More Stuff...

This past weekend I went thru about 12 plastic tubs - the really big ones with some of the remaining holiday decorations.  I just kept shaking my head as I was going thru everything asking myself - how in the world did I collect so much stuff???   I realized most of it I was not guilty of purchasing - which I quickly reminded my husband of when he came downstairs around 12:30 with me still in my PJ's standing in the middle of about 6 open buckets with newspaper and bubble wrap strewn all over the floor - looking at me like I had lost my mind (he was right on this one).

When I was growing up my mom collected the gold ornaments from either Franklin Mint or Danbury Mint and then my aunt always gave me the White House ornament beginning with first year.  A few years ago I stumbled upon the Mt. Vernon ornament collection.  All of these ornaments filled one container alone and I am sure I will stumble across others.  My mom then made it a point to make sure the boys each have their own special ornaments.  Our oldest William now has nice consolidated box of all of the electronic moving ornaments that Hallmark makes each year.  I believe my mom now purchases these every September/October when they hit the stores - because as she says once they are gone, that's it.  Our middle son has a hodge-podge of Hallmark ornaments from her.

Our youngest due to his love of John Deere has Christmas Village houses that light up that my stepfather I am sure with some help from my mom thought he needed.  These somehow made it to the basement and have been stored there for a couple of years.  I finally saw what they looked like when I stumbled across them and they too now reside in two containers.

I was very pleased with myself that I was able to actually create buckets of organized holiday ornaments.  However, this isn't even close to all of my Christmas stuff.  My husband looked at me and said you want these to go to Good Will?

Uh-no these will remain in our basement until the boys venture out and are ready to appreciate the collection their Nina has built up for each of them over the years.  Hopefully, they will treasure them, look at them with amusement and much later in life remember her with fondness and shake their heads wondering how in the world they collected so many ornaments - and then remember their Nina and how she made sure each year they had their special ornament.

Stuff...

I have been busy creating some new designs and of course getting ready for the holidays.  Our basement is unfinished and it has gathered quite a few boxes and other odds and ends.

Believe me we have made progress...

 I have decided to claim the basement as mine!  A place I can go and spread out my projects and make a creative mess.  Part of claiming the basement as my domain requires said boxes and stuff to either be organized and stored neatly, charity or trash.  After being married for twenty-four years it is amazing the amount of stuff in our basement. I believe it is now safe to get rid of all the little kid toys and books 

along with the golf clubs I will probably not be using anytime soon, my father in-laws first Apple computer (circa 1980 something); the first laptop he had that weighs about 12 pounds with a full size key board and of course the ping-pong table middle son wanted for Christmas about four years ago that hasn't been used in about three and a half years.  After much debating and basement finishing estimates combined with the fact we will probably be downsizing in a couple of years I have decided to use my decorating creativity to finish the basement.  It will be a work in progress for a while that I will be more than happy to share along the way.  I think I can do it for less than the estimates I have received - or at least that is my goal.  I won't be doing anything too permanent since the plan is to sell in a few years.  However, now that I have gotten older I have a true appreciation for the basement set up my grandmother had...big table, sewing machine, lighting and more lighting.  Needless to say I will be re-purposing some items since they are already in the basement.