Old Old Silverware and New Old Silverware

When Hero and I got married, we did not have a shower or big reception. 

Probably because we eloped.

Yep. That was why.

But it is totally good - We were thrilled with our decision to run away and get married in secret (all the way to the city court house).

Something that may happen when you are poor and need to outfit a home (and you don't have a shower or big reception), is that the stuff you acquire is not very expensive - dishes, towels, linens, silverware - or very high quality. But we were pretty pleased with ourselves finding all kinds of bargains from the local drug store. And we ended up with some goodies from Hero's family's basement.

(A side note - We did have two small parties a few months after we got married. We have some awesome family and friends who were very generous.)

But one of the things we had that was not that spectacular was our silverware. Most likely from Kmart. Most likely very inexpensive. Most likely pretty blah.

Another thing may happen when you do not have lots of extra cash lying around is you shop for bargains. Early in our marriage we discovered garage sales and LOVED them. We were able to accumulate lots of treasures and upgrade some of those early purchases we made. 

One of our best finds was a set of silver plated silverware in an awesome box. We have loved this stuff for about 20 years.

But as sometimes happens with old things, they started to develop a patina - Which on some things is a great look. It shows character and love.

But on silverware, it just feels weird on your lips when you take a bite.

For the last few years we have added a few non-matching pieces to our set - supplementing some of the worst tactile offenders. I have no problem mixing patterns, so we were good with that plan.

The box holds all the extras that we don't use everyday (shrimp forks anyone?) and the spoons that were just too awful feeling to use anymore. (Tip - when a guest uses a clean spoon and they turn it over to see if there is food or something stuck on the bottom, it is time to take it our of rotation.)

One of the things I am treasuring now is my mom's set of silverware. When I was a kid, my brother and I would argue about who got to polish the knives (the easiest) when my mom pulled them out for Christmas dinner. That was the only time we ever used it. 

But I am loving having it now - And using it.

Because it was not used very often, it is in terrific shape.

But it still needed polishing. 

This is a mix of my old stuff and my mom's old stuff, which is now my new old stuff.

Have you ever used that pink paste silver polish? Holy cow, that seems pretty toxic to me. It smells bad and I never feel like I can get it all washed off.

I have seen lots of natural cleaning products online and lots of home recipes for cleaning all kinds of stuff. I did some research for about 2 minutes and found just what I was looking for:

An awesome way to polish naturally, with cheap ingredients and bonus - No hand polishing!

If you have any silver to polish, totally do this - I highly recommend it!

Another before photo. They may not look super terrible, but after they came out clean and sparkly, it was a huge difference.

Basically, you line a pot with aluminum foil, place the silver on it so that every piece touches. I'm not sure if they could overlap, so I didn't let them, just to make sure.

Cover the silverware with water. And the final step - sprinkle with baking soda (seriously, baking soda is good for cleaning everything!)

After about a minute of boiling, they are done! 

Seriously, so easy.

I had lots of silverware to polish (with the two sets) and by the time I was done, I was looking around for more stuff to polish. It is super rewarding, especially if you have ever had to polish the forks (the hardest), which I often had to do because my brother always ended up with the knives.

So sparkly! So shiny! So not toxic!

(The ones on the left are my new old forks, the ones on the right are my old old forks.)

I'm sure these have never been this polished. I know this because I used to polish them, and I was not that great at it.

But now I am. Everyone can be!

Did you wonder where the tarnish went? 

Um, check out this aluminum foil.

Wow.

Non-Kitchen Project

While we are waiting for a certain major holiday to celebrate before we start on the kitchen, we are saving a few more dollars, measuring twice, getting the plans printed up, cabinets, counter top and sink ordered and trying to decide on a floor to get our kitchen remodel underway. We are so ready to have a beautiful and functional kitchen!

While we are waiting to get that party started, I've been working on a few organizing adventures.

I am totally on a back and forth with things coming and going out of our house. I recently inherited my mom's belongings. She has lived in the same house for about 60 years. She also had a very hard time throwing anything away. 

Like really really hard.

So, I spend a few hours each week making decisions about what to keep, what to give to other family members, what to sell and what to donate. Some things are pretty easy. Sea horse painting from the 40's painted by my Aunt Bonnie? Give to my Aunt Bonnie. Marriage license dated 1873 for a family member? Keep. Box of old (but not that old) keys? Trash.

