I apologize for being a sporadic blogger of late. This “whatever-it-is” is taking its own sweet time leaving my system. I’m definitely seeing progress but I don’t have a lot of energy. Still coughing, sneezing, etc., but the chest is clearing and that’s a good thing. Frankly, when it takes all morning and into the afternoon for me to begin to feel halfway decent, the last thing I want to do is take a picture and blog.
And now Don has come down with it. He’s feeling pretty yucky this morning and I’m going to try to muster the energy to take care of him, like he took care of me.
For the time being, the loveseat and trunk are in our storage locker. I had a negative emotional reaction to them the other day – quite a strong one. I don’t quite understand it, and I’m sick, of course, which must have an effect on my emotions, but I couldn’t get everything back in that trunk soon enough. I also couldn’t handle seeing the loveseat in the living room and not knowing where, if anywhere, I wanted to put it. Same with the trunk.
It’s interesting. I’ve known I would have to retrieve this stuff eventually, and I kept putting it off. Most of the stuff in the trunk is memorabilia from high school and college and my time as a camp counselor. None of it symbolized an unhappy memory. But I couldn’t stand looking at it. I tried to articulate it to my husband and he, being the incredibly wise man he is, stepped in and said he understood and did I want him to move them to storage for now?
Yes, I said. So he did just that yesterday and I felt a wave of relief. All of this has been in my friend’s basement since I moved away to go to graduate school, which would have been 1983. Why it’s triggering such strong feelings, I have no idea.
I almost didn’t share this with you but I knew you’d ask me where I decided to put things. So there’s your answer: in storage.
I did keep the Haviland china here. No negative reaction to that.
This is the Pink Roses pattern. It’s Haviland Limoges and it was made in France – at least, the serving pieces have those markings- the teacups are marked ‘Austria.’ I’ll have to do some research into Haviland patterns. Since this was my great grandmother’s set of dishes, it’s from the late 1880s – early 1890s. As with much of the Haviland pieces of the time, there’s a lot of gold on the handles and edges.
I’m going to try and clear a shelf in the china cabinet in the den and display them there, which means I’ll have to re-home some of my McCoy pieces.
Okay. That’s it for today.
Happy Tuesday.
Dear Claudia, I hope you are feeling better and now poor Don feeling ill. Prayers continue for both of you to heal. I get the ‘negative feelings’ about the trunk and seat. These things are from long ago and your life has changed so much. Maybe they feel like an ‘invasion’ of the home you have nurtured with your love and style. I have had to let go of family things that just don’t work for me and the memories are no longer needed in my daily life. I’m not sure if this helps but you will figure it out or it can stay in storage. Hugs!
I think you’re on to something there, Linda. In fact, it echoes a thought I had yesterday. It felt like an invasion and I couldn’t get that stuff out of here fast enough. So strange! I suppose it will help to when it’s time to throw all the stuff inside the trunk away. I don’t need it anymore.
Linda seems to have summed it up pretty well. Your initial reaction was so strong you’re probably not going to change how you feel about these things in the future. Probably time to let them go completely.
I will, eventually. No energy to tackle that right now!
Oh my gosh! I hate to say it, but I love your reaction to having the loveseat and trunk in your home. It’s like a mystery story. Just think it all over carefully and write it in your journal. I think you may never want either of those pieces in your home. So happy you are listening to your heart and head. And so happy Don didn’t poo-poo your feelings, but went with them. There is a reason for those reactions.
May you and Don both feel better soon. Lots of rest for both of you.
I can’t see them coming back in the house, Tana. Too extreme a reaction, I guess. Don understood and I’m very grateful he did.
Hope you feel better today, both from the cold and the negative reaction. In your current physical and mental state, perhaps you are also reacting to the “another thing to do”. When the time is right to tackle the invasion of stuff into your life, you’ll deal with them. In the meantime, I hope there are no more surprising changes as you and Don recover.
We need rest!
As I have come to know you over the past several years, when you are out and about and see something you fall in love with, there seems to be a period of pondering. Sometimes it is just as you make a few rounds of the store you are in, and sometimes you get home and can picture it in MHC and in your life, and it can’t escape your thoughts. In that way, what you decide is going to come into your life is pretty deliberate. And, although you knew you had this stuff stored since 1983, you aren’t ready. Being sick surely doesn’t help. If you had come upon that settee in a shop, you would have likely walked by it, possibly remembered one from your past, but moved on. So the storage shed is a great compromise. And maybe someday you will be ready to part with it or possibly find a spot in your home and your heart where you want to keep it. The china is beautiful. Young people don’t register for things like that any longer. I have my mother-in-law’s and my grandmother’s plus my own. Neither of our kids wants any of it.
I hope both of you feel better as the days go on. Taking care of each other is a lovely thing to do. Take care!!
Yes. I wouldn’t ever have purchased the settee. It’s not my style.
Thanks, Chris.
