There's a great advantage to moving within walking distance of my present home. Anytime I think of something I won't be using within the next two weeks, I can simply carry it over there.The smallest bedroom of three is going to be my computer room, but so far it's my memory room. I've stuffed it so full of memories, I'm not sure where I'll put the computer desk when I need it.
That baby crib (considered unsafe these days) served as a bed for both my babies. Before that, Cliff's sister Charlene slept in it; and it was given to the family for her use after a fire destroyed everything they owned, so who knows how many babies used it before. My son's first tooth-prints are on both the head and the foot. I simply can't get rid of it, and now I have a place for it. The rocking chair is one my mom used daily in the nursing home where she died; it's pretty scarred up, but very sturdy. How can I get rid of my mom's last piece of furniture?
I purchased that rocking horse at a garage sale for fifty cents shortly after my first grandson was born (he's twenty-two now). It's seen hours of use by dozens of kids since then. I blogged about the library table my grandfather made, already.
See the cabbage patch kid in the left-hand corner of the crib? My ex-daughter-in-law bought that for the oldest grandson's first Christmas. He never cared for it, but his sister and all my other grandkids have played with it. His birth certificate is long-since gone, but it had him named "Luther", which is my late father-in-law's name, as it happens. I can't possibly get rid of that. The throw pillow is made from a vintage hanky from my mom's collection. The doll in pink is a replica of the doll my daughter played with when she was two, the Drowsy Doll. The kneeling white Teddy bear used to say the "now I lay me down to sleep" prayer when you squeezed his tummy. That's something else my mom had in the nursing home, and she thought it was so very cute. Just behind him and Drowsy is a made-in-Germany bear my ex-daughter-in-law bought for her son or daughter when they were stationed there.
Oh, that's just Sadie, wondering why we're spending so much time in this strange and different dwelling.
These are some drinking glasses I used as a very young child; I have no idea how old they are. Do any of my readers know anything about this type of glass? Do you think it's some sort of carnival glass?
Here's what the bottoms look like.
My mom spent her last few years in a nursing home; little by little, she reduced her possessions until she had nothing of any real value. She did, however, manage to keep every available space in her little room filled with plastic tubs and containers filled with pictures and picture albums.Since she passed away, this treasure store of hers has resided in my "junk room" upstairs. Most of the time I simply shut the door and pretend it isn't there.Then I get on the Flylady bandwagon, and I'm ordered to set my timer and declutter the messiest room in my house for 5 minutes.I would take a picture so you could see how hopeless the task is, but I'm ashamed to show you. Five minutes wouldn't be enough time to get to a box and take the lid off.The thing is, Mother took the trouble, toward the end of her life, to put most of her pictures in albums: but the pictures are in no certain order. Next to a baby picture of me, taken in 1945, might be a picture of somebody Mother went to church with in 1998. And next to that you're liable to see pictures of my children taken in the 1960's, right beside photos of the great-grandchildren of Mother's second cousin twice removed, whom I've never had the pleasure of meeting.
Then there are many pictures of such poor quality that you wonder why she kept them at all. But there they are, stuck in an album.I brought one of the containers downstairs this afternoon; I sorted through the contents and actually got rid of some stuff. I've toyed with the notion of tossing the whole batch out, without even looking through the mementos. But then I'll find a picture that brings back childhood memories, and I can't make myself be that indiscriminate. I got rid of my mom's Bible today, the one she carried and read during her last years. My daughter took that off my hands. Lord knows, I don't need any more Bibles around here! The son-in-law stopped by to bring some bargain ground turkey I asked him to pick up at Price Chopper, and I sent the Bible home with him, along with some of my daughter's school pictures I removed from my mother-in-law's collection of keepsakes. But with all that, I forgot to send the home-made peanut butter cookies I made for the daughter's family.Oh well. The grandson who's living here will be glad to eat them.
Mother kept each one of those items I blogged about yesterday for reasons of her own. She kept the candy bar, I believe, to remind her of the beau who once bought her a Milky Way. I imagine that, in the middle of the depression, five cents for a candy bar was about all any hired farm hand could spare for his sweetie. I'm not sure if my dad was the one who bought it for her; I think she was also sweet on a couple of other fellows before she hooked up with him.
This is the entry Daddy left in Mother's autograph book when they were courting. I'd know his left-handed scrawl anywhere.Mother kept several of those perfect attendance awards like the one in the picture. After completing the eighth grade, she returned to her one-room schoolhouse and took seventh and eighth grades over again, simply because she loved school and learning. She told me that her dad didn't think high school was a good thing for young ladies... he felt it made them too "worldly". So she didn't have that option. Oh, and the "Cora Smith" who signed the certificate was her teacher. Many years later that same lady was my fourth-grade teacher. About the sale bill: My Uncle Leo eventually bought that farm and raised his family there. I don't know whether he bought it directly from my parents, though. We only could have lived there for a couple of months during the summer of my birth. I know this because I was born in Iowa in July, and the sale date is October. My parents never tried owning their own home again until 1957, in Kansas City.
This is my Uncle Leo's page from Mother's autograph book.
That baby crib (considered unsafe these days) served as a bed for both my babies. Before that, Cliff's sister Charlene slept in it; and it was given to the family for her use after a fire destroyed everything they owned, so who knows how many babies used it before. My son's first tooth-prints are on both the head and the foot. I simply can't get rid of it, and now I have a place for it. The rocking chair is one my mom used daily in the nursing home where she died; it's pretty scarred up, but very sturdy. How can I get rid of my mom's last piece of furniture?
I purchased that rocking horse at a garage sale for fifty cents shortly after my first grandson was born (he's twenty-two now). It's seen hours of use by dozens of kids since then. I blogged about the library table my grandfather made, already.
See the cabbage patch kid in the left-hand corner of the crib? My ex-daughter-in-law bought that for the oldest grandson's first Christmas. He never cared for it, but his sister and all my other grandkids have played with it. His birth certificate is long-since gone, but it had him named "Luther", which is my late father-in-law's name, as it happens. I can't possibly get rid of that. The throw pillow is made from a vintage hanky from my mom's collection. The doll in pink is a replica of the doll my daughter played with when she was two, the Drowsy Doll. The kneeling white Teddy bear used to say the "now I lay me down to sleep" prayer when you squeezed his tummy. That's something else my mom had in the nursing home, and she thought it was so very cute. Just behind him and Drowsy is a made-in-Germany bear my ex-daughter-in-law bought for her son or daughter when they were stationed there.
Oh, that's just Sadie, wondering why we're spending so much time in this strange and different dwelling.
These are some drinking glasses I used as a very young child; I have no idea how old they are. Do any of my readers know anything about this type of glass? Do you think it's some sort of carnival glass?
Here's what the bottoms look like.
