That collector gene

My Aunt Mary lives in Texas. She's my favorite aunt.

She loves to collect things. This particular collection is the small stuffed toys collection.

It drove Heather crazy to see that collector gene uninhibited. Why? I have that same gene. She doesn't.

Heather rightly claims that if I fully gave into my collector gene, we'd have to get a bigger house. (Can't afford it. Don't want one, either.)

So since that visit, I have made a pledge to go through some of my collections and kill them off. SOME of the collections.

That art gene

My mom also does not have that collector gene. My dad did. So when my dad died, my mom spent about 7 or 8 years selling, giving away, and throwing away his various collections. Now she lives in a 1-bedroom apartment. That size is something she likes.

Anyhow, when she had more energy and mobility than she has now, she made this colored-water art - hanging these bottles from the top of her small porch.

I did get her art gene.

Going through treasures, part 2: "tapes to make"

I have written before about the collector gene that is intricately woven into my soul. It came from my dad.

A few weeks back, I was going though some boxes (to find something I needed for work) - and I came across this little note.

My dad loved to borrow records (vinyl) from the local library and tape them for his later pleasure. The problem was that after he died, that tape collection was one of the millions of things my mom had to get rid of before she moved from a 3-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom apartment.

My dad didn't know much about copyright laws. And the RIAA wasn't yet going door to door making arrests like today.