Stuff

I want to have less stuff. I spent a few years cleaning out my basement before the renovation, and finally had to have help in the final clearing.  I like a clean, uncluttered look. I don't rotate holiday decorations, as a general rule, and some years barely even dressed the house for Christmas. I rarely entertain, so my good dishes get used for the family at Christmas, and hardly ever any other time.

So now I'm emptying my mother's apartment. Everywhere I look are wonderful things, and I'm struggling with not wanting to let them go. I hired an appraiser, and she will provide some information on actual monetary value. But I can't imagine myself going the ebay route to maximize value. It's more wanting to get use out of things. And also, unexpectedly, finding myself sentimental over the kind of things that have no apparent use and need dusting.  

There is a lot of crap, and that is not a problem. My mother would save all the free address stickers from all of the many many charities that each received $10 annually from her.  One full size brown grocery bag full of labels, into recycling. Flashlights that stopped working years ago, with batteries oozing acid. Maybe a dozen of those?  Opened rolls of wrapping paper, crinkled and dusty from poor storage. VCR tapes of movies she taped off the TV, with handwritten labels. Audio cassette tapes of books bought from library sales. Gone, gone, and gone.

There are sturdy, useful things, and that is a minor problem - what if I need one of these some day? A useful rule of thumb on that is, if it could be replaced for less than $25, and you don't need it now, get rid of it. Three corkscrews, two manual can openers and one electric one fall into this category. But there are other things: Four old boom boxes. Four Tivoli model one radios - I turned both my mother and her friend Ruthanne onto those. My mother kept Ruthanne's radios when she cleared out her apartment after Ruthanne died, and I suspect a lot of other stuff such as flashlights. I have four Tivoli radios myself already at home - how many more can my house hold? Once the answer would have been all of them - because I almost always have the radio going in my house - but now I tend to say, "Computer! Play NPR!" and it happens throughout the house at once. Piles of fabric, and curtains. Some of these things I will actually use, and now. At my house after my mother's memorial service, ice water was poured from "the Danish pitcher" - that was on my mother's kitchen counter since I can remember. But that is the exception, not the rule.

There are a few, small, valuable items and those are also a minor problem. There is no temptation to keep these things, but I can't just toss them. I got a great (and trustworthy) recommendation for an old-coin place - that'll be easy enough. Not sure about old jewelry. My mother's house was robbed - twice - in the 1980s, and so there isn't much jewelry left. But there is some, not appealing to me or the women in the family, but with small diamonds, and I'll have to figure this out. (Keep to be reset in the future as engagement rings? That's where my sister's and sister-in-law's rings come from.) Silver, pewter, brass items, of no utility but some beauty? My brother is taking the Wedgwood china - being Southern, they entertain and like to set a gracious table. But we agreed that if the kids want it in the future, they get it.

It's well understood that "brown furniture" is not generally wanted by today's youth. The appraiser told me it doesn't matter if it's old or not, it has little value despite its utility. My brother and I have houses filled with furniture. The kids aren't ready yet, though I was surprised they didn't reject the stuff out of hand. I keep eyeing what's here, because it's so good. No veneers here. My mother bought stuff at farm auctions in the midwest in the 1950s and 1960s and refinished it herself. This fairly simple style suits what is already in my house. Several small cherry tables, good as card tables, or in a kitchen? My brother and I will take the two smallest chests. All the new stuff, and one huge desk/china cabinet, have to go. But I keep re-arranging my house in my mind, getting rid of stuff, trying to see where I could fit it in. I'm pretty sure I'll rent a storage unit and it'll go in there for a defined time. (Did this get suggested at the recent blogger's bash? I know it wasn't my idea.) But anything I wouldn't consider giving house room to will get donated, if donation centers will take them.

There was a lot of paper, including photos. As of today, I have been through everything, and I now have 18 document boxes to store. Roughly a third are financial records, that can be pitched in few years without another need to review. I believe there is more there than I needed to keep, but too bad. There are bunches of boxes of photos and photo albums, for the storage unit. There are several boxes I labelled "personal", to be gone through more slowly. Yesterday, I found a collection of letters in their envelopes tied by a ribbon. I remembered this - when I was about ten years old my mother showed me the same collection and said they were the love letters my dad wrote her before they were married. (My dad? That silent guy?) There are other things, like marriage certificates. At any rate, I erred on the side of keeping things, because once things are gone they are gone forever. At a minimum, I want to read through things myself. Maybe there is a scanning or archiving project in the future, but for now it's simple preservation for later review.

Where I'm having the hardest problem is with unexpected sentimentality. My mother's clothes. I don't need them, I don't even really like much of them, but I find myself reluctant to let some of them go. The only things that may fit are nice sweaters and jackets, and I don't think I need any of those. I've stopped working, and I don't have much occasion to dress above a hoody. I like hoodies. I've been dressing like a 12-year-old boy since I was a 12-year-old girl, and I don't see stopping now. 

And small things. That have no use and require dusting. Many cool, cute, small things. Everywhere I look, there they are. My brother and sister-in-law, and the kids, have been through and picked out things and some have made their way already to my house. I won't do the ebay thing, and I don't want to store things and start rotating them. I am reluctant to even store them "temporarily" in the storage unit I'm planning to have. I guess I'll leave this to last. Suggestions welcome.

At some point, I'll hire help, but I haven't done it yet. My sister-in-law searched all the clothing drawers and found things squirreled away, valuable things and sentimental papers. So now I'm confident the clothing drawers can be dealt with by someone else. I filled my car with paper to be recycled and took it to the dump myself yesterday. I can get a trash container delivered up here and make one pass to get rid of the bigger crap. I can hire someone to pack and ship things to my brother. I can hire them to pack the storage unit with the furniture and boxes we are keeping. I can use them for donations, as well, but I feel like they won't truly use due diligence. Sigh. I'll keep plugging away.