Church Training Kids

This is not a topic for everyone.  If you don't believe in organized religion, going to church, etc, you might was well stop reading now, and go read some other blog for the next ten or fifteen minutes.  Likewise if you don't have kids and don't ever plan to have any of the little buggers, this probably won't be a useful read for you.

If, however, you currently have kids, or want to have kids at some time in the future, and believe that taking them to church is something you are going to want to do, then read on.

Let me start by saying that I believe parents need to steer their children to God.  After all, Jesus said "Let the little children come unto me", not "Well, if they find me on their own, that'll be pretty good."

Think about it. The chances of a child finding religion on their own in their teens or twenties or older, are not very likely.  Really.  What teen wants to be told what to do?  And don't we spend our entire childhood eagerly awaiting the day we can finally be our own boss?  So why in the world would we think that suddenly after a decade or two or three of living however society says is okay (such as sleeping in on Sunday morning), our children would decide that they want to be restricted by what God says is okay (like getting out of bed on Sunday and putting on clothes that look presentable rather than being all that comfortable)?

Let me also say that I was not brought up going to church every Sunday.  Up until age eight, I went occasionally with my maternal grandfather.  He would come pick me and sometimes my younger brother up on a Sunday morning and take us to church with him.  Or, if we spent the night at his house on Saturday, Sunday morning automatically meant we were going to church.  He'd take us by himself, not with Grandma (who rarely went), and not with my parents (who at that stage very rarely went).  Brave Grandpa.  Obviously having us grandchildren exposed to religion was important to him.

From age twelve to about sixteen I did go to church just about weekly.  I took the 7th & 8th grade catechism class, and got confirmed into the church.  Mom and Dad made sure that my brother and I were worshiping regularly during our catechism years, but after my brother got confirmed, well, attendance was less important again.  Kind of the "there, we did it, now we can go back to what we'd rather be doing" mentality.

Shortly after I turned twenty, I looked at DH (who was my live-in boyfriend back then) and said "I'm going back to church, and I want you to come too."  Like me, he'd had a pretty hit and miss church attendance record in childhood.  But the foundation was there, and we both recognized a need in our lives to hear the Word of God.  We've gone to Sunday worship pretty much since then.

DS1 was two years old then.  Teaching a two year old to sit still for an entire hour, out of the blue, takes some work.  That was when I started accumulating tricks for training kids to go to church and not be a disruption.  All his siblings went pretty much from birth onward, especially DD1 who made her first church appearance at the tender age of 49 hours old.

Trick #1:  practice at home.  Practice with your child, sitting still and quiet on the couch (or, if you have them on unpadded chairs or a wooden bench--much more like a church pew) for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.  Whispers are okay, but not constant whispering.

Trick #2: bring a snack.  Finger food, non-melting, non-sticky and preferably not crumbly.  Most likely you should remove it from it's store packaging and put it into a container that does not make noise when little hands go in and out of it.  From personal experience, I advise you to stay away from anything sugary.  Bored toddlers and preschoolers amped up on sugar in a confined space (like a church pew) in a setting where they are supposed to be quiet is not a good situation.  We did Cheerios for a while, but they tend to crumble into the carpeting when dropped (and they will get dropped) and stepped on (and they will get stepped on when they get dropped). What I finally settled with was Teddy Grahams, which were bite sized (so hard to choke on), didn't melt, weren't stick or crumbly, and I could measure a desired amount into a plastic container with a lid.  I only let the kids eat Teddy Grahams at church, during the sermon (full mouths are quiet mouths).  To this day, my teen and twenty-something offspring refer to Teddy Grahams as "Church Bears".

Trick #3: bring quiet activities.  To expect a kid that is too young to go to school to sit and listen to the preacher for an entire hour is expecting too much.  Really, what you are doing at this tender age by taking them to church is exposing them to God's Word, and training them how to be in church so that as they get older they will be able to retain more and more of what is being said there.  So it is perfectly fine to have them playing quietly in the pew for part of the time.  Quiet play means bringing soft, quiet toys.  We had a collection of small stuffed animals that were kept in the "Church Bag" and, like the Church Bears, only accessible to the kids on Sunday in church.  That way they don't get tired of those toys quite so quickly. I also rotated the toys in groups, each group only spending a couple of weeks in the Church Bag before it was the turn of another group to go to church and be played with.  Other things that were kept in the Church Bag were religious themed board books (Jonah and the Whale, the Christmas story, the Easter story, Noah's Ark, etc), small pads of paper, and crayons or pencils (I really advise against markers in church, they seem to 'escape' onto things they shouldn't much easier than crayons of pencils do).

