Use it or Lose it...sentimentality dealt with!

Here is another post where I copy someone else's post because they say it so much better than I can! Her name is Kelly and her blog is 'imperfect homemaking'. What a great concept!

NOVEMBER 6, 2010 Use It or Lose It... As we passed the time at a farmers market one spring morning, a friend told me a tragic story. Her beautiful table linens, the ones passed down from her great grandmother, the ones with beautiful intricate designs and embroidery, the ones that where just to good to use.... ...were eaten by mice. The linens she had gently washed and pressed and folded and then placed safely in a drawer, each one separated by a piece of parchment paper.... ...Destroyed. Garbage. Gone.

Friends, use your good stuff: the antique silverware, the irreplaceable china, and yes, great grandmas linens. My friend was saddened to see her linens destroyed. Of course she was, they represented something important to her. But the only difference between when she had those linens and now is that now she's got a drawer freed up to fill with things she will actually use. Be it mice, or fire, or a dinner guest dropping it on the floor, one day you will be separated from all of your beautiful things. Accept this. Say good bye to all of those beautiful things. And then truly appreciate their beauty as you use them to serve the people you love most. Once you have already said good-bye, when that trying-to-be-helpful dinner guest drops a supposedly priceless heirloom and the whole room comes to a standstill and everyone turns to look and see how you are going to respond... you can smile. And tell them you knew that would happen eventually. No harm done, except for maybe a couple tears shed in the kitchen while the coffee brews.
 When my friend told me her story of the linens, I started to wonder if maybe the things we own, no matter how sentimental, are completely meaningless until we have used them to serve somebody else. Use your beautiful things. Use them to serve the people in your life who are truly priceless. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. {Matthew 6:19-21} http://www.imperfecthomemaking.com/

 As anyone who knows me knows I have really trouble getting rid of things. Not everything, just anything that I think may have some sentimental value to me...which is pretty much anything that my family has touched! This post is actually not related exactly to that but her website got me thinking. I will save that contemplation for another post.

 Today I will state that I do try to use my pretty things as much as possible...but I do have things that are not used, Hobbs crystal and china that I will get out of the garage and use!!!I will try to use the linens that are too special to use and not to cringe when someone spills on them. I will try to say good bye before hand so that every time I put them away in one piece I can feel a bit of joy and happiness that I own such things of beauty.
 I will tell the kids the stories of the dishes and the vases and the linen, even if I have told them all this before, so someday if any of it is left they can tell it to their children. I will try to photograph and scrap the stories so it is easier to say good bye if necessary.
I will try, really I will try , to get my mom to share her stories and scrap them so we will remember!!!
 Actions not words, Karen, actions not words.

Our Christmas card 2011

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