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rabbitcruiser · 2 years

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National Old Stuff Day

National Old Stuff Day is all about…well, old stuff. Bits and bobs that have been gathering dust for ages in your home, trinkets, and toys up in the attic, antiques and old electronics – you’re bound to have some old stuff knocking about. And today is all about appreciating it. Because what’s better than uncovering something really awesome from days gone by?

It’s so easy to let things gather dust. If we don’t use them every day, some things can get pushed to the side and stay there. And that’s not just the things in your home – technology advances so quickly, new toys come out all the time, new books are constantly being published. In the age of new information, it isn’t easy to stay mindful of what built the foundations for what we have now. Today is all about remembering the things we sometimes leave behind.

Learn about National Old Stuff Day

National Old Stuff Day can mean different things to different people. Most people use this day to cherish their old but significant belongings. This could be a book that you have had since you were a child or a family heirloom that has been passed down generations. You can hunt through your belongings for something special and appreciate it on this date. However, you can also see National Old Stuff Day as an opportunity for you to break out of your typical habits.

National Old Stuff Day also gives you the push that you may need to try a new experience. When someone asks you how you are or what you have been up to, how often do you reply with the saying “same old, same old?” If this phrase is in your vocabulary, you’re definitely going to benefit from National Old Stuff Day. It is a day for you to do things differently. Try something that you would never usually do before. Break out of your typical routine and live life differently, even if it is just for one day only.

Of course, when we are talking about old stuff, there is always the question, how old is old? Well, for an item to be considered vintage, it must be 30-years-old, at least. For an item to be deemed antique, it needs to be at least 100 years old. For something to be old, well that’s subjective! You could consider something old a day after you have purchased it if you’re the type of person that falls out of love with things quickly.

History of National Old Stuff Day

If you think about it, there’s always been old stuff – but exactly when National Old Stuff Day started to be celebrated isn’t too clear. That said, there’s no doubt that this is an important day for those who are a fan of all things gone by.

We’ve long had an appreciation for the value that age can bring to items. Wine becomes better the older it gets, furniture becomes more of a must-have once it becomes an antique; it’s certain that old things aren’t without their uses, value or charm. Collectors nowadays will pay a pretty penny for stamps, toys, video games, board games, books, coins, and clothes of yesterday.

How to celebrate National Old Stuff Day

There are so many different ways that you can celebrate National Old Stuff Day. Try starting off the day with a new attitude. Think about the choices you make on a daily basis and the different activities you do every day. Now, look for ways to do things differently. Is there another alternative that is available to you? If so, give it a try. You may find that it is actually a better way of doing things, or it may not be, but at least you gave it a shot!

You could also celebrate National Old Stuff Day by taking something old and freshening it up. This could be anything from an antique piece of furniture to an old garden ornament. Look for something in your home that you have had for quite a while and could do with a bit of TLC. You can then clean it, fix it, paint it, or give it any sort of makeover that is required. Don’t forget to share your achievement on social media so that you can encourage other people to get involved as well.

Vintage fashion is still in vogue, but you can really get into the spirit of things by visiting a junk shop or visiting your local car boot – another person’s old stuff could be your new stuff! Or maybe now is a good day to declutter? Stuff you aren’t so into any more could make a great gift for someone else, or you could always pass you old things on to your local charity shop.

If you’re in a crafty mood, you could upcycle your old clothes into new outfits with just a little tailoring, or turn unwanted trinkets into snazzy boho decorations. Today would be a good day to visit your older relatives and learn about your family history, and the kind of shenanigans your grandparents would get up to back in the golden days.

Today is also the perfect day for you to de-clutter your home and get rid of all of the things you don’t need. Often, people hold onto things on the very small chance they may use them again one day, yet all this does is result in more and more clutter building up. So, why not use National Old Stuff Day to get rid of all of those things you don’t need anymore?

Most of all, remember that today’s new stuff will one day be old stuff – so if you’re a fan of nostalgia, don’t get overzealous with that charity bag!

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ohtobemare · 3 months

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Cradlerobbing, Norman Nordstrom x fem!OC | Part 1

a Don't Breathe au short fic arc.

summary: She bought the house to the left. Expecting a quiet neighborhood, not the man next door. But Norman has quite a way of showing up when you least expect it. As a matter of fact, so does fate.

warnings: canon divergence, pregnancy, age gap, romance, surrogate to lovers, violence probably.

pairings: Norman Nordstrom, "The Blind Man" x fem!OC

“Well, looks to me like she’s pretty shot to shit, missy honey. Lookin’ at a total replacement, I think.”

A total tear down. Frickin’ fantastic. “Oh, no no—you can't be serious! Really? Are you sure there’s nothing you can—”

“—nope, not a thing. Shame, really.”

A flick of a business card between arthritic, knobby fingers and the stranger named Val managed the thinnest, most disingenuous smile a man of his age could probably muster. Dentures, maybe as ancient as the threadbare flannel jacketing his waifish frame, shifted ever so slightly as his tongue clicked off the back molars. Mentioning something about the “office gal Donna”, he all but shook his head as curling fingers scratched through left-behind-from-what-was-probably-last-week’s shave.

