Losing Things

This post was written 2 months ago. Things are still the same. I lost my purse today.  I had it when I left my Mom's house. And when we headed off to retrieve the grandteen from summer activities, that purse had disappeared.

Or, did I have it when I left my Mom's? I called her. My brother helped her look and, no purse.

Well we got back from grandteen retrieval and I searched again.  Every room on the first floor, every room on the second floor. I even searched the guest "apartment". Where the heck was that thing?

Back to Mom's. Nope not there.  

As I strapped myself in, in my Mom's driveway, I remembered that I shifted my purse to fasten my seatbelt earlier in the day. I had it hanging cross body.  So it had to be at home.

After another circuit of all the usual suspect places, I went upstairs to retrieve my credit card info to report the loss.

This is a necessary step when you lose a purse with a wallet and other essentials for life in these modern times.  But, I remembered that I HAD put a plastic bag in the plastic bag holder in the cellarway. Before I made a single phone call, I opened the cellar door. 

There was my purse - hanging from a hook with my aprons. 

Losing things is becoming a way of life for me. The worst thing is that I have no memory of how things get where I find them. According to a well-known organization that serves people who are a half century old or older,  having no memory of putting something where you find it is a warning sign of mental decline.

I am proud that I was able to retrace my steps. I never believed that my purse was truly lost. I remembered hanging it on a hook.  And I thank my lucky stars and Saint Anthony that I looked one last place before I called the credit card company. 

 

 

BUTTONS - The gift of losing things

I need my button box.  TODAY is National Button Day and the craft I plan for tonight's storytime uses buttons.  When I went upstairs to the attic yesterday, the button box was not where I thought it was.  Our attic is, ahem, less than neat.  I shoved things around and looked on shelves and opened bins.  Nope.

So, today, I gave myself one hour to clean the main attic room and find that button box.  I threw things away!  (It was painful but I hope to be fine in a few days.)  I filled THREE huge black garbage bags with junk.  I stacked bins and reorganized my crafty items and THEN, when I was 99.7% done, I looked at the bottom of a shelf unit in the corner.  There was my button box.  Not lost at all, really.

I have an organized attic room with neatly stacked and labeled bins.  I got rid of junk.  I found my buttons! Losing things is a gift.

Books about Buttons:

Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean.    Pete loses his buttons, one by one, but never loses his cool.  The publisher's website features a video and Pete the Cat songs.

Three Little Firefighters by Stuart Murphy.   Three little firefighters have to get dressed for the parade but they don't have any buttons on their coats!!  This is a great book about sorting.

 The Button Box by Margaret S. Reid.   A little boy loves looking through his grandmother's button box. The book introduces sorting concepts.

Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback.    Joseph, the tailor, loves his overcoat so much he recycles it into every smaller items until all he has a button.  And, then???  Based on a yiddish folk song, this book has wonderfully colorful pictures.

Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail by Elvira Woodruff.  This wonderful historical fiction book features an orphan boy traveling across the country.  The wagon train's cook collects buttons -  (I am not alone!) - as a way to remember the people he meets.