Keeping occupied
Last weekend the boy toy and I did some reorganizing of the small storage unit behind my condo (basically, it's an extra, non-climate-controlled closet). That involved opening a bunch of boxes of fragile items that had been sealed since I packed them after Mom's death in 1997. I did a good job back then -- absolutely nothing had broken over the years! And there were some things that I'd totally forgotten I had, like a couple of salt and pepper shakers made of blue and white china. They look like nesting chickens. I think my mother acquired them during her "blue and yellow kitchen" period in the 1970s. Boy toy and I added some of the items to the corner cabinet in the dining room and repacked others with less padding so that they would fit into fewer boxes.
I'm amazed at the amount of stuff my parents had. And the boy toy's grandmother too (who was about my mother's age, and who was close to the boy toy, so he inherited her china). I think it was their generation's culture -- they were the ones who didn't have much money in the Depression, and thus not many material possessions, so once they became young adults with their own homes, they wanted to "catch up." Plus, a lot of the modern kitchen gadgets we take for granted hadn't been invented yet, and add to that the social conventions that everybody wanted to entertain and that brides and grooms needed to receive gifts. No wonder, then, everybody had collections of china and covered candy dishes and aluminum-and-glass fruit "baskets" and pretty vases and hors-d'oeuvres trays and punch bowls and ... well, you get the picture.
I suppose I could try to sell this stuff, but I have no idea if it's worth anything. There's probably already too much of it on the market and not enough buyers. Ah, well. I will keep on enjoying these pieces, and maybe someday people will use them to pay for my funeral.
Tomorrow I'm driving out to the Eastern Shore for another "Revenge of the Stitch" SCA event -- a "garb wars" kind of competition in which six-person teams have 24 hours to sew up a whole medieval outfit from scratch. Should be fun, and I will continue to learn hand-sewing techniques.
I should end on a light note: you've got to see these briefs. Warning: you can't *unsee* them! :-D
This entry was originally posted at https://luscious-purple.dreamwidth.org/239496.html. Please feel free to comment either here or there.
I'm amazed at the amount of stuff my parents had. And the boy toy's grandmother too (who was about my mother's age, and who was close to the boy toy, so he inherited her china). I think it was their generation's culture -- they were the ones who didn't have much money in the Depression, and thus not many material possessions, so once they became young adults with their own homes, they wanted to "catch up." Plus, a lot of the modern kitchen gadgets we take for granted hadn't been invented yet, and add to that the social conventions that everybody wanted to entertain and that brides and grooms needed to receive gifts. No wonder, then, everybody had collections of china and covered candy dishes and aluminum-and-glass fruit "baskets" and pretty vases and hors-d'oeuvres trays and punch bowls and ... well, you get the picture.
I suppose I could try to sell this stuff, but I have no idea if it's worth anything. There's probably already too much of it on the market and not enough buyers. Ah, well. I will keep on enjoying these pieces, and maybe someday people will use them to pay for my funeral.
Tomorrow I'm driving out to the Eastern Shore for another "Revenge of the Stitch" SCA event -- a "garb wars" kind of competition in which six-person teams have 24 hours to sew up a whole medieval outfit from scratch. Should be fun, and I will continue to learn hand-sewing techniques.
I should end on a light note: you've got to see these briefs. Warning: you can't *unsee* them! :-D
This entry was originally posted at https://luscious-purple.dreamwidth.org/239496.html. Please feel free to comment either here or there.