When your cherished items start making you look like a hoarder...

I have so many sentimental things I have kept because of who had given them to me. The only problem with that is now that I am the bit FIVE O I am having to learn how to let go of things that are sentimental.

I have discovered something that really helps, and moms...if you deal with letting go of things your kids make everyday at school and your fridge starts to look like a community bulletin board and the kids look everyday to see if their "star pieces all 100 of them are still there...I have a few suggestions...

First suggestion which I am doing myself this week...since we remodeled my home 2 years ago and my tastes have changed from Victorian/Queen Anne to Cottage/shabby chic and my remodel is almost in that exact vein (though I know others could use this easily in their home and it doesn't have to be cottage if we sell) The last piece sentimental piece I have had to get rid of was my beautiful Ethan Allen China Hutch my husband bought me for Christmas just a few years after we were married. It does not match but letting it go has been so tough...Here is the picture.... and I guess I"ll tell you after the picture what I did....

So what I did was pray that it go to someone who would cherish it (and it is to my long time friend Cathy who says she will love it more because it was mine and because I loved it so and they have been married about same amount of time as us what an awesome answer to prayer) and that I get enough money out of it to make it worth letting go. I even knocked off some of the price to my friend cuz I was so happy the prayer was answered after she agreed to pay more! hehe

What did I do to help me??? I did what I Posted on page one...I took pictures to remember this. I have several pictures in the past because I have changed the JUNK in it many times and would take pictures of those set ups at different times. This time I took pictures of the inside and outside etc. 

Sooooo here is the moral of the story...

1.  Moms, friends, seniors, etc, if you are having trouble parting with an item that

• your child is long done with but has 400 stuffed animals...(I took pictures of my stuffed animals and they fit in a 2 large trash bags when I gave them away to places that asks for clean stuffed animals
• doesn't really fit in with your life style, home decor, size of your home, 
• is not a family heirloom....
• and you are not madly in love with
• Is a collection that you no longer collect because the collection got too large

Take a picture and keep a place for these kind of pictures because the item is more about the memory rather than the piece itself...I have kept some very tiny pieces that I love and I kept a few of my stuffed animals that had really special meaning (like the first one Jim bought me when we were dating and long story...). Its ok to let them go. 

Its even ok to sell off some of your collection items...you can keep ones that have special meaning unless you need the money..or are moving into a very small retirement home or have to really downsize your items due to income loss and these are large collectible items.

I found that when I said I collected something I got millions of those items from dollar store to whatever and it started to overtake my whole life! I even helped a wonderful lady to create an over abundance possibly of certain christmas ornaments. I would not be heartbroken if she were wanting to take a picture and sell them off. Though I have a feeling if she has a little girl they might hang out for awhile, but they belong to her and she can do with as she pleases. We as friends, family members, etc also need to not look around those houses to see if they still have the items we gave them looking to see that they still love us that much...ok getting into TMI but it takes pressure off of the friend/family member and off of you basing your love and relationship with them on whether they keep items you gave them!

Moms and dads if your child has these issues let them have a hand in taking the pictures maybe with them in the picture, and have them help decide (if they are up to letting go) where the items should go. Sometimes if they still have issues you can put them aside and say we will let them go later and put them somewhere out of their site for awhile and they will let them go if they don't see them constantly.

2. Moms, grandmas, aunts, uncles, teachers etc. (wow didn't realize this would be so far down!) who receive such wonderful tokens of love in the way of childrens' artwork and don't want your little one to feel their items are not important. Here are a few things to try that have worked for my friends

• Have a showcase place for the "most current" piece of artwork for each child you want to commemorate. 
• Can be on the fridge or even now you can have a change in out frame and even put their name on it or above it or in a color they want...
• when they give you the new can be a wonderful tradition to take down the old one and together place the new one...
• then have a box you can place the older one into and even can do this by year. 
• For items that are not paper in nature...like handprints from school, used to be ashtrays from school but now I think they are vases hehe you can display a few of these and place the rest into a box by year and child
• Still ok to keep some, even have some one scan some of them that are unique and special, and ok to keep some of the tangible items as well but photos of these are a really good idea for small homes
• When the children are no longer children you can also pass a lot of these along to them and their children so they can remember as well can allow the parent to share their childhood with their own family.

Ok guess I'm done for now...hope you got a few tidbits of information from this!