December 11: Joe Said Make the Photos Bigger

December 11 Prompt: 11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn't need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? 
(Author: Sam Davidson)



This is a joint blog from the Sands household.


1. Joe's enormous stacks of magazines that are scattered throughout our house, office, and bedroom, that I suspect he may never read.

Joe says," See, now that's not so bad." 

(This is only one select, misleading pile of many. Joe lies.)

2. The textiles and fabrics I bought in Africa in 1998. I don't want to get rid of them, just turn them into something other than a pile of beautiful Kente cloth and batik stacked in the closet.

3. Ugly gifts that people have given us that we will never use. Garage sale time. Your gift is not included in that pile. I promise. It was lovely and we often hold it in our hands and reminisce about the joy we felt when we first received it.

4. Joe's enormous piles of mail scattered throughout our house and office, that I suspect he may never file.

Joe says, "Yeah, I guess you have a point about this one."

5. CD's. Joe and I are both avid music fans. When we got married and combined our CD collection, we could open and stock our own Best Buy. Now that they are all housed on our iTunes library, they collect dust and take up space in the basement. Lots of space.

Joe says, "If you click through to flickr you can take a closer look and see that a ton of 

these are duplicates that we both have."

6. Books. This one is heartbreaking, but necessary. I own way too many books. Our shelves are heaving with words.  The majority of them will not be reread anytime soon. It is time to cull down. Though the purchasing of new books has tapered off significantly, since I am in a deeply passionate and loyal relationship with the Midcontinent Public Library.

Joe says, "Mostly Kassie......mostly."

7. Joe's enormous piles of stuff in the garage that make it difficult to maneuver in and out of the cars. Every wood working tool, saw, drill etc. ever sold at Home Depot or in the garage sales of former wood workers.


8.  The smoking couch. Don't ask. I said that Joe should explain why he finds the smoking couch to be so superb. His comment, "It's so good, I don't even have to." Then he proceeded to try and convince me, yet again, even though he's had it for over ten years and we have discussed it numerous times, that it's cool because it used to be in the top floor smoking lounge of a downtown Omaha hotel in the 1930's and it has good lines.  He neglects to mention that the fabric is itchy and worn, and it's filled with some kind of dark, strange sawdust that leaks out of it at random times. He loves it more than a person should love old furniture. It's also twice the size of the piece photographed here. And it has built in ash trays. It's weird.

Joe says, "This gets two photos just to show how awesome it actually is. 

It's probably the coolest thing I own and believe me I have a lot of cool things."

9. Unfilled picture frames that we continue to buy and shove in random places. They need to be filled and hung. There is no shortage of super fantastic photography to fill them up. Shockingly we still have some wall space left.

Joe says, "I'm pretty sure we'll be using some of these for Christmas gifts."

10. The guilt that will overwhelm me in January when I look at this list and realize all of these things still need to be done.


11. The misguided idea that Joe's piles will ever be reduced, filed, read or eliminated. That's ok. I like him enough to put up with his piles of crap. And the smoking couch too, I guess. He's a damn good sport. Though he said something really funny, irritated and racy when I read him all the Joe centric items on this list and he wouldn't let me post it. He got kind of pissy, when I pretended to post it. He put his foot down and it was funny. Ask him, maybe he'll tell you.

Obviously, all photos by Joe Sands. Owner and operator of Joe's Piles of Crap.