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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Random Tuesday Thoughts about Collections

I have various collections. Most are a hodge podge of things that I have collected, my mother-in-law collected, her mother collected, her mother's mother collected, my grandmothers collected.....you get the picture.

I think of collections like marriage. You take two people combined them, draw into the collection the families from both sides, add some more of your own and TaDA! You have a new collection.

A new collection of old and new.
A collection of rich and poor.
A collection of battered and pristine.


This is a small portion of my silver collection.
It illustrates exactly how I feel about families.
Hardly any of it matches.
Some of it is tarnished, dented or bent.
Some of it is shiny, elegant or simple.
All of it beautiful.



Here is a portion of another collection.
Another reminder in my house of how families like collections come together.
Who collected what? Starting from left to right.
Grey pot = mine
Flowered pot = my mother-in-law
Cream pitcher with leaf = my grandmother on my father's side
Cut glass pitcher = my grandmother on my mother's side.
A daily reminder in my kitchen of where we came from.




Our postcard collection.
This collection spans 10 years of collecting.
It covers several countries, states, ethnic and cultural groups.
Disjointed as only families can be; yet still together.

It has been passed down through 2 generations and as time plays out I hope it will be passed down to more.
It is valued by this generation more than you could possibly imagine.
It's continuity reminds me of family.




This is a portion of my collection of candlesticks.
It wasn't a collection until I pulled it all together.
Sometimes families happen that way.

Once again it is a combination of family pieces and new pieces.
In fact, everything on our mantle and hearth represents
the old and the new.
Am I the only one that thinks of family and collections in these terms?
Have any of you looked around your house and thought of the connection between family and their collections?



Every room in my house holds a collection of some sort to remind me everyday about the melding of lives and the importance of people coming together to make more collections.

Speaking of collection and family building, stop by my eldest son's blog for pictures of their move from arid Arizona to wet Washington. He has the sweetest picture of my DIL.


Wow! I got way off base on this one. I had plan to talk about how eclectic and random the collections in my house are; then it just morphed. I'm not even sure if this qualifies as a Random Tuesday Thoughts post anymore. To get the idea of how this whole RTT thing is really supposed to come down head over to Keely's place.

randomtuesday


Love,
M

14 comments:

  1. I have some treasured items from both of our families. Mixed in with it is the things we pick up along our travels. I have one small curio that is full of "memories".

    I agree with your son that the Oregon coast is gorgeous!

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  2. Great collections!

    Have a great RTT!
    http://iamharriet.blogspot.com/2009/11/tuesdays-are-for-randomness.html

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  3. Random thoughts about collections: jumble, precious, variety, crawlspace, binders, inheritance.

    That is all.

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  4. Love your collections!
    My mom collects teapots. I've started my own collection of dust since the last time we vacuumed...

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  5. I love the collections and the way they're tastefully displayed. Everything my husband "collects" is in a box in the garage.

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  6. I love the teapots! I aspire to have a wonderful teapot collection someday (but I figure I should wait for the little people to get back the super destructive phase first).

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  7. Teapots --- awwwwwhhhhh :-). I like how you've kept the four of them from reproducing. How DO you keep them from reproducing??

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  8. Julie has a good question there.

    As for the randomness, my very first RTT wasn't at all random. It also wasn't at all interesting - I carried on about how my garage door broke.

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  9. I really enjoyed the eclectic collection of things in your home. You clearly love them and it makes me smile.

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  10. Wow, I dig all of your collections. And I just made a mental note to NEVER let my kids in your house or we'd have a lot of broken glass. You can thank me later.

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  11. Love your collections. It is special that you have memories attached to all of them. And as someone already commented, they are beautifully displayed.

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  12. Nice pictures of some of your collections. You're right about collections are like families and it's great to treasure the memories.

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  13. You are very blessed to have those things as reminders of your family members. I don't have anything passed down from my family, not a single photograph. I love the silverware!

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  14. Lovely metaphor. I like your choice of things to collect. Mostly I collect papers and things you put in a 'junk' drawer.

    My parents collect every single one of those collections you find advertised in a magazine; they get totally sucked in by those. Teacups, model cars, trains, dolls, plates, you name it. Not good collecting in my opinion, I like the things you put together yourself; as you clearly do.

    Good Post!

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