Simplifying Life

mary43

Good luck misty.
I must admit I'm a bit of a softie and when Mum moved to her flat in the care home it was probably as well I wasn't around............I'd have crammed the whole house into two rooms..........lol As it was big bruv took control (as always) and limited what she had. Trouble was when I went down to see her and clear the rest of the house there were things she kept asking for - I did fetch a few of them as they were either her Mums or her brothers and were destined for her step brother when she's no longer around so I did the right thing with them and they were small enough to pop into her glass cabinet.
Had to be fairly ruthless with myself when it came to picking other stuff to keep that no-one wanted and as it was, I left a glass dessert set to go to the charity shop that was my great aunts..........Mum asked about it several months later and I told her a bit of a white lie to keep her happy. She thinks its in the china cabinet that was her dads in my comp room/den. Don't like being untruthful especially with her but felt in was justified in this case.

Well what an 'unsimplifying' day !! OH has been and bought his new dvd player and after messing about with leads and wires....we now have some wires sticking out the front of the tele cos he forgot to get a scart lead.
Now the cats decided that anywhere in the house will do for the loo............I know its very cold and shes quite ancient but OH really is now becoming a bit exasperated and a master of very deep sighs -along with much muttering and swearing!:mad:
I'll be glad when todays over I think.............haven't done half what I intended and this silly dvd saga's not over yet ! Tomorrow he'll have yet another lead to drape around...............and this is supposed to be our week of rest and relaxation ??:eek:
Oh well, maybe at the weekend ??????

misty-moodles

Hi Mary - I think we would struggle to fit the contents of mum-in-laws 1 bedroom house into our 4 bedroom one - she has that much stuff, way more than we have! I wouldn't feel bad about telling your mum a little white lie, far better than upsetting her unnecessarily. I do hope you get your DVD problems sorted out soon, keep thinking calm, beautiful thoughts!:D

mary43

I'm trying misty................our neighbours just been round to borrow a loo roll. She got one of these dvd players last week and said with the scart lead, easy peasy...........so if OH has problems tomorrow I shall send for her..............lol
Oh well, its anything but boring in our house.............never seem to be able to plan things and they fall into place. Painting of the cupboard hasn't got done but tomorrow.............I will get the paint out and at least make a start ! Hopefully the pong of the paint will send the cat outside for the loo.....................lol:rotfl:

Greenshieldstamp_2

Dear Misty Moodles -(what a great name by the way)

Thanks for your messages and welcome.

I wondered whether it would be a good idea to take photos of your MIL's collection of cups and put them in a nice album for her to look through. Then the china could be stored away and different ones brought out every now and again as Mary 43 suggested. Or if any were sold then your MIL would still have them all as photos to enjoy.
Much more manageable to store photo albums and less dusting.
Just a thought anyway.

misty-moodles

Hi Greenshieldstamp, my username is actually my female cat's nickname (well the name that I call her anyway!) Both my children have said it is totally ridiculous - but that's boys for you!

Taking photos of MIL's stuff would be another good solution, I'm really pleased I asked for suggestions, there's some really good ideas being put forward - thank you!

mary43

Thats a good idea and one I could use myself.............some of the stuff I've got is mums,some gt. aunties and so on -the general idea being that one day my kids would have the lot and what they decided to do with it would be down to them. If I boxed a lot of them up after taking photos I'd have plenty of space in an album for info about where or who the item came from and the space these things take up at the minute could be used for my own personal bits that I actually enjoy looking at.
Now why didn't I think of that ???? Thanks greenshield - hope misty can do that for her MIL too.

Greenshieldstamp_2

Hi Mary,
Glad to have been of help. My mum used to make albums/ scrapbooks up of things that were precious to my grandmother and take them when she visited her. It gave them both things to 'talk' about.
Even though my grandmother had had a stroke and could not 'talk' properly, she could recognise things and nod etc. and she seemed to enjoy seeing familar things even though she was in hospital. It made it easier for my mum to find things to talk about if she was stuck for something to say.

lilac_lady

I'm trying to catch up with the posts as I've not been logging on much due to new GD's arrival. Her "big " brother is entranced and now does his nursery painting as presents for his little sister. I'm struck by how much simpler the ways my DIL has with the new baby rather than her first one. No more "has to be new" stuff, exchanging clothes with a friend who had a little girl and now has a baby boy. Maybe the simpler life style is filtering gently into our families without us preaching too much.???

mary43

I've been doing my family history and to make it more than folders of dates and names I added photos, samples of lace gran made -stuff like that, details of the different places we've lived etc. Makes it more interesting for anyone to read and the stuff's there without becoming 'clutter'. Dads bits are in shoe boxes so they don';t really get in the way and I'm trying to thin them out bit by bit but finding that hard. But the stuff in Mums china cabinet, well a lot of it means more to Mum than me. She;s so poorly now she would never know if I got rid of the lot...........I could't do that, just not got it in me to, but I could quite easily live without having to look at it. When no-one wanted the cabinet that had belonged to grandad before Mum had it, I brought it home, filled it with things that were in it at Mums and took a photo of it for her to see and she was happy knowing I'd got it, it was being looked after along with her things. So, that done, there's nothing to stop me boxing up the stuff and sticking it in the loft. Oh that'll be a relief............I'll have some space to put things that are important to 'me' -not someone else..........how refreshing will that be.............:T

ceridwen

Hi natman - and welcome to the thread.

Mary - thanks for that link. Well - if that is the attitude you are "coming from" then those fosterchildren of yours got lucky then didnt they having you for a fosterparent?:D

It is easy to get "pulled down" sometimes by a comment from someone else - until one has the chance to assess whether it was justified (and can be learned from) or not and to remember that "one cant please all the people all the time" - no-one on this Planet has ever managed that one (not even the best of people - and I dont count myself amongst that number - just somewhere "middling" position on the journey). (note to self on that front: right now the best person I can think of in the world is mightily displeasing pretty much a whole country - ie the Dalai Lama is pretty unpopular right now with the Chinese Government - but that doesnt make him "in the wrong", and we can all see that is the case).