrigues me. A small blue clapboard with a screened porch and a detached garage. It sits on a few acres, a nondescript place, nicely kept and typical of many homes here in rural New Hampshire. What is atypical is that the screened porch is filled, floor to ceiling, with boxes and other assorted junk. The garage is the same. The door is always up because it overflows back to front, floor to ceiling with an accumulation of of what looks like trash to me. Every time I go by I wonder what could be in all those boxes? What happens if they want something in the back of the garage? Do they even know what’s in the back of the garage?
I’ve never been a collector. I’d like to say it is because we spend so much time in a motorhome that isn’t conducive to displays of cookie jars or snow globes, but I’m just not a fan of clutter and holding onto things. I have friends who have
closets stuffed with clothes of varying sizes just in case they lose that extra ten pounds. They have attics stuffed with a lifetime’s worth of unused furniture and holiday decorations that they may need someday. My philosophy is simple: if I haven’t used it or worn it in the last year or so, it’s gone – donated, sold or given away.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll wander a flea market or an antique shop enjoying the collections of memorabilia and artifacts from the past. I do mosaics. So I’m always on the lookout for plates I can break up or things I can decorate in glass. I’m just not an indiscriminate hoarder. I rarely buy something “just in case.”
Yesterday I read on a blog I follow the observation that while the author had 500 followers he might only get 50 views a day. That got me thinking. It would make sense that if you have a lot of followers that a good number of them, interested in what you have to say, would read what you post. Why did they follow in the first place? I’m relatively new to this world. I know I have a number of regular readers and commenters. Who are all these other people who follow our blogs, never to be heard from again? Could they be like the people in the blue clapboard house? Storing our blog away in the depths of their hard drive with all good intentions of reading it. Someday.
Red Road Diaries 
I’m with you: If I haven’t used it in a year (for the most part), out it goes. Some things definitely I hold onto for sentimental reasons (stuff from my mother, cards from grandkids, husband, siblings. But, when I pass, y’all can throw it out…
Hello, We follow your blog because we enjoy the way you write and will one day we hope to be traveling over the roads you have found interesting enough to describe so nicely in your blog. We’re fulltime RVers and we will be traveling in the west for the next year or two but then, assuming we still can, we’ll head your way.
Hi, I agree with you..I am not a big collector of things…Well maybe pocketbooks and shoes..LOL..But I know I need to down size considerably for our new adventure…That will be the test I guess..Living in a motor home can be challenging as space can be an issue…
It sure can, especially if you sell all your stuff and full time. You find out what’s important. I think you gave me an idea for a post. A place for everything and everything (mostly) in its place is a good rule of thumb.