08/24/2026
This picture is my goal for my house. 💗
Not because everything matches perfectly or because it looks like something out of a magazine. It’s because everything tells a story.
That stained, heavily crazed old creamer? I saw it and absolutely had to have it. The more staining and crazing an old piece has, the more I love it because, like I always say, it tells me it’s lived a life before it ever found its way to me.
Now it holds dried baby’s breath and roses from two of my favorite boys, Mason and Rylan, from Valentine’s Day. Those were actually the first flowers Rylan ever bought me with his own money. I dried them because I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. Someday they’ll just look like really old flowers to someone else, but I’ll always know exactly what they mean.
Then there’s our wedding picture sitting in an old, vintage ornate frame. I have no idea whose pictures that frame held before ours or how many years it spent in someone else’s home. Now it holds one of our memories.
And that old phone…I just had to have it. I can’t help but wonder about all the conversations that were once had on it. The good news, the bad news, the everyday calls that probably seemed insignificant at the time but would mean everything to someone now.
That’s what I want my home to feel like.
I want it filled with things that mean something. Evidence that we lived. Things that have already lived a life and things from our own life that I hope my kids will someday hold onto.
I wish I had kept more when I was younger. But when we’re young, we don’t always realize how much those little things are going to mean someday.
So keep them. Keep all the little things.
Dry the flowers. Keep the handwritten notes and cards. Take the pictures, be in the pictures — and actually print some of them. When Grandma or Great-Grandma offers you something, take it. Even if it isn’t your style right now. Even if you have no idea what you’re going to do with it. Keep it until you are absolutely sure you’ll never wish you had it back.
Because time is such a thief. Moments pass entirely too fast, and eventually the little things we kept become reminders that those moments really happened.
Maybe that’s one of the biggest reasons I love old things so much.
The past doesn’t always have to be about the bad things we need to learn from or mistakes we don’t want to repeat. It can be about joy. Love. Family. Ordinary days that turned out not to be so ordinary after all. And sometimes it can simply be wondering about someone else’s memories while giving a beautiful old piece another chance to keep living.
So dry the flowers. Take the pictures. Save the little things. Take Grandma’s dish when she offers it.
Keep the memories alive. And someday, pass them down. ❤️
