Otherwise known as: what I’m doing with all this anxiety. Cause I’m still feeling a lot of anxiety. Thankfully I’m capable of using it in ways that will make me happier long term.
I have been working on cleaning up the garage and paring things down a little more and a little more and a little more. The shed in the back yard has been awesomely handy for most of the time I’ve lived here, but at this point there are almost as many leaks in the roof as there is roof. Given that it is a cheap metal shed ‘fixing’ it would mean just tacking a tarp over it and my freak out about getting away from my white trash roots mean that I just can’t live with that as a solution. Last year with all the lovely rain we developed a rather unpleasant mold problem and a bunch of stuff had to be trashed. Thus my goal right now is to go through stuff in the garage and shed and get to the point where all of our stuff fits comfortably in the corner of the garage so Shanna can still have a playroom and we can get rid of the shed. I’m not sure how that will long-term affect what I do with the back yard but I can’t help but think it’ll be a good thing to not have random crap living out there that we never touch. 🙂 I’m working pretty seriously towards this ‘minimalist’ lifestyle thing and it’s making me happy. I am pretty convinced that we will not be able to move out of this house any decade soon and that means we will need to fit in this space comfortably as our kids grow up. This means making room for their stuff. So I’m getting a head start on that process so it’s not a tug-of-war power struggle over who has to get rid of stuff later. 🙂 Not to mention that the less shit we have the less cleaning we have to do!
So Shanna’s toys are consolidating. The pantry is consolidating. I’m trying to figure out the happy medium between getting rid of too much stuff that we will actually miss and getting down to just the stuff that improves our life.
I’m having a quandary about something though. (Hint: this is one of the rare times I’m open to advice!) I have a gorgeous crystal punch bowl shaped like a huge brandy glass with accompanying tiny punch glasses. This is like 40ish years old at this point so it is very fragile. I think I would be afraid to actually use it because it is a family sentimental piece. It was my moms–one of the few things she managed to hang on to through all the years of her hellish moving. Despite my overall lack of sentimentality I would absolutely never just ‘get rid of’ this. I won’t sell it to strangers and I won’t donate it. But I feel like giving it back to my mother is… awkward. If I leave it at my Aunt’s house for my mom to pick up I feel like I will be opening the door for her to do the same thing to me and I don’t want that to happen. If I ask my niece if she wants it (to ‘keep it in the family) it would be a passive aggressive way of getting it back to my mom because my niece will ask my mom about it, not to mention that they are living together. I would kind of like to just give it back to my mom. This is an important thing to her and I have enough respect for her sentimental attachment to it that I can’t get rid of it… but it doesn’t really mean as much to me. Any ideas on how to resolve this situation?
Do you have her current address?
You could always mail it to her with a simple “found this, thought you would want it back” kind of note, and not include your return address if you don’t want to.
Good idea.
I haven’t actually seen or spoken to my mother since 2005, but we’ve developed an amicable exchange of letters. I send her three or four a year, updating her on family stuff. She sends occasional holiday or birthday cards. We get along MUCH better this way, and I’m no longer angry with her all of the time. We keep it polite – rather like you would with a distant elderly relative. It works for us.
ON THE OTHER HAND. . . it may also be of value to your own children as a bit of their heritage. H. loves her mahogany four poster because it was her grandmothers childhood bed, then mine, and now hers. It makes her feel connected, to have something in the family that passes down from generation to generation.
Well… but I think your family has less acrimony than my family. My kids will never know this woman and will hear as little about her as humanly possible.
I don’t have an address for her and given that she now lives with my sister I may never again. I am not allowed to have my sister’s address after turning her into CPS for giving alcohol and drugs to minors.
And they all have my address.
How close are you with your Aunt? Could you take the already packaged bowl to her and ask that she ship it to your mother (you’ll pay the additional shipping)?
She would tell me that is stupid–they have contact between their houses at least once a week.
I don’t have advice.
I do have a TON of boxes of dishes that my mom got me that I am agonizing over what to do with. There are so many that just a cabinet to hold them is out of my budget, many are antiques, some not….but its too much. She just kept buying them and buying them even before I moved out and would then complain about the space they took up.
Giving them back would break her heart and most of them would probably only sell in England (where I think she bought so many of them). :o/
I’d love to hear it if you find a magic answer.
OMFG advice?! 😉
…why can’t you just give it back to your Mom? Say that you don’t have the room to store it, and that it’d likely get broken given the small children in the house, and that you know it’s sentimental for her, so you want to return them to her. Alternatively, wait until your niece is not living in the same house and pass them to her (“to keep it in the family” – IF that is important to you). Or hold onto them and use them for formal occasions or holidays. Or…I guess you could display them once there’s no risk of Shanna or Calli breaking them?
Personally, I’d use them for special occasions and holidays. The dish set we use started as part of a set that was my maternal grandmother’s. We’ve bought more from the same design to help complete it…and to replace a few that were, indeed, broken. Breaking a few was pretty upsetting…but I like that we use them.
You might like to read through some of the Viridian Design movement archive. Minimalist stuff with a twist.
from Debs
not a suggestion for your specific predicament…
but something that I once saw on CleanSweep (a show that made me hurt because they threw treasures/trash away): If there is something that I keep around simply cuz it was a “gift”, but I don’t actually have a use for it, or if I am keeping something for the memory… the only suggestion I appreciated on that show was this: Take a photo of it. Keep the photo as your memory. Pass the dust collector to someone who will appreciate it.
That’s what I do now, for general stuff.
I’m sorry I don’t have anything useful for your mum 🙁 . *hugs*
oh, bloody wonderful.
you actually *ask* for advice and i have none!
wait a sec….
you planned this all out, dincha?
genius. pure genius.
oh, and hey!
i’m delighted you have enough energy to be nervous with.
thought i’d mention that, too.
welcome back from the brink.
Why is giving it back to your mother a bad thing? Because it re-establishes contact or because your mother would be offended that you no longer want it?