Buddy the Cat loved boxes, but Eloise has no use for them. Hugs to all those cats at your house.

After the flood I loaded a lot of garage stuff in the back of the truck so I could get both it and the car into the garage - first time it had two cars in about 10 years. Now that the red cabin is out of commission, we can store stuff in it (except I'm paranoid due to the flooding - could happen again any time, although the chance is 1 in a hundred). I'm only putting stuff over there I could stand to lose without a regret: boxes comes to mind.

You and I share a love for the music of that era.

That's their stuff! We just maintain it and use what we can, saving the rest for the time we will need it. Except for the boxes, those come and go.

Those are DAR plates, passed down from my dad's mother. In the 1980s my mother had 4 or 5 of them on a plate rack in the kitchen, and burglars came in and stole the rest of them that were stacked in the dining room cabinet. It was a girl who had cleaned house for my mother so knew where they were, but she forgot the ones on the rack. My mother set out to replace them as she found them, and then one time the Mr. and I came across an antique fair in Brattleboro, VT and I was able to replace many of the lost favorites. My cousin in Illinois whose grandmother was my grandmother's sister also collected DAR plates, so we discuss our collections once in awhile, but I never feel the need to add to it.

I have parted with a few things over the years, but it's hard to have to do a forced downsizing, and there will always be regrets, as in: why did I let THAT go, and what did I think was so great about THIS thing here?

All the collections stay with the houses, so my cousins with the five kids will have to figure it out. I WAS collecting doll houses and furnishings for them, and they are going to a friend who is setting up a toy museum in South Dakota. The cousins acted relieved to hear that.