First Watch Of 2025

To atone for the overconsumption of my past while reducing clutter in our house, I have been trying to ethically downsize. Instead of throwing things out, I am trying to sell, swap or recycle clothing. Blah, blah, blah. You have heard me talk about how guilty I feel but see me still writing about thrift shop finds. I really should rename this blog “I Have A Problem.”

Another thing I have too much off is tote bags, especially the reusable shopping sacks that I pick up when I forget to bring enough to the grocery store. The Salvation Army uses them to give to customers that don’t bring enough bags when they go shopping so I figured that I wouldn’t feel guilty for donating totes.

I dropped off a bag o’ bags on Saturday but came across another stash of sacks on Tuesday. Actually I found two bags full but decided to keep certain carry alls because they had unique properties (like my Keith Haring Mickey Mouse bag that I got in Prague) or sentimental value (the David Shrigley shopper that I visited a million Flying Tiger stores to find).

In an ideal world I would be able to take these reusable grocery bags to a grocery. If there are any indie supermarkets that would be into this idea, let me know. Instead I decided to take in bag to a separate thrift store. Spread the love, you know. And while I was there, why not take a looky look for watches? And I found a working vintage Vendôme in an $8 bag of broken watches. I had made myself a promise not to buy timepieces that didn’t tick so I wound it up through the plastic bag that it was in. It was running and keeping good time so I bought it. What I didn’t realize until I got home is that while the mechanism was working, the clasp was not. No problem. I just tied the ends of the bracelet together with a ribbon.