Time to work some more on our keepsakes! I pulled two bins from my closet today. These are medium sized and hold keepsakes from my oldest daughter's childhood. I figured that she might be able to help me move some things on before she heads back to college later this week.
I'd like to get these two bins down to one, if possible. It's not that I don't have the space to store two of these bins. I have plenty of space. However, I rarely look at these and I just wonder how much is really worth keeping. I want to keep the best stuff that will really feel meaningful each time I look at it. Which I guess is similar to Marie Kondo's (the current decluttering guru) phrase about an item 'sparking joy'!
I started on the bin with the oldest items. Those from around the time of her birth. I ended up recycling 73 greeting cards! Yes, I saved some. Just not all. Many were from birthday's and simply signed by the giver which isn't super meaningful long term.
Oh, look! I had printed my daughter's hand in plaster. She gave me the most perplexing look when I showed it to her. She found it odd. I took a picture (similar to the one below) and will just keep that. Little hands are so very cute! She was 14 months. And I do think someone gave me this. I never made one with my younger daughter.
I saved the mylar balloons given to her at the time she was born. One of those may be from a birthday as well. Really not worth even considering to keep. Those went to the trash.
Yes, these are the only clothes I saved from when my daughter was a baby. I'm letting it all go! The hat was very cheaply made and was given to her in the hospital. The socks I kept because they are so small and cute, but I'm not sure she wore them much. And the outfit was one of my favorites, which when I look at pictures I see that she did wear it a lot. I think the pictures are sufficient.
There was a newspaper from the day she was born. I don't think we even read it. It was just bought for 'saving'. If any of us get interested in reading the news from that day in 1997, there is always the library!
This bin is nearly empty now. There were just a few cards kept, along with some ultrasound pictures (which may get thrown...as I think I have others). And there were some drawings in there when she was a bit older, which I'm keeping for now.
I've started on the second bin, but I will update you on my progress with that one tomorrow. For today, my total of items decluttered is 90!! (There are few other items I didn't mention, but I included them in my total)
Year to date decluttering total was 20: now 177!!
I'm fairly certain the only "keepsake" that my mom has from when I was a little one, is those brass-looking things that is a picture frame but also a cast of sorts of shoes? Oh yeah, my mom still has that, and the photo is of me at like a year and a half in a horribly ugly blue ginghamish full-body onsie with some bad eyelety lace things and a bonnet and oh, early 90's fashion is pretty friggin' horrible xD But she has it, and it is meaningful to her - and there isn't anything else that she is holding on to, so all I can do is hope she hides it somewhere in her bedroom, ha!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on being able to go through so much and get rid of so much! It can be hard to get rid of these kinds of things can be very, very difficult, but being realistic is so important!