Man must be careful to never mistake human justice for divine justice.
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
Imagine a loving parent with 12 children, now imagine asking that parent to give away eight of them. Worse, make it not "give away", make it "get rid of".
That's how I feel about clearing out the old house.
I simply have too much stuff. But every bit of it was individually chosen. Every piece was acquired because I loved it. Every item is individual and special.
I don't have room for all of it here, but what do I get rid of?
It's hard.
I want to find loving homes for most of the stuff that I just can't keep, and one way to ensure that is to sell it. If people pay for stuff, they're more likely to actually want it. But nobody is buying stuff.
I have a collection of about 38 teapots. I figure I should pick ten and sell the rest. Go to ebay, search for teapots, and you get page after page of "0 bids". I have hundreds of vintage '60s and '70s dress patterns. Same thing - "0 bids". Quilt blocks are selling, but at $4 for 40 squares, it's not worth the time it would take to cut up my fabric stash. I'd donate the fabric, less emotional involvement there, but nobody wants it.
So I pick things up, hold them, look at them, think about where I would put it in the new house and if I don't have an answer, I think about what I can do with it to "get rid of it", and I feel like crying.
.
1 comment:
Dear Silk -
Fortunately, these are not living things. These are tea pots.Herschel told me last night of a woman who had notice from her NJ township that the dam above her house was expected to collapse in two days. In those two days, she had to get together a lifetime's collection of things she loved. Of course, at any moment, the dam could have collapsed.
Look at your stuff at imagine that you have two days to save it from being inundated in ten feet of unbelievably filthy, contaminated water. You have only yourself and several friends to help you, some of whom are stronger than others.
A couple of alternatives:
1. etsy.com seems to be the new eBay. Emma told me that everything she sees on eBay this days comes from manufacturers or wholesalers.
2. Start giving these things that you love as gifts. This isn't regifting. It's gifting from the heart.
3. Call an auction house to come in and take everything away without your seeing what gets gone (I know nothing about the auction business, so this may be Too Far Out There). Do not go to the auction. Do not pass go.
4. What do you think is a reasonable number of teapots? What if you walked into a friend's house and saw a collection of 38 teapots on the wall? You would likely say to yourself, well, yes, I can see 12 or 6 but 38? That's crazy.
5. If you haven't gone through a box in ten years, it is extremely likely that you can let that box go to Goodwill or the Salvation Army without going through it.
6. When you donate or give these things, think of them as a blessing to other people.
7. Don't let the winnowing happen to you as it happened to me. Now, of course, I am relieved that it did and at the same time, was glad I salvaged what I could.
If you need moral support up Nort' or down in Jersey, let me know. I will be glad to help however I can.
Post a Comment