Trick #4: take the child to the bathroom when you get to church, and before sitting down in the pew.  This aids in teaching them to sit still during the service.  Because if you let them get up to use the bathroom a couple Sundays in a row, pretty soon they are using "I gotta go potty" as an excuse to get up and wander around.  Which is totally the opposite of what you are trying to teach them.  I'm not saying don't ever let them get up and use the bathroom once the service has started, sometimes that can't be avoided, but don't let it become a habit.

As a rule of thumb, I figured any kid old enough to go to school all day (so, first grade on; although 3 out of 4 of my kids did attend all-day Kindergarten three days a week) was old enough to be expected to stay in that pew the entire hour of the church service.  Our denomination has a very participation-required kind of service in that, with the exception of the sermon, which usually is 20 minutes long, the congregation does a lot of stand up then sit down during the service (probably only sitting 5 min at a time before standing up again), and also a lot of hymn singing and responsive reading.  So kids have opportunities to get some wiggles out with all that standing up and sitting down stuff, and make a little noise during the hymns.  Really, the hard part is the sitting quietly for the twenty minutes of the sermon.  And by kindergarten age, 20 minutes should not be too much to expect of a child.

Younger than kindergarten age, sometimes I did have to take my kids out of the sanctuary and to the smaller attached room known as the "Cry Room", because it was intended as a place for parents to take crying infants and noisy small children so they would not disrupt the worship of the rest of the congregation.  As soon as the infant or child settled down, back into the sanctuary and our pew we would go.  No staying in the Cry Room playing for the remainder of the service.  No sir; because that would have taught them that they were in church to play, rather than to worship and learn God's Word.  In fact, a few of mine, along about age three or so, got the bright idea that if they were bored and wanted to go to the Cry Room (where some toys and cushy furniture were kept) all they had to do was act up.  Once I caught on to that, we skipped the cry room and went to the church basement (aka the fellowship hall where potlucks and other group events were held) instead.  In the church basement there were no toys, and they had to sit on folding chairs.  There was a speaker in the basement (and also in the Cry Room), which was always on during the service so that anyone down there could hear what the preacher was saying.  Needless to say, my kids didn't like sitting in a folding chair in the usually darkened basement listening to the sermon via a speaker on the wall.  No, sitting in the pew where they could see other people and the preacher was much more interesting.  So that pretty much nipped the "I want to go play in the Cry Room so I'll just misbehave here in the pew" thing right in the bud.

What about older kids, you ask. What if your kids are all ready school age, but aren't used to going to church?  How do you handle them?

Well, if they are all ready in school, they should have the concept of sitting down and being quiet while someone else is talking pretty much mastered.  There should be no need to get up to use the bathroom (remember, do this before sitting in the pew in the first place).  There should be no need for a snack to keep quiet.  Although my kids did graduate from the Church Bears to Life Savers when they hit full-time school age.  The Life Saver was a treat saved for during the sermon, and yes, it did keep them quiet.  (My Grandpa used to give me a Certs during the sermon when I went to church with him, so this sermon treat thing wasn't totally my brainchild.)  Toys should not be necessary, and no books either.  Keep the little notepads and the writing or drawing tools, though.  School age kids can doodle while they listen.  Or they can be given an assignment to help insure they focus on what the preacher is saying during the sermon.  I used to give my kids a word to listen for, a word like Jesus, or Savior, or sin, or love.  They would make tally marks on their notepad for each time they heard that word during the sermon.   For kids who are still learning their letters, give them the bulletin and have them do things like circle every letter 'A', or fill in every letter 'O', or underline every letter 'S' or some such activity.

Now, how about dealing with discipline problems in older kids who decide to be noisy?  As I did with my smarty-pants three year olds who thought they'd figured out how to get play time, skip the Cry Room and go straight to the basement.  As soon as they can sit quiet in the folding chair for as many minutes as they are old, take them back upstairs and sit in the pew again.  If you have to repeat this more than twice in one service, or if you have multiple children who try to mutiny on you, as mine did one Sunday when DH was out of state for work and I had all four of them in church by myself (ie single parenting it that Sunday), you may have to execute a little tough love.

