The keepsake book for your mum’s 90th sounds like a lovely idea.
It’s a hard task, going through someone else’s stuff, trying to decide what to keep and what to get shot of. We had to do that recently when an elderly aunt moved into a care home.
However, off the back of this experience, when we moved to Devon 18 months ago we decided that nothing was going in the loft in our new home. And the removal guys also suggested we have all but the essential boxes delivered to the garage, to be unpacked as and when we needed specific items (I had catalogued each box carefully so we knew where to look). This way, we ensured that only essential belongings have made it into the house. The rest went to charity or was sold or dumped. And still we try to be mindful of what we need and what we can do without, so that when the time comes our daughters have an easier task than might otherwise have been the case. In fact, keeping this in mind has made me much more ruthless than I (a bit of a hoarder) have ever been!
This sounds just like us Kim. After having spent two whole days clearing our loft in our old house ours is now only used for suitcases and Christmas decorations, so out of the way most of the time but taken down when needed. Despite our big downsize we still have way too much stuff though. I’m on a mission!
The music choice did make me laugh! Thank you for the book recommendation too as it is lovely to make a discovery such as this.
Clearing belongings like this is so hard. We have recently done it for my father in law and it was such a difficult process, and though he was incredibly organized and everything was carefully labeled, there were some wonderful discoveries.
I definitely found it an interesting book on many levels. I’m still waiting for wonderful discoveries in Mum’s things but mostly it’s more Damart catalogues! I did find a couple of rings yesterday that she thought she had lost so I guess that’s a win!
I am helping mum and dad move after 25 years in their current place, I am having the opposite trouble, mum seems to feel she needs to get rid of everything and I keep having to explain she can still take the maybe things with her, she doesn’t need to decide everything now. She also sees all my dad’s boxes of “rubbish” to be thrown out (bowls handbooks and results), and She can’t see they are all his memories…. Its such a tricky time for everyone
Sadly I think this is what mum did when she moved from the family home… threw away all dad’s ‘rubbish’ and other stuff that might have been interesting and yet kept hundreds of photos of floral arrangements!
When my mother-in-law came to live with us she brought, amongst other useful things, a plastic bag full of tubs of cocktail sticks, and another full of old fashioned hair clips. She was definitely not suffering from any kind of mental decline although aged 90. When she died , five years later, I was surprised to find, amongst her paperwork, the first chapter of a novel. Obviously not written by her as it contained annotations in her handwriting address to another reader (unnamed). It was many years old and had been typed on an oldfashioned typewriter using carbon copy paper to make a second copy.
Her choice of what was precious to her was baffling, though I fear mine might be too - must talk to daughter before we get near that stage, she'll have enough to deal with sorting her father's treasures!
The keepsake book for your mum’s 90th sounds like a lovely idea.
It’s a hard task, going through someone else’s stuff, trying to decide what to keep and what to get shot of. We had to do that recently when an elderly aunt moved into a care home.
However, off the back of this experience, when we moved to Devon 18 months ago we decided that nothing was going in the loft in our new home. And the removal guys also suggested we have all but the essential boxes delivered to the garage, to be unpacked as and when we needed specific items (I had catalogued each box carefully so we knew where to look). This way, we ensured that only essential belongings have made it into the house. The rest went to charity or was sold or dumped. And still we try to be mindful of what we need and what we can do without, so that when the time comes our daughters have an easier task than might otherwise have been the case. In fact, keeping this in mind has made me much more ruthless than I (a bit of a hoarder) have ever been!
This sounds just like us Kim. After having spent two whole days clearing our loft in our old house ours is now only used for suitcases and Christmas decorations, so out of the way most of the time but taken down when needed. Despite our big downsize we still have way too much stuff though. I’m on a mission!
The music choice did make me laugh! Thank you for the book recommendation too as it is lovely to make a discovery such as this.
Clearing belongings like this is so hard. We have recently done it for my father in law and it was such a difficult process, and though he was incredibly organized and everything was carefully labeled, there were some wonderful discoveries.
I definitely found it an interesting book on many levels. I’m still waiting for wonderful discoveries in Mum’s things but mostly it’s more Damart catalogues! I did find a couple of rings yesterday that she thought she had lost so I guess that’s a win!
I am helping mum and dad move after 25 years in their current place, I am having the opposite trouble, mum seems to feel she needs to get rid of everything and I keep having to explain she can still take the maybe things with her, she doesn’t need to decide everything now. She also sees all my dad’s boxes of “rubbish” to be thrown out (bowls handbooks and results), and She can’t see they are all his memories…. Its such a tricky time for everyone
Sadly I think this is what mum did when she moved from the family home… threw away all dad’s ‘rubbish’ and other stuff that might have been interesting and yet kept hundreds of photos of floral arrangements!
I liked Possession! But I have too much stuff.
I think Possession really divided our reading group. We either loved it or hated it… no one sat on the fence!
When my mother-in-law came to live with us she brought, amongst other useful things, a plastic bag full of tubs of cocktail sticks, and another full of old fashioned hair clips. She was definitely not suffering from any kind of mental decline although aged 90. When she died , five years later, I was surprised to find, amongst her paperwork, the first chapter of a novel. Obviously not written by her as it contained annotations in her handwriting address to another reader (unnamed). It was many years old and had been typed on an oldfashioned typewriter using carbon copy paper to make a second copy.
Her choice of what was precious to her was baffling, though I fear mine might be too - must talk to daughter before we get near that stage, she'll have enough to deal with sorting her father's treasures!
That’s fascinating Jane. I guess we all have different ideas about what is precious and what we need to keep