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Friday 20 April 2018

Friday Crafting

Do you have a junk drawer somewhere in your house? Declutterers like to target our junk drawers because they consider them to be full of, well -- junk. I disagree. A junk drawer can be the place for all the odds and ends that are useful but don't have another place to live, either because they are one of a kind or because we want them handy on short notice.

It's the same with my internet bookmarks. I throw everything I might want to read again in my bookmark list. It's surprising how often I've gone back and fished something out and made good use of it.

Today what I'm making is a blog post. It's a bit like crafting. You take a bunch of things and you stick them together and hopefully the person you're making it for will like it.

Or maybe they'll just smile awkwardly and take it home and put it in the back of the closet or the garbage bin.  Who knows?

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First, along the lines of blue birds that are not really blue, some birds have fluorescent colours in their beaks, but they can only be seen by humans under ultraviolet light. For that story, which includes a picture of a puffin wearing sunglasses, go here: Puffin beaks are fluorescent and we had no idea.

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Second, what do the words leap, gulp, knot, shiver, and fluther have in common? They are all used to describe collective groups of animals (the same as "litter" describes a collective group of kittens). A leap of leopards, a gulp of cormorants, a knot of toads, a shiver of sharks, and a fluther of jellyfish are joined by 94 other collective names, found here: 99 strange collective animal names.

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Third and last, if you like dogs, or flowers, or dogs with flowers, please have a look at this article on pit bulls wearing flower crowns. It made me smile, and tear up, and want to buy the book.


Photo from Sophie Gamand/Kickstarter.




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What's in your bookmarks?

What's in your junk drawer?


I hope your weekend is a good one :)




44 comments:

  1. Loved learning about the fluoro puffin beaks. I wonder what purpose it serves? Even without fluoro beaks puffins are such an unlikely looking critter. Lovely, but....
    I do indeed have a junk drawer. A fairly full junk drawer. The hard to categorise items which don't have another home, and things we only use occasionally (but wouldn't be without).

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    1. I think we should change "junk drawer" to "misc. drawer" -- it's not junk in there!

      I hope scientists figure out the fluoro beak thing and let us know :)

      Delete
  2. My bookmarks file holds the blogs I read, some I only read now and again and my email connection. My true bookmarks keep track of what page I'm up to in a real book.
    A junk drawer? I have three, but the contents aren't true junk, they're just things I have no other place to put and can't throw them away either, like boxes of photos etc.

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  3. The bookmarks on my old computer are like that, the one I had for ten years that runs XP. I still have it, but haven't turned it on since 2015, when I copied the music, video, picture, and document folders to an external drive. I guess I could have copied the bookmark folders also, but by then I was using them differently and didn't want to wade through all of the clutter to get to the sites I visit each day. I sometimes remember a bookmark for a comic or something that I don't think I can find with the Google and wonder about that old machine, but so far not enough to dig it out, plug it in, and boot it up.

    I haven't had an actual junk drawer since 2007, and the contents of said junk drawer(s) I discovered in multiple boxes when we moved last time. We were under duress to get moved, and had to store our belongings in a 4X8 locker while we sorted the situation out, so I got rid of almost all of it. I was working by myself with a time limit, so my reaction quickly morphed from "oh, wow, I remember this" to "DIE!! Go away! I can't carry you around any more!"
    But when I think about the detailed knowledge I've had about the contents of various junk or miscellaneous drawers over the years it boggles my mind a little. The ones at the warehouse I managed, the electronics parts and wires and soldering tools, and lord help me, the screws and bolts and nuts. We're talking obscene amounts of time and attention over stuff that had questionable usefulness at best.
    I am so happy I don't do that any more.

    My friend's pit bull has various sweaters, and a garment with pockets on the sides so he can carry tools for her, but I've never seen him in a flower crown. Perhaps I'll show her this post and see if she gets any ideas...

    -Doug in Oakland

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    1. I'm a little conflicted about the flower crowns (and clothing) because I don't know how the dogs feel about them. Maybe it's like most things, some don't mind, some dislike it and some truly seem to like it . . .

      I hope we never have to move in a hurry. Although as you showed, it can have benefits!

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  4. I don't do bookmarks so I find myself trawling through my history which is not the most efficient!

    I have a bunch of junk drawers and I wish I could empty them but what to do with the stuff?

    The one I really should get cleaned out was the "craft" drawer when my kids were little. It contains 5000 pencils plus random glue sticks and broken rulers. We rarely use it except when someone wants a ruler or maybe a calculator

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    1. "5000 pencils" - haha! We had those, too!

      And it's not junk if you're using it, in my opinion (your other drawers).

      Delete
  5. I like the pitties with floral crowns, weird but sweet

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    1. I loved the expressions on some of their faces.

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  6. I don't have a junk drawer, I have a junk room, and it's full of paper cuttings, bits of greeting cards, stuff I'm selling on ebay, stuff I need to sell on ebay. Rolls of paper etc.

    I bookmarks hundreds of things, but often caps and gear I like. Links to websites. Well everything really. I'm on pinterest, so lots of stuff goes there too.

    I think I'm the only person who blogs who isn't that keen on dogs. :D

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    1. A junk room, eh? Well, you've just set the bar higher for the rest of us :)

      I think if it's got a function, it's fine. Not that you need my permission - ha ha

      And dang it, I knew I should have put a cat picture in this post! :)

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  7. Too much!...virtual and real!!

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    1. Hah!! I think many of us are right there with you :)

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  8. The junk drawer has birthday candles and a lighter, posts for the orchids when they are in bloom and plant food among other things.