He all but assaulted her with the business card. Thrusting it into her hands, Millie McAffery could’ve sworn his skeleton cracked in two as he moved to retrieve his worn, strictly-80s briefcase from the floor. Welded in place, her feet cool from the half-stained walnut floor, her eyes trailed him as the man named Val exited the way he came–the kitchen’s dutch back door. Attempting to whistle, of all things.

Mille bristled at the light crick of his dentures even across the room—until the roar of his oversized diesel pickup grumbled its way out of her driveway and down the street. Though, if you’d asked her, she wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. The low hum of the heavy engine matched the blood pistoning through her ears beat for beat, both seeming to rattle her bones.

Seventeen days.

She could hear her father all the way from the Twin Cities, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. Hardly different than he had the first time he’d smacked eyes on the old Victorian, nestled quietly on the once-beautiful, presently decaying, Buena Vista Street. “I told you, Millie honey—”

Looking at the card Val had passed into her hands, numbers to the office woman named Donna swam. Fresh tears bubbled up behind her lashes, herculean willpower funneling into attempts to keep her hands from trembling. Instead, her nose began to burn with the hot need to sniffle, stomach suddenly empty of anything but the stones that seemed to drop down the length of her throat and into the hallow chasm it had become. Rattling with every cardiac rhythm, for a moment she was concerned her heart had broken loose from behind her ribs.

Swearing she was able to feel her stomach acid jostle as she lifted a hand to massage around her mouth, Mille managed a shaking breath. Seventeen days she’d been parked in her—her, mark that her—very own house. In her very own plot of grass and dirt, her very own story. Her closet wasn’t even unpacked, still eating out of the same bowl with the singular spoon she’d left unpacked from her boxes. Had just managed to position the couch exactly where she wanted it two nights ago when lightning had cracked across her bay window. Thunder opened the floodgates of a brutal downpour.

Right into her living room. Mad dashing to catch water from ruining her freshly mortgaged walnut floor, she’d used everything from pots to the rolling carry-on Samsonite she’d opened and emptied to her mattress. Not daring a look to the scatter of makeshift catches on her floor, her eyes instead fell back to the card in her hands, Val’s estimate rolling through her brain like unforgiving, expensive lava.

A whimper assaulted the back of her throat viciously. Burning and acidic, like it wanted to rip her uvula fron the back of her throat and use it to beat her bloody. Headache blossoming from her temple, she pushed her glasses up into her hair to rub at her eyes with the heel of her hands, eyes pinched close in an attempt to will the entire events of the morning into nightmare status. Where it wasn’t real, simply bad fiction. Like that book her sister had gifted her for Hanukkah last year.

Twenty-six thousand dollars. Running average for a roof, sweet cheeks. Val’s look of sympathy almost drove her over the edge; ready to hand him the keys to her pickup and ask him to just end her and get it over with already. Use the life insurance to fix the roof and sell the house, send her back to Minnesota finally at peace and without burden. Instead she’d just gaped like a wobbly, hardly-with-it foal, knees all but shaking as Val had flitted his hand through the air, throwing out numbers as if it were bingo.

No way about it. She needed a new roof—money. I need so much frickin’ money—

—knock, knock. Two hard thunks at the front door, which was through the living room and just off the stunning foyer and open-banister staircase leading to the upper floor. Jumping, Mille’s hand flew ot corral her rabbiting heart behind her ribs, stomach flipping as the house seemed to rattle at the effort of whoever had knocked at her front door. Swallowing, which felt painful, she reached to pull her pajama robe tightly around her middle, channeling all her anger into a closing, tight knot.

Padding into the living room, dodging the scatter of water collection vessels across her floor, she worked the deadbolt and the chain lock off the door before opening it a sliver, squinting into the galactically-invasive light of day. Blinking, she scrunched up her nose before wishing whomever–face blocked by stabbing morning light—a less-than-genuine good morning.

A few seconds ticked by, her gaze corrected. The silver-fox of a stranger, standing rod-straight on US Bank’s mortgaged front porch, stared straight ahead as if she wasn’t even there. Millie recognized him instantly, the neighbor right across from her—she’d seen him walking his gorgeous Rottweiler the same time every morning she’d made herself coffee. Blind, her head had tipped to the side with a kind smile as she watched him not miss a beat, pounding concrete like he owned the world. And he might as well have, nobody lived on this street.

Until her.

“Norman, hi,” she tried punching energy into her voice, but it flopped—just as tired and flat as she’d feared. To his credit, Nordstrom’s expression only flickered for a moment; a light wrinkle of his brow, the faintest shift of his eyebrows up. Unmoving, his hand motioned for his companion to come up alongside him, Shadow shifting to accommodate with a lopsided little look on his face.

Eyes immediately moving to the Amazon package in his hand, the corner of her mouth ticked up a little. “That’s mine, I guess?” Lifting the package, he passed it to her with the quietest smile and nod, shifting a shoulder lightly. Opening the door wide, she stepped aside to welcome him in. “Doors open, like always. You want some coffee? It’s hot and strong.”

