focusing on the good stuff, pt 1

The big downsizing garage sale was this past Sat, and my parents and my niece Sarah and I really worked hard all week preparing for it. (DH was supposed to be telecommuting, but would come help lift boxes and helped keep an eye on the munchkins while he worked.)  I already told you how much I enjoyed going through the house with my parents sorting, esp. up in the attic; my second favorite part of the whole thing was setting up a little "boutique" of my mother's lovely discards.  My mother has very good taste (which she passed on to me ; ) and so there was a lot of really nice stuff to set up.  My dad made low tables out of cherry shelving and an old, very shabby-chic door, and I arranged the decor items by color and season: spring/Easter, Americana, summer (Americana in the middle because it contained country-ish decor that perfectly melded spring-ish garden-y things with summery 4th of July things), fall/harvest/Thanksgiving, and winter/Christmas.  And we're talking handmade ceramics and hard-carved wood and designer candles and wreaths and brass and stone and glass--none of this chinzy plastic stuff.  One lady who came at the beginning of our sale also came back at the end and bought more--she told my mother that ours had been one of the best that day.  And considering that DH counted from the newspaper ads that there were EIGHTY-SEVEN garage sales in town that same day, that's saying something.  But that also meant we did not get nearly the number of people I would have expected.  In fact, I was downright depressed by what I thought was a low turn-out until I found out my parents still made enough money from their sales to have made it worthwhile.

And really, the most important part of the whole endeavor was sorting through the house, making the first sweep of paring down household goods in preparation for my parents listing their house on the martket, and eventually moving.  And that was a complete success: I think by the end of the week I had poked into every single cupboard and closet and nook and cranny in the house, including the basement and the attic.  I feel like I was helpful--and I found quite a few treasures to bring back home to CA with us.  In the process I also got to enjoy my parents' stories about where things came from, to whom they originally belonged, etc--and I love knowing the stories behind stuff.  (I will now have to get those stories written down so I don't forget!)

A few of my favorite items that we get to bring home:
--A handmade cloth doll named Alice, who was made for my mother when she was five.  She has handmade clothes too.  I used to play with Alice when I was a girl, so the pleasure in inheriting her is partly nostalgic, partly having a piece of something special from my mother's childhood, and partly because I love handmade things--they seem more "real" than storebought.

--Wooden bowls and cups made by my great-grandfather, Grandpa Troy.  From what my mother said, he had a hobby of collecting wood from different places where they visited, and then he would turn those pieces into beautiful little cups, each no bigger than a person's hand. Each one is a different design, and he even stamped the kind of wood onto the cup somewhere.  I guess he made a lot of them, and after he died family members were invited to take one (or more); my mother said she ended up with whatever people did not take, so she has about 25 or so.  she has had five on display for as long as i can remember, and now she will be offering them to the family members who come for the reunion.  doug and i are each going to choose one.  Even better--while sorting through a cupboard, Mother and I found five little wooden bowls, very rustic, also made by Grandpa Troy.  So I could give one to each of my children, and the girls cherished them immediately and started keeping their own little treasures in them, on a shelf in the basement where we are staying. (their treasures include shell necklaces from my childhood, cap tassels from my mother's high school graduation and other unknown educational milestones, little olive wood communion cups from my parents' trips to Israel, all little things liberated from their longterm storage spaces around the house this past week)  How cool is that, for them each to have a little something hand-made by their great-great-grandpa?!

--My mother found a little box of things that were her father's, from WWII--badges, pins, coins, newspaper clippings.  She is saving most of them for my nephew Christopher, who is really into American military history and wants to be a historian when he grows up.  But there were several patches, including his "stripes"--I guess he was a private, first class--so she gave some to me.  That same day we found her old Girl Scout sash, with all its badges of merit, and it gave me a wonderful idea--to take some of those patches off her sash (she gave full blessing) and my grandfather's  "stripes" and some of DH's old boy-scout merit badges and my father's old "letter" patches from high school, and sew some of each on denim jackets for each of the kids. How cool would that be?  I'll wait will they are a little older and will understand the significance of the patches (and when they won't outgrow my handiwork too quickly), but it is a fun project to keep in mind.

(Perhaps I am also dating myself with that idea--maybe the whole embellished jean jacket thing is too 1980's.  And yes, I had a jean jacket in high school upon which I had pins, patches, etc. I even had several boyfriends add items to the jacket!  And now that I think about it, I still have some of those pins and patches tucked away in my jewelry box at home. . . I'm thinking the kids' jackets just got a little something from me added to the project too! ; )

So, handling my parents' stuff has been fun.  Nostalgic, historic, enlightening.  When all is said and done, it is still just stuff.  But if you are going to have stuff in house house, make it good, useful, beautiful, or meaningful stuff!


More "stuff" later.  For now, I'd better head to bed.  Still not getting enough sleep--and of course there is still too much fun stuff to do each day, so we need every bit of sleep and energy we can get!