Textiles
Now that we know where we will be living in Santa Fe, and how big the house is (not very big) and what we have for storage (not a lot), I can begin to sort through more items here and decide what moves with us (not so much).
Today Jim and I both spent hours filling contractor bags with cloth items for our town's textile recycling program.
I know now what bedding we'll need and which table linens will work in the new house. I know the few decorative pillows we'll take (how did I wind up with so many accent pillows?)
It surprised me how much cloth stuff went into the recycle bags. I had so many cloth napkins which we never use, and placemats that have seen better days. I had three sets of faded duvet covers, well used on my beds over the past decades, but past their prime. I had mismatched sheet sets, with a fitted sheet too big for the mattress we have, and pillow cases sized too small for the pillows we use. So much. So many.
We are not moving our mattress. Shipping a memory foam mattress is expensive (it has to be in a special flat box) and ours is 13 years old now. We'll have to buy new out there. And the same for the guest bedroom mattress, which is getting old. So . . . new mattresses, different sizes, new bed linens, all quite complicated. Nothing seems to be a standard size any more.
Once we filled bags and bags with household textiles, Jim went through his closet and did the most amazing thing: he stripped out all his old (antique) flannel shirts and t shirts and put them in the bag to recycle. I never thought I would see the day he would part with a 30 year old shirt two sizes too small, but he did. All of them, actually. They all went into the bag.
Bit by bit we are downsizing. We are cleaning out decades of accumulation and streamlining what will go into the moving van. Today it was all the textiles gathered and stored over so many years.
It feels good to fill those recycling bags.
Today Jim and I both spent hours filling contractor bags with cloth items for our town's textile recycling program.
I know now what bedding we'll need and which table linens will work in the new house. I know the few decorative pillows we'll take (how did I wind up with so many accent pillows?)
It surprised me how much cloth stuff went into the recycle bags. I had so many cloth napkins which we never use, and placemats that have seen better days. I had three sets of faded duvet covers, well used on my beds over the past decades, but past their prime. I had mismatched sheet sets, with a fitted sheet too big for the mattress we have, and pillow cases sized too small for the pillows we use. So much. So many.
We are not moving our mattress. Shipping a memory foam mattress is expensive (it has to be in a special flat box) and ours is 13 years old now. We'll have to buy new out there. And the same for the guest bedroom mattress, which is getting old. So . . . new mattresses, different sizes, new bed linens, all quite complicated. Nothing seems to be a standard size any more.
Once we filled bags and bags with household textiles, Jim went through his closet and did the most amazing thing: he stripped out all his old (antique) flannel shirts and t shirts and put them in the bag to recycle. I never thought I would see the day he would part with a 30 year old shirt two sizes too small, but he did. All of them, actually. They all went into the bag.
Bit by bit we are downsizing. We are cleaning out decades of accumulation and streamlining what will go into the moving van. Today it was all the textiles gathered and stored over so many years.
It feels good to fill those recycling bags.
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