I recently had grandkids 10 days in a row. We had a great time doing crafts, trying out the viral apple marshmallow recipe, baking cookies, watching movies and such. I didn't get much in the way of sewing done over those ten days, but I did start on a project that's been on my mind for a few years now, not quilting related.
I keep reading all these articles about kids not wanting your stuff. My parents are both still alive, and although they live in the same house I grew up in, it holds a fraction of what was in it then. They have been "downsizing" ever since they retired, even though they've never moved. Every time I go visit there is less than stuff than the time before. The basement is mostly empty, attic is completely empty, second floor is mostly empty. They've gotten rid of so much stuff, they are practically minimalists at this point.
My MIL is exactly the opposite. Every item has sentimental value to her, and she doesn't want to let go of much, if anything.
We're all different in those respects, and I'm trying to figure out where I want to fall on the scale of minimalist to maximalist. I'm not at a point where I want to be a minimalist, but I am resisting buying new things, unless it's to replace something that's worn out. I'm really trying to get off the consumerism train, but that doesn't mean I want to get rid of everything, it means I'm being quite picky about bringing new things into my house, while simultaneously trying to declutter.
Photos! Please tell me I am not the only one with copious amounts of photos. I used to think I'd like scrapbooking, I don't. I also don't like taking photos, I usually only take photos for my blog. DH is the photographer in this house. When my kids were little, I did take photos. DH took lots of photos.
If you add up all the photos in this house, It started out as two medium totes full of photo albums and larger photos, plus six photo boxes full of regular photos. My goal is to get down to one tote of photos for now.
While I had the grandkids, I decided to tackle the photo boxes. I had six, I wanted to get them down to two. Do you realize how many photos fit in six photo boxes? Thousands! It brought a whole new meaning to photo bomb! There were photos everywhere. I made myself some criteria.
1) Any photos I kept had to have people in them my kids should know. If DH and I can't name who's in the photo, we don't need to keep them. If we know them but it will mean nothing to our kids, they should go. (we made a couple of exceptions)
2) People are what's important to me, so photos of people are what I want I want to keep. Sure, we may have taken 40 photos of animals at the zoo, but if our kids aren't in them, out they go.
3) I want to see faces! The numbers of photos we had where no one is looking at the camera are ridiculous. Whale watching trip where you can only see people backs? Yeah, no. Whale photos? Ok, so you can see a fin. I can go online and see way better photos of whales, I'm not keeping them. Christmas photos where you are looking at a pile of mess and the tops of people's heads. Nope, they can go.
4) Blurry pics are out. Dark photos are out. Photos that show faces but that make the people look awful, like it would embarrass them kind of awful, no thank you.
5) Duplicates are out. In today's day and age, if more than one of my kids wants a photo, they can just take a photo of it with their phone and have a digital picture.
I tackled those six photo boxes, and got them down to two. One of them still has room in it. I got to show the grandkids all kinds of photos of their parents, and that was fun too. Showing them photos of us when we were young was fun too.
I need a break from photo sorting before I tackle the photo albums. We had a puppy chew up the photo albums years ago, so I need to decide if I want to get new albums (not really) or just salvage the best photos, and sort those by kid. (likely) For now I'm keeping the empty photo boxes, in case I just go with emptying the albums into those. As long as I can fit whatever I keep into one tote at the end, I'll call it a win.
I thought about digitizing the photos, but I decided against it. We have photo cds, but I think we only have one computer in the house that has a player that MIGHT be able to view them. Technology changes too quickly. Sure, I can load a thumb drive with photos, but ten years from now, will anything be able to read the thumb drive? Google photos is great, but with hacking, viruses, and even something like a big solar flare, you could lose it all. I'll keep some photos, but hopefully get it down to reasonable amount. I figure if I get the photos down to one smaller tote now, I can go through them again in a few years, and whittle them down some more. Sometimes decluttering has to be done in layers, but you have to start somewhere. I've even considered eventually trying to curate each kids best 100 photos. Maybe if there aren't so many, they'd look at them?
For my quilty bit, I finished two similar double four patches. These are finishes 21 and 22 for the year. All my finishes have been UFO's. My goal of 24 UFO finishes is doable!
The alternate squares on the fronts are leftover widebacks. You can get a lot of squares from even a pretty narrow bit of 108" fabric. The amount of wideback scraps I have determines the size of the quilt. I'm continuing to piece quilt backs starting with the novelty fabrics I want out of stash. Scrap quilts are a good place to throw random novelty fabrics on the back. I do try to somewhat match the colors on the front. The center bits to make the backs wider are from my 1 yard and under drawers. I bust so much fabric on backings!
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