But some things are not so easy to make a quick decision about. Fiesta Ware pitcher? Love it, but I already have one. So I bring it home to noodle on it for a while. I think I am going to sell it after all  Cool old glass and metal animal feeder? Very cool. Would love to keep it, but not sure what to do with it. After a month, I decide to give it to a friend who has chickens. She is in love.

So this thing with stuff coming and going in my house. It's hard. Hero and I are on a path of keeping things that we love or find useful, and eliminating the rest. It is so not easy. We sold the big house a year ago to really help us on that path. And we are doing pretty good. We did away with about 40% of our stuff when we moved and got settled into the small house. Less to clean, less to maintain, less to worry about. More time for more important things. And we are continuing to edit to make our home the best it can be without clutter or unnecessary extra goods.

But bringing in a few boxes of quick edited things home each week is throwing off our groove. Not to mention a few pieces of furniture and other things that won't fit in a box, like a mantle clock and swords (Yes, swords). 

My strategy is to go through the boxes within a few days of bring them home, and making decisions about their status in our home. Sometimes bringing things home makes it much more clear about their fate - Lots of it ends up in the donation box or on Ebay. And that donation box hits the road right away. The Ebay and Craigslist stuff has to hang around a little longer until it has a new home, which makes me a little bit crazy. Since it doesn't have a home at our house, it kind of floats around. Ugh. 

As this project will be going for a while, I have to come up with a better plan for the floaters. Like find a temporary home that is not the kitchen table, but not so far so it doesn't get too comfy. 

And after Easter, we will be creating even more craziness while we take our kitchen out of commission for a few weeks.

What kind of projects are you working on?

Pennies

I have taken a few weeks off from doing too much with our cutie little home. And I am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things around here.

As we work on our home and it evolves into something that feels like "Murphy", we feel more and more at home. And although there is nothing wrong with decorating a home and calling it done, I have a tendency to change things up. I love decorating for different holidays and seasons - those are some good changes - but I also love moving things in and our and around.

Something I just brought in is this great "liberty bell" bottle.

During the bicentennial everyone and their brother celebrated our awesome country with all kinds of marketing geniuses. I remember eating green olives from a liberty bell jar, lunch boxes and t-shirts were crazy red, white and blue and some coins, like the quarter, were special editions. You could not go anywhere without getting bonked on the head with a flag. It was pretty neat actually. I remember feeling lots of pride to be an American. Our school even had a parade. I jumped in after I had gotten back from a doctor's visit to remove a cast from my then healed broken arm and ended up with the flag with the broken stick. Obviously still a tender moment.

But, anywho - The bicentennial bottle - So cute!

I brought it home from my mom's house.

Baby Jett, Mama Alex, Grammy and Great-Grandma.

That's what I have been up to the last few weeks. 

Just two days after celebrating my mom's 70th birthday, she had a massive stroke. Another three days later, she was gone.

Unexpected for sure. Still trying to wrap my head around it. We had a terrific memorial for her a few days ago that brought lots of good people together to celebrate her life.

She lived in the same house for about 60 years - Her dad built the house! It has been added on to twice. For most of her life, she has had a hard time letting go of things. 

I inherited all of it. It will take several months to get through it all.

It's kind of an ironic time - I now own enough stuff to fill my house a few times right when we are on a journey to downsize. I took a few hours last week (with the help of my mom's partner, Sher) to get started. 

I brought home four boxes of stuff, gave one box to an aunt, donated one box and am keeping one partial box for my kiddos to look through. I pulled out a few things for our home, including this bottle of pennies.

It actually started as four full bottles of coins, mostly pennies. Colin, Liam and I went through each coin, pulled out the old ones and took the rest to Coinstar, where we ended up with about $35 cash.

The ones we saved are wheat pennies. These pennies were made up until 1958. Our oldest is a 1909, which is pretty valuable. My mom was born in 1943 - we have ten 1943 steel pennies, which sounds cool and they are cool, but not worth much. It's actually the 1943 copper pennies that are worth like a million dollars. Really.

We don't have any of those.

We are planning to do more penny hunting and keeping all the wheat pennies in the bottle. My mom saved tons of coins, so I'm sure the opportunity will come up soon. We had a great time searching through these, calling out the dates and googling their history and value. 

It will be a great connection to my mom, to always be on the lookout for the wheat pennies. 

And with that, I don't feel like I need to save everything my mom kept. There will be a few things coming home with me, but the rest will find a new home with relatives who may have a connection with some things or it will be donated or sold. 

This jar full of pennies now feels like "Murphy" to me.