If you ask any one of my kids about the Sunday they all decided to be rotten little shits things when DH was gone, they will tell you I traumatized them.  After about fifteen minutes straight of in and out of the basement with each and every one of them, sometimes two at a time, I looked them in the eye and very quietly said "Go put on your coats, we're leaving."

Now, you might say "But wasn't that what they wanted?  To leave church?"

No, it wasn't.  They wanted to entertain themselves by misbehaving and give Mom a hard time in church.  They didn't want to leave.  That was quite evident by their dropped jaws and whispers of "But Mom, it's church, we're supposed to listen to God."

I quietly replied "But you aren't listening to God, because God tells you to obey your mother.  And nobody else here can listen to God because you are being so disruptive."

I took them all straight home, where they had to go lie in their beds, no books, no toys, no talking, until it was the time we would normally return home from church.  It was only when the clock had reached that exact moment were they allowed to do anything other than lie on the bed, stare at the ceiling, and think about their behavior.

I never had to do that again.  It was effective.  Not to say I didn't have times where I had to take one or another of them down to the basement for a few minutes during the service.  But I never had them attempt a mutiny in church again.  Honestly, I think that was about the time that "The Look" came into being.  Meaning, a child would start to purposely act up, I would give that child the hairy eyeball, and they would immediately straighten up.

There is a reason that God says to train up a child in the way he should go.  Because children don't train themselves.  That is the responsibility of the parent.  If you do your job right, they fit nicely into place in church.  If you don't do your job, because let's face it, training a child is W-O-R-K, they are not going to know how to listen to God, or respect His Word, let alone the words of others.  And if you don't think God's Word in important, but somehow you have kept reading this post thus far, let me say that all the things taught a child by church training (sitting still, being quiet, being respectful of others), are beneficial in all areas of his or her life.  A kid who can sit still in church can also sit still in school.  A kid who never has been taught to sit and listen in church isn't likely to do so in school.  Think about it.

Challenge #8: Spring Clean Your Closets!

March is right around the corner, and March means spring, whether or not the current weather conditions reflect that or not.  In the old days, spring cleaning was an annual ritual, and many people still do a scrubbing and purging in the first warm season of the year.

For this week, our challenge is to get a little start on that spring cleaning by tackling your closets.  In particular, your bedroom closets and your coat closet(s).

My plan is to start with articles of clothing in those closets, and see which items can be released from our possession.  In other words, which pieces of clothes aren't going to get worn at this little place here any more, so I might as well donate them.  Donate either to someone I know who could use that exact item (such as a child-size Carhartt coat that my kids all grew out of but will fit a little boy at church whose parents would appreciate him having it), or donate to charity such as Goodwill or Salvation Army or St. Vincent's.

Once you've gone through the clothes and outerwear, if you still have time and energy, see if there are any shoes, boots, or accessories that are also sitting around gathering dust.  And whatever else you might find stashed in your closets that you have forgotten about.

Has it still got life left in it?  Donate it.  Is it worn out beyond any future usefulness?  Trash it.

I'm betting that once you've gone through that process, your closets will suddenly be a whole lot cleaner.  Mine usually are.  And while each closet is empty from all your removing and sorting, get rid of the cobwebs in the corners and sweep or vacuum the floor.  Then put back in the things that you are keeping; the things that still have purpose for you.

What an accomplishment!  Closets done.  Now you have a big head start on your spring cleaning.

If you're feeling really ambitious, do the same with your dressers.  Then, sometime in the coming week, drop off everything you decided to donate.

So It's Cold. . . That Doesn't Mean I'm Incapacitated

This is what the thermometer looked like at 8:30 a.m.  Mind you, this was after I'd gone to the horse farm, fed and watered the horses, then drove home again and fed and watered my chickens.  Also after DH had stoked the wood boiler and gone to work, DD1 had gone to work, and DD2 had gone to school.

 A little bit cold.

This is what the field looked like at the same time, since the wind was cranking about 20 mph from the north, and it was also snowing lightly.  I'd driven through pretty much white-out conditions on my way home from the horse farm ten minutes earlier.

Just for kicks and comparison, here are two pictures of my driveway.

Today, when I got home:

And, taken from just about the same spot, a few weeks ago after I'd been out plowing, when it wasn't currently blowing snow:

What is my point so far?  Well, that it is a) pretty cold out, and b) that our daily activities went as normal, despite the cold, wind, and snowy conditions.  Stoke the boiler, go to work, go to school, feed the animals.  The weather has not hindered us today.

