Tuesday 18 September 2018

Do I really need this?

As the kitchen and bathroom renovations are now to start at the end of October instead of the beginning of this month and it is too early to start packing up everything in the kitchen, I thought I would sort out a few things in the rest of the house especially the rooms in which we might be having some airconditioning units installed mainly for those 40C days which seem to arrive each summer now. The thought of having tradies traipsing through the rooms is a bit daunting so it is time to get rid of a lot of the excess 'stuff' that I haven't used for years but the problem is....what to throw out!!!



For example, do I put the photo frame in the above photo in the Op Shop when I love it so much but haven't even looked at it for years as it has been sitting in a pile of photo frames waiting for me to sort through them so I could decide what to keep but .....do I really need it? Hmmm, probably not even though it looks perfect with ....




...the mug rug/hot pad which I started at our Simple Living Toowoomba Toothbrush Rag Rug Workshop and finished last week. It isn't perfect but I don't do perfect anymore :-)




Then there are the many family photos to sort through although I won't be getting rid of my parents' wedding photos.




Can you believe my mother burnt that beautiful wedding dress that she quite possibly made herself as she didn't think anyone would want it? She was very gifted where sewing was concerned and made all my clothes when I was a child.







When our Mum died I inherited a box of postcards and I am not sure what I should do with them.





I think she kept every single postcard she was ever sent including lots of really old ones like this one of the Great Barrier Reef....




...this one of Southport on the Gold Coast....



....and this one of Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast taken in the 1970s. My my, how both the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast have changed since then. Do I throw these out? Hmmm!




To top it all off there is another box of postcards sent to Mum from her relatives in Scotland and there are also some which were sent to my grandparents years before that. They moved to Australia before WW1 and my grandfather came from a very large family so there was a lot of correspondence going back and forth as they kept in touch. I don't think I could bear to throw some of these out so I will have to be selective. Who knows...perhaps some day down the track one of my grandchildren will be interested in finding out about their family history and would like to read some of the postcards.

Our mother was a real family history buff in the days before the internet made research so much easier but none of us were really interested at the time and our eyes used to glaze over when she would tell us about her latest family discovery. Unfortunately since she died we have had many questions about the family which she could have answered and now I wish we had paid more attention. As I have aged I notice I  have become more interested in my family history so Mum would be pleased if she was still alive. 



So I think I will pack up the postcards once again and move on to another drawer or cupboard. Perhaps I should start going through all the photos I took when my children were little and keep the better ones for posterity. There are boxes and boxes of them. Oops! It is hard to be ruthless when decluttering, isn't it?









9 comments:

  1. Wow...what treasures and keepsakes. It would be hard to make these decisions.

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  2. I love your parents' wedding photos. Your mom was a beautiful bride. I think you look like your mom. :)

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    Replies
    1. Nil, I think my parents married in 1935. The wedding dresses were so elegant then.

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  3. Oh, your Mum's wedding dress was very beautiful, Chel. I absolutely adore looking at old wedding photos and seeing what style the dresses were. Just so lovely! I can't begin to think how one would sew something like that, your Mum was indeed very talented. Meg:)

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    1. Meg, it is hard to believe that Mum burnt the dress. It would have been such an heirloom. She must have been having a bad day :-)

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  4. Ah photos are a hard one. If you love your picture, maybe hang it up so you can enjoy it?

    Beautiful old photos, and yes, her dress is simply beautiful.

    xx

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  5. Is there a local history museum that would enjoy the postcards? In the U.S. some museums do displays that show what their town/region used to look like.

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  6. Good luck Nanna Chel in deciding what to do.

    I love your mothers wedding dress, and how talented these ladies were back in the day where there were not many options so they made their own. And what a beautiful job your mum did on her dress...

    I inherited old postcards like that, and hung on to them for years until I passed them on to my daughter who does scrap-booking, she loved them!

    I am out of hibernation, and back blogging :)

    xTania

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