I was reading this post by James titled What stories are on your desk? and I looked at the things accumulating and saw this as a great opportunity to recognize them and clean things up!
(Plus I knew there wouldn’t be much of interest to photograph this dreary day, which I realize is presumptuous.)
In the end my stories are so brief they’re bullet points.
Let’s jump in to the fray:
- Warm tobacco pipe candle from mom. I have a dwindling cache of these she gifted to me over the years. (She’d always clear out inventory from Home Goods & TJ Maxx whenever she found them.)
- A bag of honey roasted peanuts from my aunt. I attempt to parse them out slowly.
- A Body Shop Energizing Face Mist I use on Zoom calls with my friend Heather because it makes us laugh. We’re often holding up skin care items to the camera like influencers for extra levity.
- Peppermint hand sanitizer because my cat has decided she only likes soft Churu bites for her 3pm treat. They’re sticky so I use this to freshen up afterward.
- Scissors, pencils and pens — latest pen favorite is the Bic Gelocity. I use a blue one for legal documents because sometimes that’s required to prove something isn’t photocopied.
- Dug out my old Lumix GF1 to see what a new battery or lens might cost after finding my first photo from it: A selfie, in 2011.
- That thin yellow bit in front of my monitor is a REALLY LONG matchbook about the state of Ohio that my nephews gifted over the holiday. I want to document it thoroughly.
- A USB Snowbot from my friends in St. Louis that needs to go back in the Christmas decoration box to live another year.
- Favorite lens cleaning cloth (blue thing), first experienced on a trek through Japan.
- An Analog todo list — one of the only productivity things that keeps me on track!
- Hand lotion with a bracelet from my great niece.
- A stamp for books that says ‘From the Library of Chris Glass’ which I got after we celebrated mom’s life and made a stamp for her library.
- A Microsoft Surface for testing websites on Windows.
- In front of my keyboard, a handwritten card from Jessica Wolf with an intention and phrase for this new year which I’m not sure if I can share or if it’s like a meditation mantra that you should keep to yourself!
- And today’s soundtrack is thanks to a story from Zan where she was learning a favorite song on the piano from The Secret of My Success soundtrack (which turned into a rabbit hole of learning all about the music of David Foster.)