Yesterday was cold and windy too, although minus the snow shower.  I did a lot of indoor activities yesterday, just as I have planned for today.  Yesterday I baked bread, made granola, made banana bars, made chicken and dumplings for dinner, did five loads of laundry, and sewed myself a new apron.  The weather might have kept me indoors more than usual, but it certainly didn't hamper my productivity.

my new apron

close up of apron fabric

Likewise, the weather is not incapacitating me today either.  Breakfast was made and served and eaten.  Animals have been taken care of.  Housework (and cleaning) will get done.  I'm planning to run some errands later this morning when the snow (but not the wind) stops.  I'll probably do some knitting on my latest pair of socks.

sock underway,

in trekking xxl yarn, color #470

(on size 0 needles, rather than the 2's recommended, which is probably why I am getting psychedelic pooling rather than the self-striping the yarn is known for)

Dinner will get made (tonight's menu:  venison sloppy joes with either baked sweet potatoes, or sweet potato fries, I haven't totally decided yet).  I will go to Parent Night at the high school (last home basketball game of the year) and walk with DD2 when she is introduced as one of the varsity cheerleaders.  I will go to choir practice.  Life will continue, despite the fact that it is cold outside.

Plugging My Ears and Closing My Eyes

That is what I feel like doing lately, with all the hyping of weather conditions that this winter has had in the media.  Attention grabbing headlines on the internet, fear mongering on the television stations, and people are all whipped up about any little change in weather.  Or lack of change in weather (ooooh, it's been below freezing for 30 entire days in January!!)

Temperatures rise above freezing?  Oh my goodness, all this snow is going to melt in an instant and cause flash floods, and we're all going to die!!!

Temperatures hover at freezing, and precipitation highly likely?  Oh my goodness, it's going to be an ice storm of epic proportions!!  And you know what happened last time you had an ice storm, right?  Your power was out for nearly a week.  Fear!  Panic!  Horror!

Temperatures below freezing?  Oh my goodness, we are having such cold, cold weather waaaaayyyyy below normal temperatures for this time of the year!  It's the beginning of the next Ice Age.

Temperatures below freezing with more snow on the way?  Oh my goodness, everyone is going to get snowed in and starve to death!  Rooves are going to cave in under all the weight of the snow!!

Bah.  That's what I say.  Bah.  Baloney.  Bullsh--.  Just shut up all ready.  Take a look at the numbers, that's all that is relevant.  The number that tells high and low temperatures for the day.  The number that tells the percentage chance of precipitation and the number that says how much precipitation in inches.  The number that tells you wind speed.  Looking at the letter or letters that indicate wind direction are pretty telling too.  But don't look at any words!!  Don't read those!!  Don't listen to those!!  Those are where they throw in the stuff that sells.  Fear!!

High temperatures in Michigan in late February and early March that are in the teens and twenties?  Yeah, lower than average, but not unheard of.  Not anything to get your panties in a wad over.  Ice storms this time of year?  Pretty typical, actually.  When your temperature is bouncing in and out of the thirties and there is precipitation (and there is always precipitation in late Feb. and early March) you are going to get one of two things pretty much daily:  rain turning to ice, or wet heavy snow.  Yeah, your power might go out.  You have lived through this before, if you've lived in Michigan for more than a few years, so you should know this is normal, and you should be prepared.

What you should not be doing is letting the media whip you all into a frenzy.  When can you pack away your ice scraper, snow shovel, and winter gear?  In June, duh.  Because that is the first month you are pretty much guaranteed to not need them anymore.  Late February is not the end of winter.  Nor is the beginning of March.  There is no magic switch that turns the weather to a consistent fifty degrees and ends all possibility of snow or ice.  To think that at this time of year you're going to have anything other than a fluctuation from freezing to thawing, with occasional cold snaps harking back to mid-winter, is ludicrous.

Okay.  Ears stuffed with cotton, eyes focused only on numerical data when I peruse the weather sites for info.  No lip reading when the weatherman on TV gives his report.  Nope.  Save the words for something else.  As far as the weather forecast is concerned, give me data; it doesn't stretch the truth.  Besides, the forecast is at best a pretty good guess, by computers, based on past and present atmospheric conditions, at what the atmosphere is going to be like in the future.  It is not infallible.  It is not written in stone.  It is not anything to dose yourself with anti-anxiety meds over.  Weather has been happening since time immemorial, and the world has not ended yet.

End rant.

A Last Good Round of Cold

The temperatures have begun falling again at this little place here.

