Ok I'll admit, I may have some "stuff."

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/may/01/you-are-what-you-keep-why-we-cling-to-clutter-and-how-to-free-yourself-of-it

I suspect I would not like the authors.
I have a breadth of stuff. Lots of breadth.
There are times that I will dispose of some stuff.
But they are the stuff of memories.
Sure I don't NEED a LeCar Black Beauty steering wheel anymore.
Ironically, piles of stuff are my creative playground and inspiration.
Give me a clean desk and I struggle.

Every week or so we got to the transfer station with our recycling and trash. There is also a big bin for metal "stuff"
I love to look into it and see what folks have thrown away.
It's almost like going to the zoo.

 

You have a LeCar steering wheel? We had that same model. Fun little car, canvas sun roof, first front wheel drive car I ever had. Great in the snow.

We do not have stuff. The most "stuff" we have might be on Rick's work bench or shelves in the basement.

I just re-organized my linen closet the other day. Took out three bags of stuff to donate.

My mother tended to have stuff. Drove me a little crazy.

 

I thought this was a good line from the article "do you want to keep living in a museum of who you were, or make room for who you are?" I've always been driven by tidiness and I can't stand clutter; and, live in the here-and-now rather than the past or future. I have a handful of small keepsakes that fill my need for a physical connection to memories. Items like my dad's cig lighter, my mom's cig lighter, my cig lighter from the service, shift knobs from some cars., etc.

Don't laugh but I spent the afternoon going through drawers with clippings of ideas for art paintings. Tossed out a full trash can. Only kept a small group of "maybe some day".

 

I have way too much stuff. Hired a couple guys to take a load earlier in the year. Bigass truck mostly full. Probably need to do it 3x more this year.
Don’t want to burden the better half with it if I expire unexpectedly.

Haven’t done a track day for a few years now so have 4 sets of wheels with race rubber taking up space. Nomex and other safety gear has aged out. Lots of stuff needs to go. The good thing is the missus will be very happy indeed.

Very painful upon retirement. Had to get rid of a bunch of suits and dress shirts/shoes as I have been a made to measure clothing freak for years. In some cases have used the same tailors for 40+ years.

No plans on going back to work. Too good at being retired so the purging is taking place in stages.

 

I have been slowly cleaning out items that are not used anymore. Sometimes it is hard while other times it is easy to get rid of stuff.

It won't be long before I need to start in the garage!

 

In my daily work life I have come across hoarders of the worst kind. If you have never seen a true hoarder affected by mental health challenges, you would never believe how bad it can be. The last one we went through a few months ago was in a two-storey townhome. Every square inch of the unit was stuffed full of "storage items", you could not walk on the actual floor anywhere in the unit, not even up the stairs to the 2nd floor. We had a fire inspector with us who was wearing steel toe boots, but they could not go any more than 10 feet into the unit for fear of falling or twisting their ankle, it was nearly impossible to walk in the unit. The hoarder walked with a cane yet he didn't see any issue going up and down in his unit. The unit was a concern when we could see rats through the basement patio door glass, but it was impossible to enter the basement and the hoarder had no idea if there were rats in the basement. He was a nice guy, well dressed, and generally clean in appearance, he was older, and he went to work every day at a good job, and he was high functioning, but his damn unit was jam-packed with storage items. We got him some community support to help clean out his unit but it took a few months and it was quite a challenge to get him to agree to getting rid of anything.

There was a different hoarder quite a few years back who was sleeping in their apartment unit on top of a big pile of trash. The unit had 9 foot ceilings and they would sleep about one foot away from the ceiling on top of a pile of trash. The fire department officials removed the female hoarder from the unit and placed her in a nice hotel room for a week while her unit was cleared out on her behalf (against her will). When she returned to the unit one week later she was asked how she liked the hotel, she said it was the worst sleep she ever had in her life, she hated sleeping on a bed, and much preferred her pile of trash, lol. It is just so hard to relate to hoarder types, you won't believe it until you see it and you speak to the people face to face. Most will acknowledge the problem, but they just don't want to deal with any clean-up of the premises, it pains them to consider it.

 

I hated wearing ties and stopped wearing them to work long before it became ok. I didn't mind wearing them if I was attending something off premise were it was the norm. You know I never got any crap from any of my boss who were all wearing them. The small rebel in me won. lol.

When I retired I tossed every tie but two. This one I had to save.

 

Probably told this story before. Rick has never been a fan of neck ties. He was an automotive parts manager, not exactly a job you wear a tie for. However, he was interviewing at a different dealership, and the owner says, "you'll wear a tie." Rick told him he would not. This was not a large dealership. Parts managers were not paper shufflers. They were often moving heavy stuff, unloading whatever. A tie made zero sense. Rick got the job anyway

We are casual people. I weed out clothing often. Retirement = very casual clothing.