Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Former-Member]

@Former-Member how is your unpacking going?

[Smc]

@Former-Member, if I lived anywhere near you, I'd probably be that "friend" collecting your green waste... such useful stuff. 🙂

I mostly topped off the path next to the brick "plinths" today. I'd infilled the bottom with weeds I'd pulled out, and seriously, having access to a trailerload or several of green waste would mean the woodchips would go much further... have considered outting out the call in town, but that can only happen this year if the restrictions don't ramp up any further.

[Former-Member]

In our previous places, we have dumped our green waste into the chook pen @Smc , here we don't have chooks. The local council compost the green waste and have days where residents can get the mulch for free.

[Eve7]

Here I am @Former-Member I’ve arrived at this decluttering page!!! Wonders will never cease lol

I am following the Flylady...baby steps. I need encouragement with the “hard bits”...like should one keep over 100 Sympathy cards? Sorry if that’s not an appropriate question. 

[Former-Member]

@Eve7  I have not heard of the Flylady ...  will check it out.

In relation to the sympathy cards you received (not an inappropriate question btw), it is a completely personal thing,  most people keep them as long as they want or need to, this could be days or years. 

[Smc]

@Eve7, it probably depends why you're keeping them.

I tend to keep cards as a kind of "family history", but there's some which are more personal than others. Some of the sympathy cards will have very personal messages in them, and those might be of more value than others?

Or there's also the thing of they're a way of people saying that they care about how you're going during something really hard. When you look at them, do you see them as 100+ expressions of love, or 100+ reminders of pain? I'd guess probably both at once. Grief is so complicated...

With my preference towards "keep", I'd possibly do something like packing them all neatly in as small a box as they'll fit into, and maybe at a later time, when feelings may be less raw, looking over them and deciding whether any are "keep for good". And meanwhile, thinking of it as a boxful of reminders that people care about you.

[Former-Member]

@Eve7  When my Dad died I kept the cards that I had been given for over 10 years and then felt that I no longer needed them. To the best of my knowledge my Mum did not feel the need to keep the cards that had been sent to her at the time and likely disposed of them within days.  

Some options include

- keeping them in a box until such time as you no longer feel the need to keep them

- scanning them in and keeping e-copy

- making a little booklet out of them and keeping them that way

- making a collage or other art work out of them

[Former-Member]

One thing I have got sorted well is my unused cards. Over 8 years ago I was able to purchase a "job lot" of greeting cards at a closing down sale of a general store and ended up with 400+ cards for a song. I have able to share heaps among friends that could use them (and still do). I usually purchase christmas cards cheaply at post christmas sales fo use the next year so have them on hand as well.   Whilst the collection has diminished substantially but the remaining ones are kept in a box set up similar to this.

[Eve7]

Thank you @Former-Member @Smc . There are some great ideas you have offered. I will keep them as there are so many lovely messages in them. Currently they live in a shoe box but as I complete this current decluttering process I will put the cards in some sort of album. 

This is the website for the Flylady: www.FlyLady.net

[Former-Member]

There are some really good ideas with the flylady @Eve7 

Some people find organising cards a little easier if they put them in monthly or per person dividers.