The weekend was nice, hovering around the freezing mark, and I finished pruning the orchard, while DH decided to haul in a few more loads of wood with the Bearcat and the dog sled.  You can never have enough wood, you know.

We lost quite a bit of snow at the end of last week.  Not counting where it was drifted, I'd say there is only about 4-5" left on the ground in most places.  And the paths we used all winter are down to bare ground now.

Yesterday, the weather turned toward the colder side again.  Temperatures are supposed to continue dropping, down, down, even getting below zero at night, until the end of this week.  Then they will slowly go back up again.

Being that this is the last week of February, I predict this cold spell will be the last good round of cold for the winter.  March is, after all, by and large a muddy month.  Can't very well have mud when your daytime high is only twenty degrees.

Besides, March is tree tapping time.  And sap doesn't really run until you have strings of days over forty degrees.

So, we're looking eagerly to this cold snap.  It is a harbinger of spring to come, of a warming trend due to start any time now.  And once that happens, things will really be hopping around here.  For after sap season comes gardening season.  Gardening season is long, and busy.  Sun up til sun down kind of work hours.

I've all ready got my seeds and onion starts ordered.  Most of my seeds have arrived.  Time to bring the seed starting supplies in from the barn and let them warm up.  Time to rearrange things in the house to make room for seed trays and grow lights.

Time to enjoy the cold, and the respite from work that winter brings, before it is gone.

Something New Out Of Something Old

I've been working on a jean quilt for about a month.  I had a stash of old jeans, denim shorts, and denim shirts that were worn out, or stained, or otherwise unfit for donation.  The intent of the stash, when I began collecting it, was to make myself a denim quilt the same size as the one I'd made DH several years ago.  He uses his when camping, and since we don't own sleeping bags, I thought it would be nice to have one of my own so that when camping together we could layer them just like when you zip two same size sleeping bags together to make one large one.

When I decided it was time to tackle that stash of off-cast denim and turn it into a quilt, I began by cutting the seams out of several pairs of old jeans.  The seams are just too hard to work with in a quilt; the denim itself is thick, and when you are trying to sew two pieces together, that is a tall task for a sewing machine needle.  To ask it to do two pieces when one or both of them includes a seam . . . well, expect a lot of broken needles.  I did keep some of the pockets, if they were fairly thin, just to add interest to my quilt, but tried to cut them so that no existing seams were on the sewing lines.

In my stash, I also found a few pair of worn out denim shorts of mine that I had forgotten about; a gingham checked pair and a yellow pair.  There was also a peach colored denim shirt DH had gotten me in 1998 when he was on assignment out in New Jersey for 5 months (and I was home alone with four young kids).  I'd worn that shirt till the cuffs and collar frayed and it had many stains on it.  But there was still usable fabric, so it too had gone into the box with the future denim quilt fodder.  I guess you could say that shirt has some meaning, since I obviously kept it with the intent of making a quilt out of it despite it's stains.

Once I had the shorts, the shirt, and about eight pair of jeans cut into 6" squares, I started counting.  I needed 300 squares for my project.  On average, I was getting 20 squares from an adult size pair of jeans, so that gave me a pretty good guess at how many more pairs of jeans I needed to pull out of the stash in order to have enough denim squares. Some of the oldest jeans I found were larger child sizes, even a few pair with embroidery on the legs, and I used those also. I think I ended up with two extra squares in the end.  They'll go to some future project.  The box of old jeans did not get totally emptied before I hit my 300 squares, so obviously there are some more recycled denim creations in the years to come.

I like my jean quilts to be random, rather than a planned pattern of colors, so once I had all 300 squares cut, I used my highly scientific method of organizing them into a random assortment:  I tossed them, one by one, around my bedroom floor, being careful none of them went under the bed or dressers.  Then I picked them up into twenty stacks of fifteen squares.  Sort of like the 'fifty-two pick up' method of shuffling cards.  Voila, no planned pattern here!

Sewing those stacks into twenty rows of fifteen squares each, pressing them after each row was sewn, and sewing those twenty rows into a quilt top took a while.  I was near the end of all that sewing when I realized I didn't have any large pieces of flannel for the backing.  All the other jean quilts I've made, I've used flannel for the back.  Being so heavy, denim quilts don't really need batting for warmth, just a nice fuzzy backing.

