hopefully something rhetorical

I am not even going to comment on the fact that is has been so long between posts, but I hope to be back more regularly again soon!

Recently, I was reading Lisa Leonard’s blog, and she asked her readers what you would do if someone offered you $20K for everything in your home.  The response in the comments was interesting, but today she directed us to this blog post where Kim at Tomkat Studio shared her story about selling her house and everything in it!  Last night, my good friend Bonnie, who has an awesome blog for kid advice, posted on Facebook that she wanted a do over with all of her stuff.  And, that prompted me to wonder what would be on my list of things to keep if someone offered me $20K for all our stuff?

First, my answer would be yes.  For $20K, I would sell everything I owned.  When I first started thinking about this, I was in the middle of Ali Edwards’s Week in the Life project, and I thought that it would be interesting to document our house at this moment in our lives.  Things are undone and all over the place after moving last year.  Lots of empty wall space still, so I don’t really feel settled completely.  Most of our stuff is what we have collected over the last ten years of marriage and moving, and the boy’s job influences the way we think about our stuff (we are always worried about how heavy something is!).  But, these are a few of the things that are particularly important to me and would be on my keep list.

1 | The first is the headboard to our bed.  This was an old window frame that I saved from the dump that I had made into a headboard by a wonderful old woodworker in the town we lived in when we were in Kansas.  On the top of the top cross bar, it has “Always kiss me goodnight” etched into the wood.  I love it, and it is one of those pieces that I hope becomes a family heirloom.

2| Next would have to be the glass cabinet in our kitchen.  It is a piece that I picked at a craft fair in Kansas.  It is wonderful, and one of the last truly country crafty things that I kept from that phase in my life.  I don’t think I will ever get rid of it, but I have thought of painting it several times!

3| Then, there are these, which I have posted about before.  It is unnatural how much I love them!

4| And, finally, there are lots of pictures and wall art that I wouldn’t want to leave behind.  One of my favorites, is my ceiling tin piece.  This was another find from that Kansas craft fair, but it was one of those things that was almost a complete loss.  I saw it there the first year I went, but I had already gotten the pie safe above, and I didn’t want to get both.  But, then I went home and thought about it and was really bummed that I hadn’t gotten the one I saw.

The next year I went, and the weather was awful and the vendor wasn’t there.  It wasn’t until the final year I went that he was back, but when I went to his booth, they didn’t have any of the larger ones displayed.  So, I asked about it and explained the story.  It turned out that he had left it in his truck because the economy was bad, and he didn’t think it would sell.  It is huge, but it looks perfect in the front entryway of our new house with the higher ceilings!

What this little experiment taught me about our stuff is that I value the unique more than the everyday.  I see lots of our possessions as functional pieces that work for the job we need them for.  But, the pieces I love the most are the ones that have a story and took a little extra effort to acquire.  A good lesson to learn at this stage in my life!