Is It Mathom-Worthy?

So much stuff comes into our lives these days – or attempts to – that it can be hard to process it all. Some choices are easy: junk mail in the recycle bin, useful bags into the Bag of Useful Bags, last week’s newspaper into the kindling basket/worm farm/rodent cage, etc.

But other choices can be harder to make. Should I buy this petit objet? Should I accept this goody-bag? Should I chip in for this fundraiser even if I’m not that keen on what they’re selling?

While reading The Fellowship of the Ring, I came up with a useful measuring stick for these situations: is it mathom-worthy? That is, is it something that you could pass on to someone else, regift, or donate?

A woman listening at an open door in a room crowded with pictures, crockery, feathers, fronds, furniture, hangings, statuettes, and more.
This woman is Dropping some Eaves – and has a lot of mathoms too.
Continue & Comment

Reclaiming “Old-Fashioned”

It says it right there in the header: Deborah Makarios, Old-Fashioned Fruitcake. But what do I mean when I call myself old-fashioned? (Sorry to disappoint you: am not actually a cake.)

Mummy cake (8122502298)
The Old-Fashioned Fruitcake faced with getting out of bed on a winter’s morning.
There are so many negative connotations that people apply to the term ‘old-fashioned’, such as prudish, backward, ignorant, intolerant, narrow-minded, prejudiced, uneducated, judgemental, afraid of technology… The list goes on.Continue & Comment