Now, I could have gone to the fabric store and purchased about 6-7 yards of new fabric.  But I didn't want to.  Not only didn't I want to cough up the money for new fabric, I had remembered that eons ago, I had bought a huge piece of mint green baby wale corduroy (most likely on sale) with the intent of making my daughters some jumpers.  I'd never actually gotten around to making those jumpers, so that massive cut of corduroy should still be in my possession somewhere.

I located it, unfolded it, and was pleased to see it was enough to back my newly made quilt top with (plus about 2/3 yard to spare!).  Hooray!  Being baby wale, it is soft, almost like flannel.  And corduroy is a warm fabric too.  Plus, green is my favorite color, so being a light green made it the perfect thing to use for the backing of my very own personal jean quilt.

Before sewing the top to the backing, I took five minutes to stitch my name in one of the squares.  Just because I can, and I wanted to.  DH's quilt has his name stitched on it (less likely to get 'accidentally' swiped by one of his camping buddies on the times I'm not on the same trip), so I felt since I was making a sorta matched set with mine, it needed my name on it.  I used embroidery floss in an shade that is pretty much an exact match to the corduroy.

stitching same color as backing

Once the top and the back had been stitched together, and turned right side out, came the pinning.  This is to keep the two layers aligned so that there would be no shifting or bunching while I tied the quilt.  I commandeered the floor where the living room and dining room meet for the pinning and tying.  I used some variegated yarn in blues, greens, and yellows to tie the quilt with.

Then I had a finished quilt!

all done

pocket from one of DS1's last pair of jeans from high school

embroidered pocket from DD2's middle school years

Without spending any new money, I have a keepsake that is both special, and useful.  Old ragged jeans and unused decade (or more!) old fabric have become a new creation.

Old Stuff

Yesterday, DD1 and I went to one of the antique markets in the area.  There are several within a twenty minute drive, yet we have very rarely gone to any of them.  After yesterday, that is about to change!

We had gone solely because I knew that the lady I buy honey from at the local farmers' market in the summer time also has a booth at this particular antique market.  And I am out of honey.  No honey means no granola.  So, I needed to go to the antique market!

Well, I picked a very good day to do so.  I got the honey I needed, and so much more!  Not that I spent very much money, just for the honey and for a lovely teacup and matching saucer that I will stash away for DD2's birthday (she collects old teacups).  It was the things I didn't spend money on that I most took away from my trip.

First of all, that particular market was having a special chocolate weekend.  Many of the vendors had free chocolate delights for your palate's pleasure.  Oh my!  Free chocolate!!  MMMMM!!! So DD1 and I pretty much had chocolate for lunch, and I came away with some new dessert creations to try at home (recipes not provided, but several of them I could figure how to make just from the tasting).

The second thing I came away with was ideas of how to put to use some of the antique and otherwise slightly kitschy items I have at this little place here.  Those blue canning jars inherited from DH's grandmother that I haven't dared actually can with because they are so old and valuable?   No longer do they need to hide, protected, in my cellar.  Nope, they have been moved to the kitchen, where I can enjoy them in an aesthetic manner.

Likewise some of my baskets that I use a lot during the gardening and farmers' market season, yet just take up space in my basement during the rest of the year.  Now the ones that fit above my kitchen cabinets dress up the room along with the blue Ball jars.  And a few chicken decorations that have recently made their way into my possession (50% off--decorating is not a high priority in our budget).

The third thing I got from my visit to the antique market was an enjoyable several hours with DD1.  We decided that we should make a monthly date to visit antique markets in the area.  We could probably get through six months of dates (at which time she will be moving to the west side of the state, transferring colleges) before we'd been to each of the other markets once.

The fourth thing I took home with me was the decision to take a list of items I've been wanting to acquire, and start looking for them at antique stores.  For instance, a cedar chest for DD2 is going to be purchased sometime in the next year or so.  DH and I had bought one for DD1 a few years ago, and been both overwhelmed at the cost, and underwhelmed at the quality of the brand new ones on the market.  I think I can find a better quality, better craftsmanship cedar chest for the same price, or maybe even less, if I start searching the antique markets.  After all, the cedar chest I have, that was given to me on my sixteenth birthday, had belonged to my great-grandmother before me.  It is at least eighty years old at this point, and way more solid than the one we purchased in 2012.

While I was sprucing up the kitchen with DH's grandmother's old canning jars, I also remembered another item we had inherited from her: a silver and copper platter.  It had sat on the top shelf of one of the cupboards since her death in 2005.  Now it sits atop a cupboard where it can be seen.

Old Stuff.  It shouldn't be underestimated. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's not useful.