"We spend first part of our human experience avidly accumulating things and other half wondering what in world we're going to do with all stuff." Margret E. Keats

I've never really thought of myself as a person who cares about material things, but after years of marriage and raising three children, I had accumulated more than I needed. I made kids take what was theirs as they left home and began building their own nests, but there was still too much. I started to think about what my kids would do with all of it when I'm dead and gone, and decided most of it would probably be dumped or sold in a garage sale. I decided maybe I should start getting rid of it before they did!

About that time I discovered a wonderful little book, "How to Simplify Your Life," by Elaine St.James. I asked for book as a Christmas gift, and it has been well worth what my daughter spent on it (I believe it was only about $10 at time). I've read it on many different occasions. It's great for just flipping through and reading whatever catches your interest that day.

One of my favorite sections in book is about getting rid of things you no longer need. She suggests setting up a closet or at least a shelf for those items. I'm not talking about worn out junk, but items which are in good shape that may be a treasure to someone else! She calls them "mathoms." My grandson calls process of giving away your stuff, "regifting." It works for me, no matter what you call it. For instance, I had a beautiful bottle that my daughter had filled with oil and flowers at one time. It was dark pink with a wide square base that became more slender toward top. Years later, color in flowers had all run into oil and it looked like a bottle of sludge! I popped cork, dumped stuff out of inside, and put bottle in dishwasher. The next day a friend came over and saw it sitting on my counter. "Oh, what a beautiful bottle," she said. "Like it? It's yours!" I said. I handed it to her before she had chance to say no. She was thrilled to latch on to it because she said her mother collected pink glassware. Who would have ever known! My castaway was passed on to her before it ever made it to my regifting shelf. She immediately gave it to her mother, who was just thrilled to add it to her collection. Nice thing is, that once it's out of my house, I don't care how many times it is regifted.

No Pecans in this Pecan Pie! (618 words) by: Joyce Moseley Pierce

I used to think I was only one who liked gooey filling in pecan pie but hated pecans on top. That all changed when one of my co-workers commented one day that he, too, hated picking through pecans to get to good stuff.

For his birthday, I decided my contribution to birthday treat table would be a pecan-free pecan pie. I got out my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and looked up "Pecan Pie." I considered just baking it and leaving pecans out, but was delighted to find a "Coconut-Oatmeal Pie." Having seen pecan pies before and marveled at craftmanship involved in arranging all of those pecan halves on top made me wonder how I would ever place those tiny pieces of coconut and oatmeal on top of this pie without using tweezers!

Not being one who generally reads entire recipe before plowing right into it, you can imagine my delight when I got to part that said to "stir in coconut and oatmeal." I paced around oven anticipating how it would all come together and to my surprise, magic occurred! The coconut and oatmeal joined during baking to form a beautiful crisp, lacey topping.