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I am going to interrupt my musings about the inheritance I received 52 years ago that my husband immediately took out of my name and put in an account with only his name so I couldn't touch it. Getting involved with organizing a little of my jewelry led me to tear into it completely and organize all of it differently. It actually has always been extremely organized and color-coded but has gone through a couple of different locations. Even my jewelry at our little cabin has the same system of wire shelving hung flat up and down the wall behind the hanging clothing so I could hang everything and see it all, as long as I didn't have too many clothes hanging in front of it. I was already in the process of taking the jewelry down and putting it in throw-away plastic boxes but was finding that if I really wanted to separate it by color it was taking too many boxes that take up too much space. Years ago I twice had a clothing and costume jewelry business doing fundraising for women's organizations. Being 80 years old I have had more time to accumulate jewelry than most, plus I always was a garage sale and thrift store shopper calling myself: Second Hand Rose. Between all the jewelry I acquired from my businesses, gifts, garage, and thrift sales there were two other large acquisitions. A couple of years ago the gal across the street was selling a lot of jewelry for $1.00 each and there were many necklace and earring sets in packaging that had never been opened. What fun! I picked out 70 pieces which included many of the new sets. They filled 2 plastic grocery bags but she didn't charge me $70.00 but only wanted $15.00. The other acquisition was from our daughter's garage sale after her mother-in-law died. I didn't get there early enough to look at the fine jewelry but I did pick out $200. worth from the costume jewelry that was left. Our daughter graciously did not let me pay for it in the end, but that kind of backfired in that there were other things I wanted to buy, as she was streamlining her house before putting it up for sale, that I was not allowed to buy. She said they couldn't take money from me. It's always been hard for me to understand the concept that I wasn't allowed to benefit by buying something I would love to have, like her fountain that other people she didn't even know, got to buy for practically nothing. Strangers were allowed to have things for pennies on the dollar that I desperately wanted to buy and she refused to sell to me. When my sister died the same thing happened to me with my nephews. They made a list of the things I wanted to buy but then told me my daughter told them not to let me have anything. She believes I have too much already and the sentimental nature of things that had belonged to our parents didn't sway her. The day they let me come look and take what I wanted it did not go well. My husband and I only had my car and I filled the back about half full. My sister had always told me that I should take this and that after she died but they said they could not find her list. She assumed they would not want any of her things and that was true but they wanted to sell things to raise money to repair the house. I kept asking them to just set a price so I could decide whether to buy it or not. My one nephew I was dealing with (to whom she did not leave anything) was the one that had lived with me for a summer when 11 when his mother gave him away. My husband would not let me keep him as I wanted, but I was always the closest to him since his mother rejected him. He is a millionaire with many rental properties and convinced his brother (that the house was left to) that going together to repair and then rent the house was a good idea. I must have said to that brother (son) a hundred times I wanted to pay for whatever I took. When he didn't let me pay for any of the things filling my car up halfway I thought it was because he had way, way more money than I do. I'm not even sure his wife knew that the list she was making that day was a “to purchase” list since I was talking to him mainly. The son that the house was left to never said anything negative to me but his wife kept repeating to me that day that I took “everything” in the house. My sister had a 4 bedroom house with an extra room off the kitchen and a full gazebo, was a hoarder, had years and years of things she had painted all over the house, and had four truckloads of painting supplies. One bedroom and the garage were so full you couldn't have put a pillow in them. But my half of a car load was “everything” in the house. My sister never expected her son whom I was close to, to show up at the house after she died since they were estranged and she didn't even leave him a penny. She knew her son that she left the house to wouldn't want anything inside because he had moved from a 3,444 square-foot gorgeous house in Arizona to a small 1,435 square-foot house in California and their two grown sons still live with them. She would not have imagined in a million years that the estranged son would come to help his brother clean out the house then talk him into going together to repair, then rent the house. The son that received the house probably would have only received about $100,000. from the house after the reverse mortgage was paid, but he is trying to buy a trucking company from his brother, is 63 years old, and has had 2 heart attacks and at least 1 stint from working so hard driving a truck full time plus running the company. After a $40,000. roof, tenting the house because it was all eaten up by termites, and a multitude of other repairs, I can't imagine how long it will be till the rent pays off the money for the repairs, then he starts getting half the profit, let alone get to the $100.000.00 he would have gotten if he had just sold it when my sister died as she had intended. It's even surprising I was dealing with the wealthy son that did not receive anything from her. The wealthy wife said I had taken the “best” things in my half-full car. They live in 3 residences. The main one is a million and a half dollar, almost 4,000 square foot house with 5 bedrooms and 5 baths. The second is a 2,168 square foot 4 bedroom, 3 bath house, on over a quarter acre in the ski area east of Los Angeles across the street from Tommy Lasorda, worth over $900.000. The third is in Lake Havasu. My sister was an 83-year-old living on a small Social Security check but had no “security”. They just wanted to sell the things but not to sell them to me after my daughter told them not to let me have any of it so she wouldn't have to deal with any more stuff after I died. She keeps bugging me to get rid of “stuff”, and now her cousin, the son I “was” the closest to, is angry at me for burdening her when I die. He told me so that day I was there to pick up some things of my sisters, but now he doesn't speak to me. They were so disparaging to me that day that I took back more than half of the things comprising my half-car full. They showed my “desire to purchase” list to my daughter and she thinks I am just terrible for desiring so many things that my sister had originally told me to just take. So much for dysfunctional family relationships. I even took back most of the costume jewelry I had picked out from my sister. I hadn't taken even 2% of what she had. The two sons never mentioned to me anything on that "desire to purchase" list. They just sold what they could in their 2-day sale, and gave away to the thrift store or threw away the rest. Now I have my costume jewelry in 5 color-coded Ziploc bags. Snack bags for earrings and necklaces that would tangle, put into sandwich bags with their matching colors. One bag has white, creme, and pearl, one has red, pink, orange, and yellow, one has browns, and one blues. The final one has too much in shades of turquoise that I may whittle down. I have some I will take to church Sunday to give away. They will not take up as much room, and I can put them in one of the cardboard boxes I use to keep my shoes in, under my hanging clothes in my closet, so when I die my daughter can just pick up the Ziploc bags to give or throw away, or they will even be easy for a burglar to carry out. Isn't that and taking care of my husband, the goal of my life?
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