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Less is More

    I'm wearing yoga pants right now. Black with a pink dragon decorating the bottom of the right leg, and purchased during one of many exercise phases. I have no intentions of doing yoga tonight. Or any other night for that matter. The pants are comfy though.
    I also have a tub of coconut oil spread in the refrigerator. I bought it to spread on my morning toast. It tastes like coconut-flavored Crisco so I don't use it. I predict that it goes the way of the wasabi-flavored dried seaweed I picked up three months ago.
    There is a little plastic bag in a drawer in the bathroom filled with little gifts of makeup my daughter has given me. The mascara has dried to a fine powder.
    Under the kitchen sink is a spray bottle of cleanser made from organic parsley. Unfortunately it's for use on granite and stone countertops. My countertop is made of some kind of hard plastic, and the spray causes the paper towels I use on it to pill up and leave scraps all over the countertop. I guess I didn't read the fine print.
    I have three pairs of black shoes with heels given to me by my sister. I brought them with me to four different addresses over 20 years time. I've never worn any of them. I also have several girdle-type apparatuses that have never been worn, also given to me by my sister.
    I currently own four sticks of lavender deodorant, each one with about a 16th of an inch left in it. They sit right next to three plastic tubes of body lotion, which work fine if I shake them real hard or leave them turned upside down for a few days.
    Right now I'm contemplating picking up one of those bullet juicers they advertise on Sunday afternoons on cable, but only because they can also be used to make ice cream in about four seconds.
    In my mind I can go back pretty quickly to what I saw when I visited Kenya and Malawi a few years ago. I didn't see anyone who appeared to own one, much less four, sticks of deodorant. In fact, I'm not sure I wore it while I was there. It didn't seem necessary.
    We had to wait in a line of about 40 cars at a gas station so our driver could buy a week's worth of fuel so his wife could cook on a burner. Here, I get pissy if there are more than two cars ahead of me at the gas station. And I'm certainly not buying fuel for a cookstove. In fact, I'm probably not cooking. I'm probably going out for pizza.
    I've also become a hoarder of toilet paper and paper towels in my old age. Neither were plentiful during my stay in Africa. In fact, I made sure to bring toilet paper with me just in case. I won't go into great detail about exactly how I used the bathroom in outlying villages. You can use your imagination. Now, that really wasn't easy for me. Especially with arthritis and the 60 extra pounds I carry around.
    I'd like to get to that place soon where I stop to think really, really hard about whether or not I need something before I buy it or accept it from someone else. Chances are that I don't. I've got so much as it is. I think I'm going to fall asleep tonight being grateful and hopefully wake up that way too.
   

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