How many of you picked a spot and started to do some clean-up? I know Trixy did, and it was purely a coincidence. Here’s the thing. My mother is a hoarder. She grew up in an era where people didn’t throw anything away. She is a crafter, she is thrifty and she developed a mental disease called hoarding. I know as we go through stuff, that it’s had to comprehend why someone would save some of the stuff that we’ve found. I think my brothers are having a more difficult time comprehending. But that’s OK. We balance each other out.
I used to be embarassed by the hoarding thing, but now I realize that this is something that she can’t really control. She could try, but at her age - it isn’t going to happen. What I can do is to control MYSELF from getting that same way. Yes some people would consider me a hoarder and to some extent I am. I have more craft supplies/fabric than I’ll eve use in my time. And my brothers are just as bad if not worse than I am.
From my post on Facebook and Instagam, I’m not alone. Our parents were all in the same boat - don’t throw anything away. My Mom may have been a bit worse because she is a crafter and that means that ANYTHING is fair game. Plastic handles from bags of sugar, the cardboard holders from take out drinks, pine cones - we found BOXES and BOXES of pine cones. It’s scary.
It makes me want to go home and literally take each piece of stuff I own and if I haven't touched it in six months - just toss it. I’m not kidding. And my house is NOTHING compared to what we saw yesterday. Not even that office of mine comes close.
Let me explain the situation a wee bit. Sorry this isn’t about quilting, but in a way it is. I think quilters possess these hoarding tendencies and we need to get them under control.
My parents lived on a farm which they still own. When they moved there, there was an old house - no running water, no indoor plumbing. I lived in that house until I was 16. Yep - lots of fun. The house was full of knick knacks and stuff which was my job to dust. It’s because of that job that I have a cleaning lady today. A newer house was moved onto the property and we moved into that house. Yeah to indoor plumbing and running water. The old house became a dumping ground for everything.
As we moved away, my parents became garage sale junkies. My Mom in particular. Let’s just say that Mom got hooked up with the “wrong” crowd. And ANYTHING ”useful” was bought and saved. Do you know how many teapots we found??? I don’t even called this collecting, because the collections were never displayed - they were just squirrelled away in that old house. No one has lived in that old house for 40 years. So you can imagine the state of it. When they had a tornado go through the yard several years ago, the damn thing touched the houses, but no seriou damage, but destroyed some of the shops/sheds/granaries. Stupid row of trees we planted to protect the house.
Although technically that wasn’t our mission yesterday (according to Mom) we spent the morning going through the entire house looking for items of interest that could be sold at an auction. We found all our old metal toys, many still in their original boxes (but we played with the toys). We discarded a lot of it and pulled out what we thought would be of any value. Glen (younger bother) said we were like the show Canadian pickers.
We found my mother’s shoes and purse she used at her wedding. And countless other things that would just turn your head.
The day started off rather interesting as we entered the house armed with a loaded gun, a rake and a hoe as weapons against some critters that we knew had invaded the house. Thankfully, the nest was empty when we arrived and we boarded up the opening that they used as their door.
The goal is to go through through the last two rooms of that house tomorrow so we can walk away from that place and never have to enter it again. It’s scary to say the least. No electricity so we needed flashlights for some stuff. I found boxes and boxes of empty boxes, saved Kleenex boxes, saved boxes (not flattened from craft art paints), ALL of our school notebooks. There is no need to empty the house so we’re just taking what we feel is valuable and the rest will stay. The next person who buys the farm will likely have a lively bonfire or just bulldoze the house down. While it would be nice to do that, there are a lot of memories and I prefers to leave it as is.
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