Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Repurposing Curse


Terry's post, on the repurposed barbeque grill, prompted me to tell my story about my repurposing woes.
Don't you just love being able to come up with a cute idea, that works.Many people don't have the vision or the imagination or the creativity to see beyond  the purpose an item was intended for. Pop gets so upset with me for wanting to hold on to things because I can see another use evolving from anything that is no longer useful in its present form,but I can't help myself. I hate throwing away, anything that can be used in some other manner. I guess that's why they say "One man's trash,is another man's treasure".Sometimes, I feel it is a curse. I hate myself at times for not being able to let go of things that others consider junk,trash,or just plain useless,no longer,good for anything, items.I wonder many times,Are there others in this world who are burdened with this curse?It is an obsession with me. I gather and store things that others would have long ago tossed in the trash. I tell myself I can make something pretty or useful from each item.The only trouble is finding an outlet for the things I make. One can only use so many of anything. I give away things I have made,quite often, hoping they will love and cherish the item as I have, but most don't.I live on a country road,with very little traffic.The buying kinda traffic anyway.Most of our traffic is the locals,coming and going about their daily business.No real tourist kind of traffic that would be interested in a roadside novelty shop. Paying rent in town on a booth or a place to set up your wares, takes away all of your "would have been" profits.I visited a friend in a nice little community this past week, and I remember thinking how nice it would be to set up in her area for just a day.I could just see my wares sitting out in her yard and lots of stoppers by carousing through my collectibles and wonderfully repurposed items.I guess it would be worth a try to truck my wares to that area and setup for a day.That'll be another project to add to my "To Do List".

I am in the process of constructing myself an herb garden out of an old cast iron bath tub,which I had to fight Pop for,since the price of scrap cast iron has been way up this past week. It barely escaped being hauled off to the scrap yard.I can't believe he would scrap my tub. I have used that tub for 30 plus years to raise baby chicks, to water the livestock, to raise a bed of sweet potato slips, to grow flowers,the list goes on and on.  I guess he is one of those folks I spoke of not having the insight to see all it could be used for.I'm
posting a picture of it now, as I'm building it,and hopefully again after the growth of my plants has filled out some.It should look a lot better later,if all goes well with my plan.

3 comments:

  1. I have a bit of that curse too, but I never actually make anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looking good Sue, the pump is a cool addition.
    Don't know where I ran across this link but the site is about using things in ways that weren't intended. There's some funny ones too!!!
    www.museumofunintendeduse.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm so glad you were able to save the old tub. It looks glorious and will be an awesome herb garden. :)

    ReplyDelete