Today was Day Two of the house clean out at Mom's.
We started out by having coffee, a worthy pursuit in and of itself, then decided to tackle my old room. Of course, it hasn't been my room for 34 years, but it's my room nonetheless. And before that it was our room, because Sis and I shared it for some ten or so years.
Packed into the small, 10' X 10' room was a double bed, dresser with mirror, chest of drawers, and nightstand. Opening the drawers was a feat worthy of a magician. Maneuvering around the furniture, a contortionist.
One drawer held socks. Easy. That went to the giveaway sack. Then there were more Christmas packagings, ribbon, scarves, and various items of clothing. A fake-fur collar from some coat we nicknamed Dead Animal. Simple enough.
But then we came to the sets of sheets.
Twin, Full and Queen sizes, anywhere from new to forty years old. Some of the older ones were still in the brand-new packaging. All in all there were probably twenty to thirty sets of sheets. And that doesn't count the towels. We won't even go into those.
You could certainly tell Mom was a Depression baby.
And though it seemed a shame to do so, we sacked up all the clothing she had in this second closet. Mom had great taste in clothes, and looked great when she dressed up for church or meetings. This was her dress-up closet. All of the clothing and shoes she had will be given away to charity.
We did well with this second room. I only broke down a couple of times. Once when we came upon a sweatshirt she wore for many years that pretty much shouted out "MOM!" to me. I kept it. Another time was when we were going through a drawer in the living room and found the Christmas list she'd written out of what she was buying for the family last year.
I think we've decided to sell her Hummel and Lowell Davis figurines on eBay, and possibly the coin glass collection as well. Neither of us want them. I honestly don't know if we'll have enough left over for an auction by the time we get done, but certainly for a sale. The thing is, I don't know if I want to run a sale or not. Seeing all those people pawing over Mom's stuff? Not high on my list of desirable pursuits. We may have to call someone else in to do that.
Monday the new refrigerator, microwave, washer, dryer and television will be delivered.
And I'll still wish we were hulking along with the old, decrepit stuff and that Mom was still here.
2 comments:
My grandmother kept every brown paper bag, every bit of string.... but when you ahve lived through depression and 2 wars, you know what to have in reserve of course.
You are getting there one room at a time. There is always the option of sending valuable stuff like the hummels to auction. The factory has closed, by the way, so the value will be going up too. So don't let them go for nothing.
There is still the small matter of the email you have not responded too, my friend.......!!
PS My word verification is slogin. You are slogin away at the house...
I dread the thought of going through my mom's stuff. I mean right now she's still with us and she'd probably think me just a bit presumptuous.
However, once she's gone I'll have the fun of playing detective because my mom, bless her heart, hides things. She hides importmant papers, receipts and cash. In books, drawers, the toes of shoes, pockets and vases.
It will fun...
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