An Older Legacy

This is a replay of an old guilt release from before I started the blog.  When Grandma D died, I was given her shoes.  They had been bought for her after she had moved to the nursing home and had only been worn when she was taken to visit one of her children, usually my Aunt E.

When I say "when she was taken," I mean that the shoes were put on her, then she taken by wheelchair to the car, driven to Aunt E's house, taken by wheelchair inside, and sat where she wanted to sit.  Then the shoes were taken off, so that she could be more comfortable.

She had Parkinsons and was largely immobile by that time.  So when she died, the shoes were far to much like new to be thrown out.  By communal consent, or maybe just because my feet were the same size, I was given her last shoes.  I wasn't broke at the time, but I had been recently, and I had been raised by the people who considered it a family duty to be frugal and see that someone got the use out of those shoes.  Even if I hadn't had a recent memory of scrimping and pinching, it would have felt perfectly right.

 

As you can see, I got the full use from them.  In honor of Grandma and in honor of my thrifty relatives, I wore them until they wore out.  They were yardwork shoes after one sole came lose and had to be duct taped.  Then another pair of shoes descended to yardwork status.  No one needs two sets of yardwork shoes.

 

So I entered the phase of guilt.  Do I throw it out, and feel guilty about throwing out Grandma's shoes.  Or do I not throw it out, and feel guilty for having an extra pair of ugly shoes taking up space in my small closet.  (Throwing out the better pair of worn shoes wasn't an option.)

 

So I took a picture.  To remember.  And it worked.  I could throw the shoes away.  And now I've written about it, which is even better.  

Sometimes It's The Little Things

Sometimes it's the little things that are hard to get out of the house.  For instance, this:

is my Mother's bowling league champion patch.  It doesn't take up much space, does it?  What can keeping it hurt? 

Well.  Now the picture is here, as a memorial, and the actual patch has been thrown in the trash.  It may be just one little thing, but there's alway one more little thing, and another after that.  And yes, I need the space. 

This:

 

was, oddly, a little harder to get rid of.  It's one of those sets of sunglasses that your optometrist gives you when you weren't expecting him to dilate your eyes.  It unrolls and clings to the sides of your face.  It will get you home, but that's about it.

It was rolled around the turn signal stem of Mom's van.  In case she ever needed them.  She had a pair of actual sunglasses in her purse, so the odds of her ever having to use these were slim.  But they weren't broken, so there was no reason to throw them out. 

They stayed tucked out of the way, but ready to leap into action for years, maybe decades.  She and I both wore/wear bifocals.  I tested it.  It won't stay on over a pair of glasses.  So she never could have used them. 

They left the house a week or more ago.  I don't remember if I chucked them or sent them to the thrift shop. 

Collage of Mom's Frogs

This is a collage of photos of some of Mom's frogs.  Many of them were given to her by her good friend, DeeDee.  They were all over her house and yard.  I got most of the obvious ones in the house, but didn't get more than one or two of the outside ones.  By got, I mean photographed, not kept.  Photographing them was enough.

I kept the little candle holder frog.  I don't remember if my sisters took one or not. 

The House Clears (Photo Later) And NaNoWriMo 2012 Starts

Dear Son and Devoted Girlfriend have cleared the front room.  Well, they've cleared it of most of the things that they brought back from Mom's place.  Some of it is in the garage waiting to be sorted, but that counts because Dear Son first had to clear the garage to make space and then he assembled the wire rack shelves that everything to be sorted is now sitting in.  This is Great Progress (a Capitalized Essence).  I am grateful.

I am also able to walk around in the front room, which is nice.  I'm feeling far less claustrophobic.  Many boxes in the kitchen have been cleared away as well, making the kitchen a much more useful place.  (Contented Sigh.)

Dear Son motivated us to gather a Young Friend and to go IHOP last night so that we could all begin NaNoWriMo at midnight.  I'm keeping the gathered words in a separate blog.  I'm surprised that Patchwork Riddle was already taken as a blogspot address.  I had to add the nano to it. 

Thankyou to Dear Son for getting us all started.  I'm up to 1,092 words so far.  Only 48,908 to go.

Does the Pile Look Any Smaller?

I've been sorting through things.  Dear Son and his Devoted Girlfriend have been sorting through things.  There's just a lot to sort through.

