<p>Very Happy - oh, save one of them and do something with it. In a moment of purging I got rid of my grandmother’s stole and I am kicking myself to this day. Just for sentimental reasons. I would have made a “scarf” or something from the pieces. When you have granddaughters - a little muff would be awesome. I am usually the queen of getting rid of things and I usually dont regret it, but that darn stole bothers me!</p>
<p>You could also try a local costume shop. They might be willing to buy the mink and gloves off of you. Lots of theater groups get their stuff from costume shops.</p>
<p>Someone I know had throw pillows made from her mother’s mink stole.<br>
The leather gloves are probably good eBay candidates.</p>
<p>Hmmmm – throw pillows out of mink. That sounds interesting.</p>
<p>Have you ever seen the bed-throws made from faux-mink? So luxurious…and I bet they wouldn’t show dog hair…</p>
<p>I would need white rabbit or arctic fox to hide my dog’s hair.</p>
<p>I had a pair of rabbit fur ear muffs, and my kitty went bonkers trying to attack them every time I took them out of the drawer. She was normally very mellow, but that rabbit fur managed to bring out the raging predator in her every time. I wonder if dogs would have the same reaction?</p>
<p>My dogs haven’t reacted to the mink. Yet.</p>
<p>High school drama departments…</p>
<p>Great suggestion, CD!</p>
<p>I have been thinking it would be nice to redo the master bedroom closet with a shelf system. The kids bedroom closets had them when we moved in but ours didn’t and still doesn’t, 16 years later. Of course, that would mean seriously going through all the stuff that’s stored in there! Clothes no one wears anymore but would be “great” for Halloween someday, shoe boxes of kids’ papers & old letters…</p>
<p>I guess if we made the decision to redo the closet, we would HAVE to empty it and then we could decide what went back in. :)</p>
<p>Oh, and did anyone read that they just outlawed drop-side cribs? Guess what we have gathering dust in the basement? :(</p>
<p>DH has been away all day and I’m moving forward decluttering the bedroom where we have stored the most <a href=“mailto:cr@p”>cr@p</a>. Making great progress. Came across the old photos of my sons and cleverly sorted them into two piles – one for Son One and one for Son Two. Pretty damn brilliant.</p>
<p>Then, came across my journals from the 1970s – you know those; the ones where I dated (to put it politely) every single man in my city, where I described every date, and where I bemoaned whether I would ever find Mr. Right and where I whined about my relationship with my mother.</p>
<p>What do I do with these? Burn them? I do not want people to find them after I’m dead! But reading them is fascinating to me right now. Should I keep them for another 20 years so I can read them again in my 80s?</p>
<p>VH–I hear you!</p>
<p>I never kept a diary but I have letters from other people as well as many I wrote home that my mother kept and I somehow have gotten back (when SHE cleaned out her closets, no doubt!) It’s fun to reread them and get a picture of my life back then…events I have forgotten about, old boyfriends, where my head was then, and so forth. </p>
<p>No, I don’t want my heirs to read or (horrors!) publish them, but I can’t bear to throw them away yet either.</p>
<p>I have both side of the correspondence between me and the guy I dated through most of college. Also have all the letters from my best friend in middle school, covering 1975-2002, and journals I kept in HS (cringe!).</p>
<p>It’s primary source material. I can’t toss it, at least not at the moment.</p>
<p>So I should keep these? Some of them are rather – ummmm – explicit.</p>
<p>But now that I think of it, no one would be able to read through years and years of this whiney adolescent crap, written in my very messy handwriting. So maybe I’ll keep them and just not care what happens to them after I’m gone.</p>
<p>As a family history addict, I can say I was incredibly delighted my ancestors kept their letters and journals. My great grandfather kept almost everything, and he had stuff from his parents. By some luck of fate, most all of this was kept together and after my grandma’s death, I was the recipient.</p>
<p>Letters and journals give insight into someone the way no other record can and definitely help bring a person “to life”. If you truly want no one to read it ever, it should probably be destroyed. I urge people to give thought before disposing of family history though. I know of some incredible stuff that got pitched in cleaning purges after a death.</p>
<p>I personally would not keep anything I would be embarrassed for my kids to see.</p>
<p>I destroyed my journals from the 70’s…it was certainly a fun decade! 
:p</p>
<p>Nothing in my journals or letters would generate more than a PG rating (if that). Mainly hopeless crushes and bemoaning a lack of parental and boyfriend support for college or goals.</p>
<p>My paternal grandmother was a prolific writer and lover of geography and history, though she had to quit school at 14 to help support the family. I have copies of a number of things she write and they are a fascinating insight into what <em>real</em> poverty was 100 years ago. When we were stationed in Germany, my grandmother would research the places we were going to visit on vacation and send us travel guides she’d written based on National Geographic and books from the library.</p>
<p>The stuff stays.</p>
<p>I finished one room this weekend!!! I’m not about to announce how many I have to go – because things that aren’t really rooms, like the basement and the garage, still have to be done. And those “rooms” are going to be nightmares. Nevertheless, I feel terrific!</p>
<p>You should! Sometimes I think the hardest thing about these projects is the getting started, and you are well underway now!</p>
<p>My nightmare room is the office AKA the dumping ground for everything that has noplace else to go. I’ve started that one, but I’m breaking it down into small chunks so that it’s not overwhelming. Like one drawer per day, or one of those sterlite boxes in the closet shelf. I can see a little progress every day and that’s motivating.</p>