There are a number of approaches I could take to this conundrum. Let me say up front that donating mugs to any of the large number of nearby charity shops is not an option. To illustrate my point: although I do not actually like the design of the St Hugh's College mug and neither does my younger son (shelf 3, Mug Shot #1), he left it with me when he returned to university after Christmas saying that it would remind me of him in his absence. It does. (In any case, I donated another mug to him for use there. In addition, I passed on a couple of mugs to my eldest son for his Antwerp apartment back in the autumn. So I had already shown storage foresight).
Mug Shot #1 Mug Shot #2 Mug Shot #3
In Mug Shot #2, I have arranged all the mugs which represent aspects of my identity on shelf 2. Thus we have Poet, Anarchy, Mum, Liz. This shelf would sum me up nicely, if I didn't undermine aspirations to be an Anarchist with my need to order my mugs by a set of rules. It's possible I'm undermining my Poet identity too by spending time sorting mugs when I could be sorting words into lines.
The rule of Mug Shot #3 is one of colour. The two rows of blue are my favourite. But this arrangement contravenes the mug rule, as, like the other mug shots, it contains objects which aren't mugs. Like jugs.
Where I've come to is that I like this mugging about, this muggling along, this mugfulness, this living in the mugment.
Choosing mugs by coordinates (three mugs along, four shelves down) keeps my approach to tea drinking mug-half-full. The tea accompanies the marking and the Lindt Salted Dark chocolate, so there really isn't an issue at all.
Thank you very much for writing such an interesting article on this topic. This has really made me think and I hope to read more. Gifts for women who love to travel
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