I've taken some pictures and let some things go.  I'll post the pictures, but later.  I want to reminisce over them a little and, well, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is about to start.  I want to save the word count and the introspection for that.

 It's also too late at night for introspection.  And I have to drive an hour in the morning to attend a workshop.  I need to remember to take a book on tape to keep me awake.  Hey, mornings aren't my strong suit.

I swear that I've thrown things out and put things in boxes and bags for a trip to the thrift store.  That's assuming that Devoted Girlfreind doesn't organize a yard sale.  It could happen.

The Ads Aren't Supposed to Make ME Want to Buy Things!

I wonder if it's because I used the word Toastmaster.  There's now an ad for something called the Ideaboard at the side of this blog.  It might not be there when you read this, of course.  I don't have control of that.

Unfortunately, as a Toastmaster who often gives speaches in small rooms, it looks like it would be really handy.  Visual aids really add to a presentation.  They smooth a presentation out, too, because there's less worry that I'll forget something.  The small one is even within my current whim purchase limits.  Fortunately, the big one isn't, and I want it slightly more than I want the small one. 

It may not be obvious why that's a fortunate thing, wanting both of them.  The key is that I'd feel bad (guilty?) if I made the wrong purchasing choice and now one of the choices isn't within the whim limit, so I'll have to stop and think about it for awhile.

One of the blessings of having a bad memory is that I can use it with confidence to weed out the purchase of things that I don't really want.  I just tell myself I'll think about it.  Let it sit on the back burner.  If it's not something I REALLY want, I'll forget about it. 

If I keep remembering the nifty way it sets up and the way that the transparancies turn the paper tablet into a white board, I may end up buying both of them.  But if I forget . . . hey, more money in my pocket. 

I just had to grouse.  I didn't expect the ads on the side to bring in any money.  I just didn't expect them to make me want to spend money myself.  Grumble, grumble.

You Thought the Last Two Were Bad

I'm not sure what to call this one.  I had Christmas Has Left the Building.  I had Unpacking Grandma.  Now Youngest Son and Devoted Girlfriend are back from the far away state where my Mother's house, garage, and various sheds are finally empty.  
(Pictures below)

They returned in a van and a truck hauling a rented trailer, all three of which were filled.  My house is now very not empty.

 At one point, YS&DG had run the two nearest small towns out of large trash bags.  The nearest town that still had some stocked was 45 minutes away.  He estimates that they filled and hauled away 200 large bags of old paperwork, broken things, worn out things, and long expired food.

That's not counting the twenty bags of old paperwork and obsolete maps and advice books that went bye-bye both of the times that I went up.  And this was after she had spent maybe two years trying to sort and disburse as much as she could. 

I'll talk more about what sort of thing she couldn't or didn't get around to parting with, later.  At one point she and Dad had shoe boxes containing every cancelled check they ever wrote, and those had been sent to the great balance sheet in the sky.  So it could have been worse.

Since this is The Guilt List, I always sort of listen inside myself, straining to catch a whisper of guilt, whenever I post.  If I listen now, I perceive within myself guilt that YS spent so many weeks doing this work.  Fortunately, I feel more gratitude than guilt.  He was doing it for Mom and Dan and for the rest of the family that couldn't be there, as much as he was doing it for me.  I think it was a wonderful thing for him to do.

It's not over, yet.  I'll get to help sort and disburse or store the things that they brought back and the boxes and boxes that came back on previous trips.

It's a relief that there's not much to add to the kitchen.

The biggest pile inside.

Devoted Girlfriend is sorting.  There is an aisle, there.

Boxes and half-sorted pictures on the table.  Boxes under the table.

I'm sure that going through everything will bring up memories.  It has every other time.  It won't just be memories of Mom.  Mom sort of inherited pictures, papers, and bits & pieces from the two generations before her.  Not to mention, the collections of two husbands. 

YS&DG have been in purging mode for weeks, now, and they're determined to continue, going through their stuff and my stuff after we've purged or controlled the old relatives' stuff.  I'm going to do what I can to join them.  We've seen what it can build up to if you're not willing to be brutal and send things out of your life. 

And if I have trouble letting enough go, I'll be writing about it here.