Linked In | Memories on the Shelf

Growing up, my mom had a lot of nick-nacks, on Ah. Lot. of shelves. 

And as soon as I was old enough, it was my job to dust them – All. Once or twice a week, I would take EVERYTHING off those shelves one by one, dust the shelf and the trinket and put them all back.

I hated it.

Yet I unwittingly fed into this curio collection by buying little things are yard sales in the neighborhood, coming home and joyously presenting them to my mom.  She in turn proudly added each one to a display on a shelf and I began the process of dusting yet another useless piece of junk found treasure. 

^{(My most cherished find for my mom. I still remember when and where she came from.)}

After my mom passed I was tasked with cleaning out her home. All the years of tchotchke collecting stared me in the face. Wooden Buda's and elephants from Thailand and India, porcelain dogs and figurines from England,  a trio of nuns that wound up to play a tune, vintage Avon bottles shaped like Victorian women a collection of brass piggybank 1920’s style cars from a bank, little cottages and don’t forget all those little add-ons from my childhood yard sale days – plus SO much more.  They all has sentimental value. I couldn’t discard them, but I didn’t want all of them either.

I was conflicted.

Thank goodness for shows like Clean House and Clean Sweep, though!
I loved watching these shows any chance I got and I learned a few things.  Two things I gleaned: 1) I kept what I loved and what meant the most to me (all the vintage books and most of the china) and 2) I took pictures of the rest for memory’s sake then lightened the load.

 

Now days I still have Tchotchkes; what can I say, I am my mom’s daughter.

But I have a lot less of them and
They are VERY dusty any given day.

And we won’t talk about my obsession with vintage Asian bobble-head dolls and globes!

Go visit other “Link-In” memories with Jenn,Heather, Tracey, Stacey, Andrea, Amanda, Heather,  Janet, Jean,  Kristi,Carla, Rose, Tracy, Heidi, Kristin, Hanne, Liza and Rhonda.