Holy Hoarder Batman!

July 20, 2008

My brother and his family, The Boy, and myself have taken on the huge task of having a garage sale for the remainder of Mom's stuff in FL. My sister in law is a garage sale maven, and we are her minions for the next week. Mom has no idea we're doing this. They're driving down from WI, The Boy from Tallahassee and I'm coming down from NC (trip # 5 in 4 months. I swear my car could do the drive by itself). And God love her, Susan G. is game too; she is a very good long-suffering friend. She comes up with Christmas on The Back Porch - genius idea.

Frankly, I think my Mom has some hoarding issues. The tendency was kept under control being in the military and moving every three years, but after Dad retired and they bought the house, it came back like kudzu.

Most of the guest room closet is filled with yarn and fabric and when paired with what was in the garage, it comes halfway out into the living floor. There are several unfinished afghans and lots of unfinished Barbie clothes. Boxes and boxes of patterns and notions.
Russ and Jill just happened onto the Quilter's Guild meeting at Kofe Haus, and then were told about another group knitting afghans for babies or cancer patients or some such, so we were able to donate all the fabric and yarn. Nice.
Good grief the candles! Most of them are unopened. Cleaning supplies was another thing she had multiple duplicates of. How many bottles of Toilet Duck (or variations thereof) does one need for two toilets?!

My sister decided she would take the china Dad got in Japan after all, so we ship that and the glassware that went with it to OR, which cost about $1000. Everything is covered with a film of nicotine, grease and dust. Yummy! Julie, the owner of the pack and ship place was very nice and gave us a discount because we packed much of it ourselves. On one of these trips Sam went with me and called me Puma; I don't know why it was so funny to her, but we both were laughing so hard we were crying.

The Light Bright Ceramic Xmas tree war rages on between my brother and sister, because Mom sent Russ the one she told Kay she could have. Maybe they can work out joint custody. Oy. Vey.

(Does my sister look like Jodie Foster or what?!)

Actually, I think this is great. We're all getting the things we have special memories of (except see above) without the trauma of actual death. But the one thing I really want, Mom's old SLR Minolta, is no where to be found. We find the instruction booklet but no camera. I wonder what happened to it.