On eBay you can see your whole life pass before your eyes. And boy does it cost a lot. Because people like to amass stuff, and now all of that stuff can be online with a click, and antique dealers tend to give up their stores and sell mostly online ... any item from the house of your childhood might show up at any time.

My family had an assortment of silverware and stuff people could get with Betty Crocker coupons, S&H stamps or Green Stamps. I found our silverware, Danish Queen by Harmony House, being sold; our red plastic canisters of which I realized I still have 2 in my kitchen; and our other tableware (Twin Star).

Yep, I wanted them all. But I'm trying to reduce my belongings, not add. Still, I love doing a search for something like "vintage paper dolls" and finding a set my sister had when she was 6 and I was 4. I printed a picture of them and showed her. These were nice 60s paper dolls, called Candy and her Cousins, and back then they seemed like the most beautiful things in the universe.

When I showed her the page, she made exactly the noise I figured she would, that drawing-in of breath that takes about 5 seconds.

I've been remembering more objects from my childhood, lately. A drawstring bag that I owned when I was tiny. The inside of an old suitcase that my mom kept fabrics in... and old vinyl and plastic toys.

Toys are subject to ruin, so I don't expect to see my old red stuffed bear with vinyl face that I had -- but there are lots of similar ones.

And of course glass items are too smashable and vanish that way, so I still keep looking for my mother's pink fluted wine glasses but don't expect to run across them. Anyway, I'd be happy just to see one of those plastic tumblers from the 60s that had speckles in the plastic. We had a set of blue, yellow, and pink with black speckles. My eyes miss those.

I guess now eBay is really also a museum, too. Just looking a little at "Mid-Century Plastic" is stunning.