One of the loose ends still hanging from our summer of loss and relocating is the fate of all our “stuff.” Lots of people have asked whether we were able to save a lot of stuff prior to leaving the house. Though you’d think this was a simple yes or no question, it really isn’t.

First, I always reply, we were able to save “the irreplaceable stuff” – photos, mementos, papers, keepsakes, that sort of thing. During the voluntary evacuation period, we remained at home but as a precaution packed up these types of items into plastic tubs and then loaded the tubs into the camper and car. (I drove around for a week with my car loaded with my family’s most precious items. Around this time I couldn’t have told you where my latest pay stub was, but I could open my trunk and show you the topper from my parents’ wedding cake, circa 1960. Such was the miscellany floating around in my car.)

Second, I always point out that even though we saved what was truly irreplaceable, that didn’t diminish the pain, inconvenience and expense that came with losing the rest. It’s an interesting dichotomy: In good times, I happily take used items out to the curb in hopes that a junk picker will come by and snatch them up. By contrast, when we were cleaning up the flooded house, we hauled ruined belongings to the curb for several days in a row – and it angered me to the point of confrontation to have opportunistic junk pickers going through our slime-covered stuff. Why? Because it was still my stuff – I wasn’t ready to part with it, and I felt like vultures were circling around, waiting to profit from my misfortune.

Finally, the last piece of the “stuff” puzzle is the process of re-stocking the new house. We have worked very hard to make the limited funds we had go as far as possible. We tried to prioritize, but we bought the absolute cheapest of some pretty important things simply because we had an overwhelming number of things to buy.

And, there’s now the added problem of wondering whether the stuff we did save is worth keeping. Excluding the family photos and mementos, of course, I’m referring here to the stuff that got covered in river muck but that was saved – for example, my clay project collection. These were things I bought not because they were essential, but because I liked them and had an emotional connection to them. The question for these types of items during voluntary evacuation was, “Do I take the time to pack all this up, knowing it might not flood and I’ll have to just unpack it all again? Or do I decide to chance it, and clean it all up later?” For the most part, we chose the latter strategy. And, now that I’ve lived without that stuff for a few months (a lot of it’s still in storage), I find myself reluctant to bring it back into the house. Not because I dread the clean-up, but because I’m just not sure I really need it any more.

I am sure that much of the recognized “psychology of clutter” is at work here, as we continue to struggle with what to keep and what to toss. Maybe there’s even a helpful message in here somewhere as we all embark upon the biggest stuff-gathering phase of the year, the holiday shopping season. Ultimately, the answer to the original question is this: yes, we saved lots of stuff – the important stuff.  Even so, we still lost a lot of stuff we really liked, and we weren’t prepared emotionally or financially to lose or replace it all.

Today I spent a few minutes using a new web tool called PicClick (www.picClick.com), which vastly improves the way I scan and view search results from eBay and Amazon. I’m still digging into it, but it immediately made me think, “WOW this is great!” – so, thought I’d better share it.

The problem with the two sites (though mostly on eBay) is that the process of scanning my search results can take a long time because they are spread over several pages. With PicClick, I can type in a favorite search phrase along with my preferred price range and get all results displayed on one page, in the style of a photo gallery. I can sort the results by start or end time or by highest or lowest price, etc.

For eBay searches, each item in the gallery gives me a photo of the item, time remaining on the sale, and the current bid. (“Buy It Now” items have the word “Buy” in front of the price.) I can mouse over the item for its full title, then click through to view the full description or submit my bid.

This format works great for me because the types of searches I do are distinctly visual – I might search for “vintage tablecloth,” where each item is going to look a little different. It’s also an improvement, though, if you’re searching for the best price on a single item  such as “Pampered Chef garlic press” – you know they’re all going to look the same, you just want to scan the prices for the best deal.

Over on the Amazon side, I also get all search results displayed on one page – but the scope of Amazon’s site makes results-surfing a little harder. For example, when I searched for “Hemingway,” I not only got search results for Earnest Hemingway’s books but also for things like the “Hemingway” table lamp from Kenroy Home or a 1990 edition of Playboy magazine featuring Margaux Hemingway. The solution is to make use of the categories listed on PicClick’s main Amazon page. If I first click “books,” then search for “Hemingway,” the results are infinitely more browsable – assuming, of course, that I’m looking for books by Hemingway.

