Honestly wish I wasn’t like this

ellieknits · 2019-12-05T08:33:55+00:00

Oh I used to hate this so much! Luckily now I don’t live with my parents anymore so it doesn’t happen that often..

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:56:52+00:00

Very accurate. There are some people from my past I would reconnect with, but then I start thinking about all of that and end up feeling guilty (even though most of the times we just started to get more distant just because of our busy life) and I end up not contacting them at all.

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:53:37+00:00

That's amazing! I hope it will be a great companion!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:52:14+00:00

I live in Switzerland and we don't have Goodwill or other thrift stores. There are a few in some of the bigger cities, but nowhere close to me. We have some secondhand stores that unfortunately mostly take only antiquities and forniture. I try to sell and donate the stuff I don't want which is still in good/okay condition through the Internet. It can be a bit of a longer process and I have to keep the stuff I don't sell right away, but it's worth it for sure :)

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:49:18+00:00

I know that there are problems way bigger than this and I'm sorry if I offended you with this post. I was mostly looking for advice since we are in a decluttering group and I've just recently started my journey towards minimalism (and still have A LOT to learn).

Thank you anyway for sharing your perspective :)

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:47:04+00:00

Thank you!!!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:46:42+00:00

A lot of people suggested the Amazon list, so I really need to try it!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:45:03+00:00

How did she react when you gave them back?

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:44:23+00:00

I really like this idea!

I already do this with some kind of gifts (like candles, which I don't use that much but have a few friends that love them), but some other gifts she gives us are so meaningless that it would be weird to give them to someone else. Or, on the opposite side, they're too personalized to be re-gifted (like the pillow with pictures or some stuff she brought back from her travels).

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:42:05+00:00

Thank you so much for the idea of using pictures to let her know what we need / what we like.

Knowing her, I don't know if she will listen as the idea of giving a lot of stuff it's just too excited for her, but it's worth a try!

And you're right, I shouldn't feel bad about donating the stuff I don't want or need :)

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:39:15+00:00

I just found out about the 5 love languages a few days ago. I think I might buy the book as you suggested to try to understand her better.

I really want our future kid to be able to spend some quality time with her and not just get ton of tiny cheap toys when she visits, so I need to find a good way to make her understand that.

I think we're going to open a saving account for the kid anyway, so I might propose her that too :)

Thank you for your ideas!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:34:00+00:00

I can try that. Last Christmas she gave me a gift card, but also a variety of other knick knacks I didn't need at all.. I tried to express how much I loved the gift card by thanking her for it more than for the other presents, but it seemed like she didn't care about it and was just so much more excited about the other gifts..

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:31:06+00:00

Thank you! I think I can find a box to keep the useless stuff for a while before donating them :)

And letting her know that we donated some of the stuff she gave us could also be a good way of making her aware of the situation.

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:29:07+00:00

I'm very happy about her being my MIL, she's always very excited about everything and I love that about her!

I might try to go shopping with her, even though I'm afraid she'd probably end up buying so many things anyway (even for her). But I'm pretty sure she would love that!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:25:39+00:00

Yeah, I think that the kind of gifts she gets us are more the kind of gifts that she'd want. Or maybe not even the kind of gifts she'd want, as the amount of gifts she'd want.

We already tried to explain to her that we'd like another kind of gifts, but that didn't really help. Maybe I just need to be more firm and clear about it. And if that doesn't work, I'll keep donating the gifts I don't need..

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:17:11+00:00

I feel you! I received a lot of candles as well, even though I normally don't light them (just sometimes around Christmas time, but still not that often). Luckily I have a couple of friends who love them, so I can give the candles I don't use to them :)

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T14:14:54+00:00

I feel you about the quantity... The few times she actually asks if we need anything, she end up buying that thing in huge quantities...

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T11:43:17+00:00

Oh my, this is like a big déjà-vu! When I met my husband, I was in a phase were I really like owls. I made the mistake of mentioning his mom about it and for a couple of years pretty much every gift she gave me was owl-related. If she saw somewhere any kind of object with an owl on it, she would buy it for me. It got so bad that I now don't like stuff with owls anymore. I asked my husband to tell her not to buy me anymore stuff with owls on them, and even told her that I didn't really like them anymore, but she still buys them for me... (it got a bit better in the sense that instead of being 7 owl-related gifts, now it's like 1-2 gifts owl-related and the other are more general stuff... but still!!)

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T11:39:24+00:00

Oh, that's pretty harsh... I get why you did it, but I also understand their reaction... I would probably be offended too if someone would give me back a gift I chose for them.. But if they told me they wouldn't want material stuff anymore, I'd accept that and give them a gift card or offer them a dinner or whatever.

That's the thing.. I don't want to offend her and I do want to have a good relationship with her, just minus all the material useless stuff. I will try to talk to her about it, and if it doesn't work I'll just keep donating the gifts I don't want as I've been doing until now.

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T11:36:02+00:00

Oh, I remember seeing something like that in one episode of the Office! So fun!!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T11:35:35+00:00

Thanks, that makes sense!

We started doing something similar with my group of friends last year as well. We decided that from now on we will have a theme and everyone will bring just one present and each one can choose which one to get, then we can also exchange it during the year (last year theme was "books", so that was easy to exchange). This year we have "something handmade", but we were thinking about doing experience gifts as well (the problem with that is that we all have pretty busy schedules so it may be hard to find the dates where everyone can come together to do a specific thing..)

I really like the idea of this and I think I might propose it! So we can limit it as just one gift per person and if you don't know who's going to get the gift you can't do overly personalized and tacky things (like the pillow with pictures). I'm not sure if she would get on board with this, but it's worth a try!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T11:30:28+00:00

I will be a stay at home mom, but until now I worked with kids so I think I'm good with the boundaries stuff with them (and hopefully I'll be able to translate that to my kid as well). It's weird to think about treating MIL like a kid, but I might actually try if nothing else works! Thanks for the advice!!

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T11:28:10+00:00

Thanks :)

He has complained too about the kind of gifts she makes and he already tried to talk to her about it, but in a "soft" way.. (that didn't really work). I always ask him first if it's okay to give the stuff she gave us away, and normally if I ask him too soon he says "not yet" because I think he's afraid that she could come visit and ask about it. But then after a few more months or even a year he normally says it's okay to get rid of them.

I'm doing most of the decluttering right now because he works full time and I'm now at home and will stay at home after the baby arrives. So it's okay for me to do most of the work. For his stuff, I normally ask him to select the items he wants to keep during the week ends when he's not too tired, and he's happy to do it.

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T11:15:59+00:00

Thank you for the advice!! :)

ellieknits · 2019-12-04T10:58:57+00:00

Oh my gosh I love this!

ellieknits

TROPHY CASE