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Browsing with The Buzz

By Cheryl Laird, Contributing writer | April 1, 2015

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Every week in this space, we’ll share some memorable – to the writer, at least – browsing reads. Have you come across anything Buzzworthy lately? Let other readers know by commenting below.

Old-school parenting and getting rid of stuff. That’s some of what I read about this week.

What Would My Mom Do? (Drink Tab and Lock Us Outside)

Why I read it: Jen Hatmaker wrote this article, so it was bound to be good. She is a writer out of Austin. You might call her a mommy blogger, since she has a bunch of kids (some adopted) and she writes a lot about parenting, but I hate that term since it brings with it stereotypes and perceived limitations (and you almost never hear the term “daddy blogger.”) In any case, she is hilarious, down to earth and, most important, really Texan. She makes me laugh at myself and my parenting efforts.

Excerpt: “This very morning, a mom posted how on her son’s birthday, she assembles a comprehensive ‘time capsule’ including items, photos, and products related to that particular year, stores it in a set of antique trunks, and plans to present them all to him on his 18th birthday as a tribute to his entire life. Holy. Crap. Cannot. Deal…. I was born in 1974, good readers. It no more occurred to my mom to coddle us Precious Snowflakes than it did to quit drinking a case of Tab a day. If you told my mom to craft a yearly time capsule for each child to store until graduation, she would have cried tears of laughter all the way to Jazzercise.”

The Guilt-Free Way to Parting Ways With Your Sentimental Items

Why I read it: My new obsession is this: Get rid of stuff. I know I’m not alone in this vow, especially at this time of year. In fact, The Buzz just ran a story about Spring Cleaning. But my obsession has jumped right over the actual work of cleaning out to fixating on tiny houses, remodeled buses and creative RVs, where I would have no option but to live simply. So I read this article to get inspiration on the cleaning-out-the-house-I-still-live-in part, even though the intro paragraph has a pet-peeve mistake – it uses the word “comprise” incorrectly. You are not “comprised of.” You are “composed of.” No “of” with comprise. I am less of a grammar snob than I used to be. Content and character matter much more than grammar or punctuation. Really. I believe it. But this one still gets to me, thanks to those nit-picky AP style quizzes at UT journalism school. See the explanation.

Excerpt: “As you start to get rid of your things, constantly remind yourself that you are not comprised of your belongings. Even if you get rid of all your things, you're still you. This is harder to do with sentimental items because it seems like memories are attached to them, but Joshua Fields Millburn at The Minimalists explains that those memories are actually within you, not within your things. Keep that in mind as you go through your belongings and ask yourself, ‘do I need this in order to keep the memory?’

There are plenty of other ways to keep the memories without keeping the item. Take a photo of it, write it down in a journal, or perhaps even decide that it's a memory you don't need to keep anymore. In fact, if you're holding on to an item for a memory that weighs on you, it's probably time to say goodbye.”