Storage is a good and fine place for things we don’t want to part with but don’t want to deal with and we are lucky when it’s available. Meanwhile, I think you china is lovely.
Here’s hoping you are feeling much better soon.
Thank you, Jeanie. I am so over feeling ill!
One must go with such strong feelings. Since it’s in storage and out of sight one can revisit when you are well. But you probably will let go of these things. I do belief in gut feelings on things. Do hope you feel better soon.
I think I will be letting go of them. Thanks, Christine!
Maybe if you made the loveseat your loveseat, with a change in upholstery, etc., and it went as a porch piece. Just sorting through stuff is difficult. Frankly, at some time in our lives, the past is too hard to handle. I am sorting some of my mom’s things (she died in May), and there are times that I just put it back in the drawers. It is overwhelming and a task for better weather and good health. Heal your body first (and Don’s)!
No, I think the loveseat isn’t for me. It never really has been. When my grandmother was moving into my parents home toward the end of her life, I took it because it was expected of me. That’s well over 30 years ago. Time to move one.
I understand about sorting through our parents’ things. I had to do it – along with my sister – all at once, right after my father died. We were under a deadline. It wasn’t easy.
I understand your strong emotions regarding the settee and the trunk. You may once have chosen them, but…..they no longer fit your vision for your cottage. The China reminds me of my mother’s…also Haviland. She wanted my oldest son and wife to have them….so she gave the China to them as a wedding present. But, with their international travels, they’ve never taken it. My feeling is…they are sentimental about it coming from their grandmother…but it doesn’t fit into their lives. So…here it rests.
Sorry to hear Don has come down with whatever-it-is you have. Take care…hope you both feel better soon! ;)
I chose the trunk and I love the trunk – just not the contents. But I didn’t choose the settee. I inherited that.
This looks to be a mix of Haviland and Royal Austria. Both with roses, slightly different patterns.
Thanks, Donnamae.
I had that horrid respiratory thing after Christmas, having had a cold at the beginning of December and a wicked stomach bug in the middle of December. Christmas week was the only time I felt good. By the second week in January I felt much better, but then thought I was getting a sinus infection. (If so, it was all pain and no drainage.) I finally feel recovered this week. This winter’s been a doozy in the illness department. Hope you heal more quickly than I did!
It also hit my intestines, which was a surprise. Thanks, Laura.
Your body is weak for now but your emotions are strong. I had a strong reaction to the love seat. I just saw it as so very uncomfortable, dark and heavy. I do not know you at all but I could not understand why you would want it. The lovely cup seems to suit you. You and your husband make a good team. I am sorry to hear that he is ill also.
Well, I would want it because it has a family history. But, in the end, does that really matter? No one is going to want me to pass it down to them, so I think it’s time to say goodbye to it. Thanks, Mary.
Those dishes are beautiful. Hope you are feeling better soon.
Marilyn
Me too. Every day I feel a bit better, Marilyn.
Maybe one of the local antique stores would buy the love seat from you and then you can shop the store and find treasures you’d love. Someone will buy it!
Love the china ~ it’s a beautiful pattern.
Hope you can continue to improve and that Don feels well soon.
X Chy
Thanks Chy!
Always trust your intuition.
Hope you (and Don) start to feel better soon. Until then have a cup of tea in your grandmother’s beautiful china and rest, rest, rest.
We have no choice but to rest, Betsy! Thank you.
I think if you feel that strongly about the items then you are better off without them!…Who would want something sitting around every day that gives you bad feelings?…I hope you both are soon over this thing that has a hold on you!…The temp here was in the low 60’s today…amazing!
We are hanging in there – the sounds of coughing, sneezing, etc. fills the house.
Just some random thoughts here. When you speak of letting go of the “stuff” in the trunk has me thinking that part of your past is now not as relevant because what you have achieved as an adult has become so much more. Because you are comfortable, satisfied and still “fed” by your life’s work allows you the freedom to release what you no longer need. All those years and left with someone else seems a determined testament to forge into your future without any past detritus-a big part of your unique makeup. You may not have even know this about yourself back at the time. It is what has worked for you.
And sometimes life seems to turn our stuff against us and vice vs. Just about five years ago found what was salvageable from a flood in storage and six months later (horrible period of time w/ bad contractor) when it came back, felt it didn’t fit and a sad reminder of a devastating experience. Still dealing with this. Oy.
And then too, those of us without children are sometimes torn when holding onto the past through family heirlooms etc. that we know will have no meaning beyond us. Sometimes I find myself thinking of letting go of items now so strangers may enjoy them and that somehow feels as if it might be freeing.
Well, as I said, just some random thoughts.
May you both feel well soon. As others have said, this has been a winter of way too much crap going around and very many of us so fed up with not exactly feeling right for way too long.
All of your points are on the money, Chris. I’m letting go of all that stuff – it tells me that it’s time to move away from all of that and move forward. And that, unless I really want something, it’s okay to let go of family inheritances. No one is going to want them. Thanks!