The Hardest thing I Ever Did

Well, I did it.  Putting my house up for sale was a heart wrenching decision, I truly love my house.  I raised all my kids here, planted my gardens and feed my birds.  I really thought I would die in this house.  Life has not turned out like I thought it would.

  I know I made the right decision.  All the kids are grown with the last one a sophomore in college.  None have any desire to return and work in the town where they were born.  It's just me, Blade my dog, and the three cats. The house is too big, it needs to much work that I can't do anymore and I am out of work for the second time in 25 years.  I have the opportunity to give my oldest daughter a hand with her son and with another one due in June, she will need it.  The idea of being a full time granny is an idea that I truly love. But the idea of the changes to get there are unsettling.

It's not just the house.  IT'S MY STUFF!  I love my stuff.  I can remember where I found it and why I liked it.  I don't collect anything in particular, I just collect.  No, I am not one of those people who's house can't be walked through but....

There is my vintage linens, I even have two linen bed sheets.  Did you know that at one time sheets were made of linen.  I have damask table cloths, one of them is over 100 years old.  There's dresser scarves, table cloths, hankies and napkins.  I started collecting them I realized that I could buy beautifully embroidered linens for a fraction of what it cost me to embroider badly. 

There is my collection of California pottery from the sixties.  I am especially fond of my chip and dip set as well as my ourderve server.  There is my 10 place setting of china.  It is complete with every thing but cups.  I had wanted a china set to use on holidays for years.  Thats the only time I use it because well, its about the only time I cook.  Now mind you, it's not that I can't cook.  It's that I don't cook.

I have dozens of miss-matched floral cups and saucers.  It's a same to let a beautiful cup or saucer go to waste because it doesn't have a mate.  So I pick up a cup here and a saucer there and then when I sit down to drink my tea, I just pick a pair.  I even have a mustache cup, that's because my mother used to collect them and it reminds me of her.  I even have a couple of cups and saucers that match, imagine that.  A cup and saucer that have come down through the ages (well they are really not that old) and never got seperated.

  Then there is my aprons.  I have all kinds, bib aprons, cobblers aprons, even some fancy lacy aprons. Again there is one that was my mother's.  It was actually made for her by Seminole Indians when we lived in Naples, Florida.

Now it's on to my hats.  I love hats and I have a lot of them.  Feather one, organza ones, big ones, little ones, summer ones and winter ones.  I like to wear them to church or when I go out for a fancy dinner.

I have salt dips and spoons that go with them that I have collected since I was a teenager. There are books by the score.  I love to read and they are such a steal at the resale shops.