“Something bothering you, McAffery?” Norman’s perception amazed her, even after only a little over two weeks of acquaintance. He’d clocked her every time—that one day she’d been crying, homesick after the lock on the bathroom door had broken. When the dishwasher had stopped working, the light outside her door had flickered to a paralyzed nothing and she didn’t have the first clue how to remove the glass housing to change the bulb. She’d been over to Norman’s no more than half a dozen times, asking for tools. Once that awkward, high-I’m-you-neighbor-can-I-borrow-a-cup-of-sugar had breezed out of the way, she’d bounced herself over to Norman’s stoop every time the wind kicked up sideways.

Slipping in through the door, he stilled. Uncomfortably close proximity, she could smell the mint on his breath. A bite of aftershave, the glisten of dewy, freshly-shaven skin along his jaw. His side profile was extravagant, devilishly cut and attractive in a way that should’ve been illegal for men his age. Because even well old enough to be her daddy, Norman was handsome. Chiseled, strong. An Adonis, truly–her but Icharus flying too close to his wisdom and bronzed, might-as-well-be-carved-from-stone, arms.

Gently nudging her with one of his corded, ripped-with-muscle arms. As if he weren’t even challenged to see, the corner of his mouth lifted in a light, nearly teasing, smirk. For a man who lived alone, Norman was roughly flirtatious—with his expressions, anyway. “Y’don’t sound like yourself, Millie,” his hands slipped into the pockets of his perfectly-tight Wranglers, “Bubbly and shit-grinning and all that,” his smile was quicksilver, almost devilish. “What’s eating you, kid?”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, trying not to chuckle. Choosing to ignore the probe, “Watch yourself, there’s stuff all over the floor.” A sharp whistle from the corner of his mouth sent Shadow trotting through the door, weaving through the collection across her floor to plop himself in the kitchen, right on the this-morning-unrolled rug.

Toeing the door closed, she shrugged and reached to rub the back of her neck. Halting at her caution, Norman paused and checked her over his shoulder. Frowned severely. He looked genuinely puzzled—all the light, whatever could manage through the milky haze across his damaged eyes normally, evaporated. Simply standing there, he waited for her to come up beside him, one ear turned to her movements. Explaining her flooding disaster from two days ago, she toed aside the half-full Samsonite luggage parked in front of him.

Water sloshed over the size, landing in a fat plop on the walnut floor. Immediately keyed into the intrusion, he looked, amazingly, to the suitcase and then back to her as she came up beside him, looping her arm through his casually. Like old friends, like she hadn’t known Norman for less than ten days. A regular fixture already, in their otherwise ghost of an avenue that was Buena Vista Street.

“That can’t be good,” he said, low, then looked up. “Could’ve told you it needed replacing though, McAffery. Jack and ‘Livia didn’t do a thing the last twenty years,” he shook his head, a low rumble settling in his chest, “Kids wanted out of the place, fuckups from Chicago.” Gaze still turned upward, as if he could see. Could make sense of the water stains littering the popcorn ceiling of her living room.

“Yeah,” was all she managed.

Swelling emotion flared hot behind her ribs, stung the back of her throat like a splash of acid. Swallowing back a shaking breath, her toes curled into the floor for a heartbeat before she stepped to guide Norman into the Victorian’s small breakfast nook, a used baker’s table and two barstools Goodwilled from her mother. Stopping at the table, she explained the barstool at his 11 o’clock, and went to slip her arm from his to see to coffee.

Norman tugged her to a soft stop. Pulling up, her eyes moved from his hand, suddenly covering hers with a gentle, calloused squeeze to his face. Unreadable, as usual, though he managed to hold her gaze, again, like a seeing man would have. Half their brief relationship, she would’ve never guessed Norman was actually disabled—at first blush, she’d thought he’d been lying, he was so keen. But, when he’d counted the steps up to her front door just-so-slightly under his breath, she’d recanted her judgments.

Hand inexplicably warm over hers, Norman stiffened up the corded muscle of his arm. Giving her a light smirk, his hand moved to clap her shoulder, lightly. “You’ll figure it out, McAffery. It’s just life.” His hand moved to cup her cheek for just a breath, before his fingers brushed lightly across her features.

Reading her, as he’d asked to do when she’d showed up to return his toolbelt, eyes burning red and swollen from the sobbing session she’d had on her bathroom floor. The infancy of their hardly-mature acquaintanceship. But it had felt like she’d known Norman her entire life, the handsome stranger across the way anything but. And she wasn’t sure if that was ok–if that was normal, if the odd hammering of her heart against her breastbone at his hand over hers was acceptable neighbor-like behavior.

It didn’t matter, not really. Norman was here. She wasn’t alone.

“Smile, kiddo. Increases your facial value.”

tags: @itsgoghtime @horserad-ish@mongoosesthings @sarahsmi13s @permanentlyexhaustedpigeon88 @kmc1989 @strawberrylemonadesoda

@strawberrylemonadesoda

#don't breathe #don't breathe 2 #norman nordstrom #stephen lang #norman nordstrom x ofc #horror #horrorfic #not really but for the tags #slasher #mare writes

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