Sentimentality

I'm not big on keeping "stuff" around. I do like cleaning out, spring cleaning, making trips to the consignment shop to drop off things we no longer use and drop off other stuff at Goodwill. I enjoy watching Antiques Road Show. It's crazy to me that these people have these little knickknacks that have sat around their homes for years or in their attics and now they are worth crazy amounts of money. That's great for them, but Handyman and I joke and say that we'll never have anything like that because we intentionally try not to keep anything that we don't need or use often. (I hate dusting and knickknacks just give me more things to dust!)

Then, of course, there is the Hoarders TV show. Eww! All I can say is that I shutter at the thought of how some of these people live. It seems that most of the time the people have some sort of psychological reasoning and "sentimental" connection with all of the stuff in their homes, even the things that most people would easily deem as trash.

I think most people have some things that they just hang on to either for their guilty pleasure or for the sake of sentimentality. The things that I tend to keep that maybe I don't need, my guilty pleasure is kitchen gadgets. The truth is I use the same few things over and over again, but occasionally it is nice to have that specific gadget for the one project where it comes in most handy. Last year when we moved into this house I was so excited that our kitchen had about double the cabinet space of our last kitchen. It's fantastic to be able to spread out and have a place for everything!

Today as I was working in the kitchen and I looked down at 2 of the things I was using. They are old. One I use often, most days actually, is an orange mixing bowl and the other thing, a hand mixer that I don't use so often but still quite necessary to have on hand especially when baking. These two things were my Granny's. I've had them for a long time now. My grandparents didn't have much. The lived simple lives. When they passed away, there wasn't a lot of material things to be passed down in the family, but there were a few. The two things that I got from my Mom that were Granny's were the mixer and that orange mixing bowl. Granny could cook but she had a fantastic ability to sew and she made beautiful quilts. Everybody in our family has a handmade quilt from Granny. I've had this white, pink and blue dutch girl quilt on my bed since I was probably 10.

Before Big D was born, I knew that I would want to do something for him that would be just for him, a sentimental something. I know many people do baby books and keep track of milestone, etc and are faithful and meticulous to keep up with those things. I just couldn't bring myself to do that when I knew that I would likely fall behind and feel guilty about falling behind etc. Also, I can't sew. I've tried and wow, it's just not in me, so I knew that doing something like a quilt would be out of the question.

So I came up with this idea. I decided to keep a journal that I would write in once or twice a year. What I mostly write about is my prayers for him during that time in his life. I tell him how much he means to Mommy and Daddy and how much we love him. I write about how thankful I am that God gave him to us. I write about how I pray for him to know Christ and follow him at each stage in his life. Then I also include notes about things that have happened during that time. Usually it's 5-10 pages of me sharing.

I've never read this to Big D. I think I'll give it to him when he's older (10 or 15 maybe) and can understand what it all means. I know it's not a "thing" that's going to hold any sort of value to anybody else, but what I want is for him to be able to pick up that journal and read it and know how much I love him, how much God loves him, and how I've prayed for him for his entire life. I may not be super crafty. I may not have a lot of money. I may not be able to give him all of the things that he may want in his life, but what I can give him is my attention, my prayers, my love and Godly instruction. At the end of the day, that's something worth being sentimental about.