Confessions of a Magpie

I have a thing I need to admit.

I am a magpie and I am a walker.

What this means is that everywhere I go, I am picking up things and putting them in my pockets.

I pick up objects of all kinds.

And then I bring them home.

Sometimes I photograph them. 
Sometimes I save them.
Sometimes I forget about them, and find them later, shriveled up and turning to dust.

I decided on this day that it was time to organize the found objects of this magpie walker girl, and I took some photos as I did so. Here is one of my shots.

In this photo, you may see leaves of assorted colors, shapes, and smoothness, and rocks, and shells, and twirly things, and (formerly) flowering things! A few of them (hello, amusing poppy seed head trio, etc.) have been sprayed with gilded paint, for use in prior photo shoots.

What did I do with all of my treasures? Well, some of them had been taking up space in random containers. So I dumped it all out on a tray, and I sorted through it all, put like things together, kept samples of everything, organized the items nicely using tiny plastic baggies and labels, and threw a bunch of the rest away! 

The outcome: I know what I've got, I've winnowed it down, it is now all perfectly organized, I actually got a bunch of containers back that had been out of commission for a while, and I feel sort of good about the whole thing!

My soundtrack song is this one, for, oh yes, I am a keeper of all kinds of random things: Tracy Chapman, with Mountains O' Things.

Everyone will look at me with envy and with greed
I'll revel in their attention
And mountains, oh, mountains o' things