How nice is that! I think being to put your hands on anything you own is the best find of all.

Congrats on your basement clearing.

Tina

that's very neat--with my luck, I'd give up on the "valuable, useful item" about 2 months before I found the missing part.

Though, actually, maybe I can match you.

My Dh had a tripod--a pretty nice one, actually. The screw that holds the camera on fell out while the tripod was in the closet (that big one, in my "massive closet project" thread), back before kids, when that closet held all sorts of grownup toys, etc.,

The closet was semi-messy, not a lot of infrastructure. I knew that screw was in there--it cldn't have gone anywhere else. I looked many times.

So I held onto the tripod. A couple of times I thought of contacting Slik (the mfr) to get a new one, but never did.

Finally we were emptying that closet, many years later--probably not 11, maybe 5--and there it was!

Of course, now we'll have encouraged people to hold onto their stuff just hoping to find that missing part (and they'll be junking of their closets)--isn't that one of those classic pieces of advice? "if it's missing a part and you can't find it, get rid of it anyway"? LOL

And yes, the moral is, "Clean up your crap." Bcs your crap is making it hard to see the stuff that's out of place.

I found 3 things of DD's in that closet purge that she had lost and we were stressing over. Her house keys (one of which is $100 to replace), her scientific calculator, and a $50 gift card she had forgotten about (and that I thought she'd spent a year ago).

I pointed out to her that keeping the closet neat means she can SEE stuff like that. It won't be camouflaged (the keys were in the pouch, in plain sight on top of the dresser) or obscured.

It's also why I like to encapsulate things. That's one thing I did in my closet--put EVERYTHING into a box. Then little stupid things will be findable. (unless someone puts it in the wrong box, LOL!)

Good Grief. Well, I LOST the reply I had typed about an hour ago. It looks like I'm in a pattern here.

Tina, Thanks for reminding me that being able to put my hands on anything I own as being the best find of all. I'm almost there.

I found a pair of glasses I lost yesterday in a drawer in the kitchen, and another pair which I hadn't seen in Months in another drawer I decided to clean out. (Maybe I'm on a roll!) My favorite pair of glasses (that used to reside in my purse) is currently lost; maybe I'll find those soon. I'm missing a favorite pair of earrings. Since I've cleaned out my jewelry cabinet, I have no idea where those could have gone. There are a couple of other items I'd like to find as well. Soon I hope!

TS, that's quite a story. I wouldn't dare purge something I thought I'd be able to find the part to, simply because it involved a commitment of time to look for it. (Unless I didn't care any more!) KEYS though, are a horrible thing to lose! You've reminded me (and I've made a note) to get some keys copied next week, that I'd be between a rock and hard place with if something happened to them. One is the key to our grandfather clock; another to a desk where I lock my jewelry when I'm out of town. It would be so much easier to have copies made now, than despair if something happened!

TS, that's quite a story. I wouldn't dare purge something I thought I'd be able to find the part to, simply because it involved a commitment of time to look for it. (Unless I didn't care any more!)

I think that's why I kept holding on to that tripod. I *knew* that screw was in there--it couldn't have ceased to exist.

When I was little, I thought that things you lost in your room DID disappear. If you couldn't find it, it would never be found.

Then, I moved out on my own, and discovered that I *could* find the back to the earring, the one that I was sure had fallen behind the dresser--it would stay there until I moved the dresser away from the wall before I vacuumed the next time.

So I eventually learned that just because you lost something, it wouldn't cease to exist, and that as long as you lost it in a place you controlled, that you had access to, it would still be there, even months later.

It wasn't until I had kids and was cleaning their room, and decided to just throw some stupid little thing out, figuring I'd just tell them they must have lost it......

I went right to the phone and called my mom. Yep, she'd done the same thing to me. And here I'd thought that reality had changed as I got older, that the law of "conservation of matter" had somehow become more powerful when I was older.

Oh wow. This is proof that when mothers decide to mess with their kids heads, they really need to think about it!

Talley Sue,

You remind me of how certain gifts I received in my youth would mysteriously vanish, and then afterwards my mother would claim no knowledge of them. I still remember getting a really great-looking tea set for my seventh birthday, and my mother was all, "what tea set" at the end of the party. A few months ago (and decades after the fact) she finally admitted that yes, I had not imagined the tea set. Apparently it had a lot of little pieces, and she took one look at it and thought, "no way is that even coming out of the box."

In her defence, she had four children. She was probably imagining the tea set pieces scattered across the floor, mixed in with the tonka trucks, the blocks, the little people, and the general disaster that my siblings and I could create in just one afternoon of playing. Never let it be said that "organizing the home" doesn't require fast action, strategy, and an occasional willingness to deceive small children....

I am so glad we aren't the only ones that have lost things for YEARS! Our lost item was our 5 x 7 wedding album... missing for 25 years. We had given up and thought it must have been thrown out in the trash unknowingly! Well, earlier this summer, our daughter decided to have a garage sale and my DH thought he would clean out a closet to see if there was anything in it that we could get rid of. Lo and behold, in a box-- OUR PICTURES!! Needless to say, we were ecstatic. But we also sold or trashed everything else in the box. I told him that if we hadn't needed it in over 20 years, we aren't going to need it now LOL

iasheff, you're making me feel better. Speaking of wedding pictures, dh gave ours away to his mother (my mother-in-law) and I don't even have copies. (It was a very small wedding; in fact you might say we eloped.) Obviously he didn't want them, since he gave them away!

You know closets and basements absorb items, don't they?

I just wish that closets and basements would absorb things I don't want or need-- Imagine how much easier it would be to keep them cleaned out!!

At least the pics went to your MIL-- they are still in the family :)