I threw out the placemats which the stains will never come out from. Don’t get white and use hot sauce!
SO is asking me what I want to do with my mom’s souvenir spoon collection. I told him I don’t have the spoons to deal with it. All jokes aside, my anxiety flares up in removing her stuff. Slowly but surely. I did find a coin place to go to for her last few items when I go to the Falls this week.
Perfect answer!
It makes total sense that removing her stuff is anxiety-producing.
This is so familiar to me. It’s tough isn’t it? I took some family silverwear to the auctioneers three months ago. Quite an extended process to let it go. Many complicated reasons. But I figured my Mum and family would rather I was free of the encumbrance and had the money.
Slowly but surely is the way. Your own way of saying goodbye. It seems so important to take your time, and be gentle with yourself along the way too. Letting go while honouring the people, memories and times, and then weaving a new story or meaning, if that makes sense.
Not only does it seem that I culled the fabric layout board I now need… I went in the attic hoping that I"d put it there, nope!
But I found a 4" binder of receipts from 2007 which I’m 2/3 of the way through sorting into recycling, wood stove, and shredding. So, go me!
The layout board MIGHT be in the storage? I don’t know.
The last time we went to the storage I grabbed a box of fabric stuff. A runner that’s now at the end of our bed, and the fabric I’d bought for the dining room window. It’s too small to cover all the window, even using clips and fabric tape instead of more traditional methods, fine. But I need to know how to lay it out, or even how big it is to start the process. So, I was looking for the fabric layout board…
my mom is trying to figure out the same and last year tried to get one of us to take them. they are still sitting in the basement waiting on decisions.
today’s win - I was going to do a box of ornaments today, but when I picked up the box I decided I didn’t have the energy. before I put it back, I opened up the bin underneath. christmas stockings & hummel ornaments. but also 3 rain jackets that I had been looking for before our trip to NZ last year, and 2 of the flight bags from the time we did premium economy on the way back from Amsterdam in 2024.
the zipper on one of the jackets is finnicky, so dropping it to the thrift store along with work pants that don’t fit and the two pairs of socks from the travel pouches. throwing out the eye masks.
Figured there had to be something like this…
We put my mom’s souvenir spoons in the trash, and you have permission to do the same if you’d like. They were her memories, not yours, and I bet you have other things you’re keeping that are memories with the two of you.
But also, you probably have the space to just keep these in storage until it’s easier to deal with them! You’re doing great, no need to make too quick decisions you might regret.
I just bravely put vases that my mum handed down to me in the newest thrift store pile. But what if she goes to the thrift store I donate it to?
My SIL and I are trying to say yes when she declutters to us, and then pass it straight to thrift or use it. But maybe she has caught on? She recently showed me a pile of hankies she wants me to take but only if I promise not to use them. (Snot is okay, snot that stains is not, nosebleed is not, wiping kids faces only if not staining stuff wiped off).
I did that with the clothing she gave me from my grandmother, but I struggle with things like spoons, which I know the thrift store would just throw away. (and some of the clothing I threw away myself, but that was super easy because it was clothing from the care home years)
I think it would be easier atm if it was from my mom. Everything on offer is from her parents or grandparents. or my dad’s.
and my oldest sister is still annoyed at me for giving away the big black swivel chair a decade ago. eta - so part of the issue of taking it to donate is fear that someone else will want it later
I have an aunt that occasionally passes things to me from my grandma and my dad’s (who is very much alive, but could not care less) childhoods. I think she gives it to me because she has a hard time getting rid of things herself. And she knows my dad will just trash it. But it made me realize that it’s SO much harder for me to get rid of someone else’s memories, because I feel responsible for them once I accept the thing. If it’s my memories, I have an easy time deciding if it can stay or go.
Recent example is she had my dad’s shirt from when he was a cub scout, with the patches on it and everything. It’s sitting on my dresser right now. My dad would toss it in a heartbeat. Maybe I should let him do that because I don’t want it!
A lot of this is from my Grandma to my mum and honestly one or two hankies or one of the vases could be my grandma’s aunt Bessie or whoever’s. Unfortunately aunt Bessie’s memory died with my Grandma and so it is not getting preserved ( I do actually have some doilies that were hand made etc and I am guarding them but how many things can I hang onto especially when we don’t know which item is whose). Another trap is that if I take a container of items and keep it contained after a quick rummage I can donate things. But I recently realized that stuff like the vases were brought in and put on my mantle tricking them into being my things.
Can they be reorganized away over the holidays (whichever ones you might decorate the house for)? Like, oh we put some of the Halloween stuff up there, then other holidays, then oh hey it’s the new year and that item didn’t make it back into the mantle, gee whiz it’s somewhere I’ll get to it eventually…
did she bring the vases with flowers in them and put them on the mantle? or just started hiding them?
There is a guy on Youtube who does short videos about “Millennial Inheritances”, which covered one person who was taking the things they had received from their parents’ estate and had started surreptitiously placing them in friends’ homes. Funny, but not.
My mom has stopped trying to get me to take my childhood Madame Alexandre dolls. Perhaps I should tell her directly that they can be discarded or dropped in the church’s toy bin.
On a personal note, I have taken 3 pairs of new pairs of socks out of stash and am replacing the threadbare handknit socks I’ve decided not to darn.
Now I feel bad. I gave my DD#1 a 300 year old sugar bowl that had been passed down through the family. It had the original story and line of descent through the family women with it. She took it because she had memories of us using it as a candy bowl for a while. It’s one of those big old ones.
Maybe that’s the secret to passing things on? Don’t just give the object. Give the story too?
the thing is she has a memory of it and got the story
I have things from my grandparents I wouldn’t declutter. My Dad’s grandmother Nana collected elephants, and they always needed to be facing away from the window. I have one of the elephants. I have some of my grandmother’s corningware, and a juice pitcher. I just got a whittling knife by way of my aunt…
otoh, there are some Precious Moments that I don’t think anyone is interested in.
I love getting an object with a story. I have my great grandmother’s ceramic kettle that I use as a vase, a vase from a grandmother on another side, some doilies and teacups and glass decorative trays.
But I also have a full tea set with dragons on it that I need to offer around the family because it was given to me because “Ducky might like it” that has no story and I am not actually interested in owning.
This is exactly!
I have lots of heirlooms that I treasure, too many but I treasure them. And then I have things with no story or no emotion AND no use. Maybe they have potential financial value but there is no reason for me to have them.
@plainjane I think one did come with flowers and is a good utilitarian vase. But I also have my own utilitarian vase. Another is downright hideous, may have been in the family a while and I was probably told, and then it was put on my counter or mantle for me. The third is in between, but wood so it is purely decorative. And that one I did have memories of and love and treasure for 25 years and now I’m ready to let it go.
Meanwhile my parents are picking up lovely finds at the thrift store a few times a month still. So when we go through their things our family stuff will be indistinguishable from new old things and I will probably toss all of it. We can’t fit 3+ families of treasure in a house
I love hearing all these stories 
.
I used up the home pedi spa kits! This has taken some time. I have other items to use to continue to treat myself well in the tub. I’m prioritizing using up the Epsom salts, sugar scrubs, facial masks and hair masks once a week.
After nearly a year of it just sitting in the foyer cubby, I threw out a promo baseball cap. Why this took so long, I don’t know. I don’t really wear baseball caps and already have 1 that I can use that was nicer.