Can he fix it? Yes he can!

Back to work at a freezing car lot today as the temperature has taken a huge drop. Not helped also by the failure (again) of the office heater. Had to employ emergency measures and nip home to get a replacement. I now know where Steve gets his 'I'm sure we can fix it' mentality from. Not me, after fixing something a couple of times I can't generally be bothered to keep re-doing it and end up replacing the offending item. But when I mentioned to Norman (Marg's Dad who lives with us) that the heater had broken again he immediately said 'Oh, I can fix that, I used to buy broken ones, fix them and then sell them on the car boot sale'. Steve's reliance on gaffa tape to repair anything and unwillingness to throw anything away is obviously an hereditary throwback of a previous and more frugal family time. The biggest problem with keeping things 'just in case you may need them' is simply that you can hardly ever remember where you put the thing you need when you actually need it. On the odd occasion you do find the right thing for the right job you do feel very self righteous, saving yourself loads of money and helping to save the planet too! Unfortunately this just spurs you on to keep more stuff which you may or may not need in the future. There is an answer to this though. Use the 'museum' model. Most museums have thousands of artifacts in their care, some of which are obvious and on display, so easy to find. Many thousands of items, though are kept out of sight in drawers, cupboards and rooms. So all you need to do to know where to find any of those 'maybe useful someday' items is, before they get stuffed into a drawer or box to be forgotten forever, to photograph, label and log the item onto a computer database. Then in seconds you will be know just what the item looks like and exactly where it is. Easy. Actually, I might suggest this method to my lovely wife as a way of locating various items from a pile of clothing which almost forms a living, changing sculpture on the bedroom chair! I think whoever said that 'the more storage space, drawers, cupboards etc you have, the more stuff you will fill them with' was correct. The problem is, when you have 35 + years of accumulated stuff you somehow need to somehow clean the slate a little! Maybe clear out, sort out, make space, organize would be good for the soul, or just a positive new year thing to do....dunno.....what d'ya think?