I am so jaded...

[luise.volta]

The Queen is my age and so is Shirley Temple. We grew up together...Girl Scouts - boys, you know!  (I was the lucky one!;D )

[LaurieS]

So that makes this Shirley Temple doll I have here quite old... lol.. I lived to watch Shirley Temple movies

[luise.volta]

Yup, you have a treasure there! 

[LaurieS]

My mil gave me the doll.. she didn't have the heart to part with it, so this is her way to keep it in the family.. Matter of fact as much as I love my mil, this is my one qualm with her.. everything in her life has a special meaning and she is terrified that when she dies these treasures will be lost forever, so she is constantly asking me to take pieces, or for permission to put my name on them... lol.. honest you can pick up any item in her house and there is a person's name on the bottom.  A doll, her candlewick collection, these things I can pack up for safe keeping and store them.. but now she is looking around my house and asking.. where will my furniture fit in here if you keep buying furniture ... lol.. guess I was suppose to sit with an empty house waiting for her to pass away.. which btw isn't happening soon .. she is healthier then I

[Pooh]

I think you have to ask yourself a couple of questions when you are "walking on egg-shells" and not being yourself.

1.  If I continue being this person who isn't me, and my DIL excepts me for that person, can I live with being this person?

2.  If I continue being this person who isn't me, and my DIL is still not responding, why am I doing this to myself?

I am not talking about compromising some of our ways to please someone else, I think that is what compromise is.  But truly being uncomfortable in your own skin for who you have become.  I personally, can't do that.  I am who I am.  Imperfect, flawed, loud-mouth, loving, caring and loyal.  I can compromise on things and always improve myself, but my basic person is there to stay.

Pen, take a look around at all your friends and family you get along with.  I figure if I can honestly say, right now, I have at least 20 people that love me and like to hang out and talk to me, and 2 that don't.....I'm doing pretty well.

[luise.volta]

Laurie, your MIL would drive me bananas. I was raised in a home where everything you picked up had a story and was priceless and irreplaceable for that reason. And there was way too much of it. It seems to be in the genes of some. They project value and then are at the effect of it. (My take.) Both of my sisters got the gene but I didn't. (One told me once that my home looked like a store window, unlived in.  ) Three times I have sold a house fully furnished because the buyer loved every bit of it and didn't know how to replicate the essence of my decorating. I truly love the things I place in my surroundings and some things have a story like the oil painting over my fireplace that I watched being painted by a very highly regarded (highly priced) local artist. I offered him $100. for it ( they go for $1,500. and up) because that was all I had and he sold it to me "to give it a good home."    If I moved and changed my decor, I would let it go without issue. We have a Thrift Shop here on our campus and it is a marvelous outlet for me and many others. (Although I sometimes run into someone in the halls wearing my clothes.  ) I have certain things on my end tables but no clutter. I have a little what-not cabinet about 12' wide and a buffet with upper glass doors that has "pretties" in it. But nothing is sacred.

I don't think others are more sentimental ...we just have differing values without a right and a wrong. I'm such a "purger" that I often toss something that I have to later replace! 

P.S. I would love to see a Shirley Temple doll again. Yup,  I too, had one. We all did.

[pam1]

That would drive me nuts too.

My MIL insists on coming over before any yard sale so she can pick out all the things of ours that she wants to keep for sentimental value.  Our stuff!  She's also terrified that I will give/throwaway/sell something from DH's childhood.  First of all, he doesn't have much of his childhood stuff b/c she has it all and never gave it up!  Seriously, he's not even allowed to have a couple pictures of himself as a kid.  And secondly, why can't he decide what to keep and not keep?  I mean, after she is gone...is he supposed to take it back and keep it forever?  I don't get it.

[AnonymousDIL]

Hello, My name is AnonymousDIL and I am a packrat..... LOL

I'm sooo much better than I used to be. I used to be a hoarder growing up, but now it tends to only be cards and notes from loved ones, "sentimental" gifts from my mom (like a "To My Daughter," music box), and my doll collection. Most of them are now in storage because Hubby thinks they are creepy when I have them out (I set them up decorating the Christmas tree and that kind of stuff lol), but I just can't part with them. They are like my children. And my dad actually made some of them for me.

[holliberri]

I try to keep sentimental things, but I wind up going overboard. I then purge the whole house. I always keep something if someone made it for me though; I love the effort in gifts like that. Except for baked goods, those are gone in a day. Yum!

[Pooh]

I think it is easy to tie emotions and memories to an item.  We have been going through my house in another county, getting it ready to sell.  It has been really hard going through and getting rid of much of my things.  I found myself putting a thing in a box I was keeping because I was in tears going, "Oh that was YS's first rock he collected on his first day of kindergarten..." , "Oh DS brought that stick home from his first camping trip with...."  Oh geesh.  I finally caught myself and made myself realize that it wasn't that item I was tied to, it was the memory.  And I could part with the item and still have the memory.  I shed many tears going through all my things and getting rid of stuff.

Pam, my Mother gave me tons of stuff for 20 years and when I was going through everything, I set aside in boxes the things she had given me, that I didn't want.  When I would get a box or two full, I would call her and tell her that she needed to come look through it before I got rid of it to see if she wanted any of it back.  She didn't.  But she also admitted to me that it has just been in the last 10 years that she has been able to turn loose of alot of her stuff because she was raised during the depression where you don't get rid of anything.  To her, it wasn't emotional attachment, it was logical attachment from being raised that "that's still got use in it".

So I do get it....but I'm learning to not get it! 

[pam1]

You guys need to watch Hoarders before you get out of hand!

[Pooh]

Nuh uh!  They have rats.........

[AnonymousDIL]

I think it is easy to tie emotions and memories to an item.  We have been going through my house in another county, getting it ready to sell.  It has been really hard going through and getting rid of much of my things.  I found myself putting a thing in a box I was keeping because I was in tears going, "Oh that was YS's first rock he collected on his first day of kindergarten..." , "Oh DS brought that stick home from his first camping trip with...."  Oh geesh.  I finally caught myself and made myself realize that it wasn't that item I was tied to, it was the memory.  And I could part with the item and still have the memory.  I shed many tears going through all my things and getting rid of stuff.

LOL I used to be that way, but I progressed past that point lol I hope I don't revert when I have kids lol!

[pam1]

Nuh uh!  They have rats.........

Not all of 'em!  One lady hoarded chickens and another guy had rabbits!!!!!  It just shows the places you can end up with hoarding. It starts out small.....

[Pen]

Yikes. I think I might be a hoarder, if cellulite counts