Another thing I appreciate about the site is that it’s monetized not by making me pay to use it, but invisibly so that the person who developed it gets paid if I purchase an item by clicking through one of his links. That means the developer gets paid if I buy something, but I don’t have to pay for the convenience of the improved browsing. It makes me wish two things: 1). That I had thought of it; and 2). That I had the skills to write the code.

Shane mused yesterday about the value of having Christian bumper stickers on one’s car – and there was something he said that got my brain going in a slightly different direction. Shane observed:

With others you just see a disconnect with what is on the car and conduct while driving the car.  Nice seeing somebody with a Christian bumper sticker cut someone off driving or speeding or just lousy driving in general.

So here’s my thought-provoking question of the day: when someone identifies themselves in some way as a Christian, do you automatically hold them to a higher standard of behavior in society, and by extension, react with a sense of betrayal when they fail to meet those higher standard?

For example, is “lousy driving” really un-Christian? Is it reasonable to chastise the driver of an Icthus-bearing car more for driving rudely than we would the driver of an “unmarked” vehicle?

How about customer-unfriendly business practices?  I know a business owner who purports to be a Christian, even promotes his business in Christian business directories, and talks in everyday conversation about his faith and Christian lifestyle. Yet, he has sometimes conducted his business in ways that knowingly cheated customers. And yes, I find myself more disappointed in him when he allows these things to happen than I am when other business people behave this way.

Is that fair? Does acceptance of Christ automatically mean that you set yourself up to be judged more harshly by society when you make a mistake or exhibit rude or negligent behavior?

Finally – I didn’t want to leave this comment on Shane’s blog because he really was trying to make a serious point. But I have to admit, his mention of the humorous variety of Christian bumper stickers reminded me about one my all-time favorite keychains. It had a psychedelic background and in bold lettering said, “Jesus is coming – Look busy!” (Lord I apologize…)

You might be addicted to the Internet if…

…you catch yourself speaking the phrase “L-O-L” when someone says something funny to you in person.

…you keep an always-open browser window pointed to the Drudge Report so as not to miss the blinky siren of breaking news.

…you can name a few moonbats as well as a few wingnuts.

…you find you are motivated to leave the house only because you think it might give you something to blog about.

…you refer to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup as a “great mash-up.”

…you use the following sentence construction at least once a week: “I’m in yer (noun), (verbin’) yer (noun)z.”

…you used to ask mom, now you ask.com.

…you spent Election Night tweeting the funny bits from Wonkette’s Obama live-blog.

…you Tweet the stuff you Digg.

…you understand that ‘tweeting’ has nothing to do with Sylvester or that annoying yellow canary.

Flickr photo by Nataliej.

Thanksgiving these past few years has been a chance for me to marvel at how much I’ve moved up the “acceptance scale” in my husband’s family. Since we’ve been married, we have always gone to Thanksgiving at either his mother’s house or, more recently, his sister Gloria’s house. This year the meal is being held at his sister Susan’s home.

Apparently I did not make a very good first impression all those years ago in the culinary department, because for a long time it was simply my responsibility to bring “the vegetable tray.” Now let me just say that I really like Steve’s family, and that I really love spending Thanksgiving with them. But let’s be honest: a careful kindergartener could bring the vegetable tray – you just chop up some celery and carrots (or buy them pre-chopped if you are without proper cutlery) open a can of olives, and set it out in a partitioned dish with some AE Dill dip for pre-meal snacking.

I was never sure why everyone was so afraid of my cooking. Perhaps it was because of my relative youth among the women of Steve’s family – I am a few years younger than his youngest sister. Perhaps it was the fleeting nature of his past relationships – I am not his first wife (“good old number four,” as his cousin Martin calls me), so maybe they just didn’t think I’d stick around that long. Perhaps they just were not aware I knew how to read a measuring cup, despite Steve’s well-fed appearance.

At any rate, after several years of this I surprised them all in 1998 by becoming a Pampered Chef kitchen consultant, and my sister-in-law Gloria generously offered to host a “kitchen show” in her home – probably out of morbid curiosity. Using my handy-dandy PC kitchen tools, I prepared two simple recipes in front of all three sisters plus Mom and several other guests.

The demo went very well, and had an unintended consequence: much to my amazement, a few weeks later I was invited to bring a baked side dish in addition to the vegetable tray at Thanksgiving. I had successfully moved them off the bubble, and since that time I’ve continued to bring either green bean casserole or scalloped corn. This year, I’m bringing the casserole plus a couple of desserts.

There’s even talk that next year, Steve and I might actually host the meal – a leap made possible by virtue of our new and larger house.

It’s good to have a goal.