Tuesday Thoughts About...

...our stuff. I really don't intend to keep harping on this, but I have a perfect example of what I keep preaching: "our kids don't want our stuff!" Here's proof positive.

In August, Butch's favorite uncle passed away. He was an important influence on his life. We went to Oklahoma for the funeral. Uncle Pat and Aunt Jean had only one son. They were the type that saved everything. Brian is now in the position of having to clean out. There are boxes and boxes of paperwork and other "stuff." It's overwhelming and impossible for him. He gave us tons of stuff and told us to do whatever we wanted with it---he didn't want any of it. Of course, I just HAD to go through it. I couldn't just toss it. Plus, there might be something of interest for Butch regarding his family.

 The suitcase alone is pretty cool. I'll put it up on a shelf or something as part of the decor!

 Letters, letters and more letters. I put aside anything I thought Butch and Walter would be interested in. I also started a pile to send back to Brian of things I thought he might like to have---even though he said he didn't want any of it.

The suitcase above had dozens and dozens of these check receipts. I threw those out before I took the photo. Once I got those out, the suitcase looked pretty neat.

And then I found CASH!

 And more CASH!

And still more CASH! It didn't add up to much---around $30.00, but still, it would have been thrown away! Yes, in case you are wondering, the cash goes in the "Brian" pile!

My niece made a comment recently (I'm not going to say which one) that there was no way she was going through all that stuff her mom has. She was going to hire someone to come in with a bulldozer to shovel it out and just haul it all away. That makes me so sad. But the bottom line remains---our kids don't want our stuff. It's just a burden to them. In fact, when my sister-in-law told her that she had stashed cash so many places that she didn't even remember, my niece told her she better start going through her stuff because she wasn't going to do it. She said that frankly, she didn't have that kind of time. I get it. It's too much.

This is the next box which seems to have some really interesting and anciently old stuff. I was pretty disappointed as I started through it. There was a lot of junk and just plain trash---envelopes with nothing in them with many stamps torn off. I did collect quite a few stamps. I was going to quit when Butch came in and started helping, so we did make it through the box. There were a couple interesting things.

 I liked the graphics, font and colors of this program.

I opened it up and had a chuckle at the menu: olives, pickles, celery. The Waldorf salad caught my eye. My grandmother made that all the time. I haven't had it in about 50 years. I don't think I've ever seen it on a menu.

 And then there was this Christmas card.

When I opened it up, there was a dime taped inside. It was so worn, that we couldn't determine the date. I thought the reason for the dime was cute. Apparently it was a reward for returning this guy's "billfold!" How old-fashioned of a word is that?

There were dozens of greeting cards from the 1940's and 1950's. There was at least a 6 inch stack of postcards---really old with 1 cent stamps. I kept those out because I just didn't have the heart to throw them away. I even thought about putting them on Ebay and sending Brian the money. But ultimately, I don't want to bother with it. I put all of that in the box we're giving to Walter. He can throw it all away if he wants.

I guess the bottom line is: we didn't find anything worth much. I'm not even sure the $30 was worth the hours it took to go through it all. I'd say it took me about 10 hours to look at everything. I did do it while watching tv. Multitasking made it doable.

Luckily for my girls, I don't keep a lot of trivial stuff. Still, there's more than they will want to be bothered with. I need to go through it myself and be ruthless. I've made a small start. I decided a couple years ago to quit saving my playbills. No one wants those. I already have at least a hundred. I just about threw them out recently, but didn't. I never look at them, so what am I keeping them for? At least I am not adding to them anymore.

Probably the biggest "problem" in our house is my scrapbook room. Really, we just need to get a shovel and go at it. It's ridiculous!

What about you? What do you have a lot of---that no one wants?