Not only do I not always get it right, but often my vote is not the pivotal vote on any issue in our home. I guess you have to pick your battles. That makes it sounds like the General and I live in a war zone. We don't, but this time I knew with certainty that the odds were in my favor. What was she thinking?
The General's quest to declutter our home has merit. I can't argue with the fact that our sunporch now looks far more inviting after removing a couple of oversized chairs and my rolltop desk, along with half a dozen plants and other large objects. It was too much! Consequently, in that regard, less is more.
The Millenials are known for living out the concept that less is more. Truth- be told, they can't take credit for it. Wait a minute! In his poem entitled "Andrea del Sarto," Robert Browning writes: "Yet do much less, so much less…Well, less is more, Lucrezia; I am judged." Browning wrote the poem in 1855.
So where did the General make a wrong turn in attempting to spruce up our home with the concept less is more? I was startled to see that she had temporarily placed over a half dozen items she took from the bookcase in the entry hall on the bar at the kitchen island in our home. One of those items was a wind-up clock taken from the top shelf of the bookcase. She moved the clock without removing the pendulum.
There aren't many cardinal rules that I've initiated in our home, but moving a wind-up clock with a pendulum without first removing the pendulum jeopardizes the clock's functioning. What was she thinking?
Her logic seemed sound. She said authoritatively: "We are not going to display a clock that doesn't work." She added, "I've told you that before." Indeed she had, and I removed and disposed of the clock that wasn't working. The pendulum clock the General had taken from the bookcase was not broken. It simply needed to be wound.
I carefully removed the pendulum, moved the clock back to the bookcase, replaced the pendulum, and wound up the clock. It is working fine this morning.
Of course, returning the clock to its rightful place on the bookcase required me to move the pottery she had put in its place. The General's instructions were explicit, "Don't put the pottery back on the bookcase. It would be too much."
Perhaps she has a point? Less is more. I thought the bookcase looked fine before she made a clean sweep by removing objects. The posted picture is the "after" picture with the pendulum clock back in place on the top left shelf.
All My Best!
Don