Bonesteel China: 3 sets await future guest events

Sandi Pennar Bonesteel reports:

Family Heirlooms and Stuff
My own family has been involved in way too many moves over the years, and each time I vow it will be the last. Sometimes I can part with things never used, or of no use, but it is usually such a stressful, hectic time, and in the end it’s just easier to pack it all up and say you’ll deal with it later. But I find it’s just a matter of good intentions, and I hang onto it and just keeping adding more "stuff".
(I can relate to George Carlin’s "stuff" routine).
I have a hard time getting rid of things sometimes. In addition to my own stuff, I have accumulated much of my family’s stuff. Here’s the saga of how I came to accumulate all my stuff over the years:
When my grandma moved into Knute Nelson, most of her stuff went into my aunt’s house, upstairs, attic and basement (from the looks of it, nothing was thrown or given away).
When my aunt went into Knute Nelson, in ‘91, I had the task to sort it all out, both her stuff and Grandma's.
This ideally would have required a couple of weeks, but unfortunately I had just started a new job and had only a 3-day weekend. So I flew to Minnesota and my cousin and a friend came from Minneapolis to help. I had very little sleep, but managed to get things sorted, and marked. Some was thrown of course, some would go to the church "rummage sale" (does anyone use that term anymore?), and then the rest was to be split between my sisters, cousins, and another niece on my uncle’s side, who lives in Alexandria.

Truck and U-Haul
I also had to arrange to have some stuff shipped to a sister in New Jersey after a few phone calls discussing what she wanted. I then flew back to Arizona, and my husband went up the following weekend, got a truck and U-Haul, hauled some stuff to various places in Alex, and then hauled home the stuff I wanted.
A lot of it went straight into the garage and storage, as I didn’t have time to deal with it then. Among all of this stuff were both sets of china and silverware belonging to my aunt and grandma, as well as a lot of crystal and fancy glassware. All of this stuff remained in boxes for 12 years When we moved to southern Arizona in ’93, we hauled it along with the rest of our belongings and put it into storage, as we were living in a rental until our home was built.
When we moved to our home, the boxes of stuff went into the garage, where it remained until my last move in 2003. Here I finally had tons of cupboard space, so I finally unpacked (and hand-washed) every piece after all those years.
In the meantime, I had also gotten my mother’s good china when she had moved into Assisted Living in 2001. So I now have 3 complete sets of china (one is my Grandma’s Bavarian china). It is all "good china" so we don’t use it for everyday---it doesn’t seem right somehow. Not to mention that it is not what you could use in the microwave, and if it went into the dishwasher, it might get chipped. Unfortunately I don’t do much entertaining, so there it sits. I inspect it from time to time. I guess maybe one of these days I will use it, as it seems a shame to have it just sitting there.

No desire
Both of my daughters have their own china and have no desire to "inherit" any of this, so I suppose one day they will be hauling it all off to an antique shop. And of course they’ll have to deal with all the rest of the stuff I have accumulated over the years. I’m sure it will bring back lots of memories (along with the cursing).
After my Mom died, my sisters and I went through her apartment. By then there wasn’t that much to deal with, fortunately, so it wasn’t that much trouble to handle. Much went to the thrift shop in town, and some mementos to her friends. We had already gotten various keepsakes over the years before she moved there, so most of what was left of any value was photos and journals.
Those things are the most precious.