    I book mark recipes and articles and do revisit them othen. It is one of the features I use the most.

    Such an ingenius way to present pit bulls!

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    1. Junk drawers, bookmark lists, and pit bulls all have a bad rep they don't deserve :)

      Delete
  9. I bookmark recipes that I plan to use someday. Except for cookies, most are never made, especially those that are labeled healthy.

    I have more than one junk drawer.

    Pit bulls with flowers, what’s not to love.

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    1. Ha ha ha! One of my junk drawers is full of my paper recipes, and they are very much like you describe :)

      Those puppers are pretty regal in their flower crowns, aren't they?

      Delete
  10. At home my Mom had a large junk drawer . Quite often we were sent to the junk drawer to get something for her. The Micro Manager does not have a junk drawer.

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    1. Well, was your mom's junk drawer really junk if she often needed things from it? I don't think so :)

      Delete
  11. The junk drawer is neat. If we don't need or want something, we generally pitch it. I try to keep my bookmarks culled, too. I used to say, "if I haven't used it in a year, I don't need it." Now I think a year is far too long.

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    1. I agree, one year is way too long for bookmarks, mine at least! I think if a junk drawer is orderly and functional it should have a better name.

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    2. I haven't culled bookmarks ever... I think I need a proper serious cull.

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  12. Dear Jenny_o, earlier this morning I'd decided to declutter the table in my bedroom. It is stacked high with all sorts of instructions for how to use items I've bought the last nine years and other pages of type that I have no idea about. That's just one stack. There's much more on that long, rectangular table. So maybe I'll get a posting out of that as you have today! Thanks for the idea! Peace.

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    1. Glad to help, Dee :) Paper is my worst declutter problem. Good luck! Peace to you as well.

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    2. We keep too much paper... just in case we should need it. We never have so far, but if we got rid of any you can almost guarantee we would need it the next day.

      Delete
  13. Hi Jenny, you make a very strong case why you think having ‘junk’ is so important to us. I think that having so much clutter in your life is detrimental to the soul. You could argue that it’s a good thing but I say that anything you don’t need should really be thrown away to make room for stuff you DO need.

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    1. Yes, that sums it up well. Get rid of what we don't need to make room for stuff we do need. That's really the principle I try to work on. Now I need to apply it to computer things also.

      Delete
  14. A lot of genealogy stuff in bookmarks...in the junk drawer.....cook books, appliance manuals, hot pads and stuff.

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  15. We have what I call a 'utility' drawer. But with very few things in it. Because if we call it a junk drawer and add too much to it, the minimalist in me will panic and need to declutter :) So utility drawer it is...

    I have some bookmarks with an assortment of links. I save page/websites/articles that I don't have time to get to. Or I save links to useful or interesting sites.

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    1. That's a great name, much better than junk drawer!

      That's pretty much how I use my bookmarks, too. If I want to keep them I move them into a folder. If they are more like current events, I let them go to the end of the bookmark list and then I know where they'll be.

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  16. I did enjoy seeing the pit bull wearing flower crowns. We are debating a second dog in our house and I would like getting a rescue dog but I need to wait until the kids are a little older. Have a great weekend, jenny_o. You are awesome.

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    1. Now my head is too big to get through the door :) Thanks for your kind words, Mr. S. I wonder what Ms Frizzle would think of another dog? I'm glad you're considering a rescue. There are never enough good homes for them.

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  17. I have some of those flower-crowned pit bull photos posted above my desk at work!

    As for a junk drawer, we don't have enough drawers to have a junk drawer! But I can totally see how one would be useful.

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    1. That's cool you already saw these pit bull pictures! And liked them, I'd say :)

      We don't really have a junk drawer either. We have a junk basket on a shelf.

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  18. I have bookmarks all over the place where I am so disorganized, some on the desktop and others in folders that are possibly not marked correctly, a bit like my desk, lol
    As for pitbulls. They have a bad name but my friends have one and he is adorable.
    Briony
    x

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    1. Isn't it said that a messy desk is a sign of a creative mind? That's my excuse, anyway! So bookmarks everywhere has to be the same thing :)

      It's a shame about pit bulls - the photographer of the pictures such as the one I posted here is hoping to help them be better understood and therefore more adoptable from shelters. I hope it helps.

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  19. Awwww, that pitbull made me smile. Mu son had a pitbull and she was the gentlest dog you could imagine.

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    1. I wish more people realized that about pit bulls!

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    2. I agree that almost each house can have such drawer which is used for multiple stuff and some time when there are kids in the house they make it to save their precious time which can be used in playing games or watching videos instead of placing back things on their right spot and though this is irritating for moms like me yet we love our kiddos and bear their carelessness inevitably

      Loved the beaks of birds ,what glory!

      thank you for sharing this adorable page of dogs with flowers ,so cute and lovely :)))

      i book marked some sites with various knowledge or entertainment

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    3. Not just kids; husbands do that too, I find - ha ha! But we put up with that, too :)

      Delete
  20. Puffin beaks - who knew?!? And I wonder who verified/made up all those collective nouns?

    My junk drawer contains everything from cut flower food to shelf supports to matches to darts - it's the catch-all for all the oddments that don't quite 'go' with anything else. And my bookmarks? Um... let's just say that they're diverse. It's research for my books. Honest. ;-)

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    1. I've wondered that about the collective nouns also . . . I never knew there were so many, and I would have liked to have my say! :)

      Yeah, yeah, we know ALL about your bookmarks, Diane! *snickers*

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