When some people reach a certain age (a trait I have noticed in myself) they may begin to want to downsize their surroundings, to make life simpler. For some, it may mean a move to a retirement community, for others it may mean downsizing in place. Perhaps they will reduce the size of the yard, clean and shut off no longer needed rooms, and send a great deal of collected things to a donation center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I began by finishing my decades long effort to clean out the attic. (The one that is only accessed by walking across a roof, and through a window.) There were five large cardboard boxes that had been in there a very long time. Some things I saved, some I discarded. Very little could be donated. A large box of Great Aunt\u2019s cancelled checks was burned. (For concerned parties, Great-Great Aunt\u2019s trunk of clothes is still in the attic.) I found class notes from high school that I may share in a later essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also found my cousin\u2019s bridesmaid dress that she had worn in my wedding, sent to me by my aunt, to make into little girl dresses for my older daughter. I never did. There wasn\u2019t much left to it, since the dirt daubers got to it, but I saved the ruffles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What does one do with beloved little trinkets, found in attics and closets, that one does not want to throw away, and no one else would want? I have turned them into decorating wreaths. I start with a plain grape vine wreath (bought from Goodwill) and add these little trinkets according to a theme, and then add the proper color of ribbon. An orange and black wreath for fall contains silk flowers from table decorations from husband\u2019s 10th<\/sup> year high school reunion, and a tassle from son\u2019s graduation cap, plus a rooster pin my younger daughter gave me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One other wreath has a Poe theme. My son gave me a ceramic medallion of Athena off an ancient cook stove found in the house, I bought the ceramic raven, and added lavender scarves and purple ribbons from my sister in law\u2019s bridesmaid bouquets from her wedding. At the bottom I attached a small opened paper notebook that younger daughter had made in elementary school, upon which I copied a few lines of the poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was I to do with the ruffles off the bridesmaid dress? For the last two years I have been making aprons for children and grandchildren. I made 10 in two years, entirely hand-stitched. The last one I made I trimmed with the pink ruffles from the dress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When some people reach a certain age (a trait I have noticed in myself) they may begin to want to downsize their surroundings, to make life simpler. For some, it may mean a move to a retirement community, for others it may mean downsizing in place. Perhaps they will reduce the size of the yard, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blogs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1570,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569\/revisions\/1570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}