Day 4: My Butterfly Brooch

We had a big beginning-of-the-year budgetary discussion, and the bottom line is we really can’t afford to make any frivolous purchases at all, as in no vacations or clothes or remodels. This is not a change from last year, but I am trying to be more OK with it, as this lifestyle dovetails with my thoughts about trying to embrace what we have already and not want more.

I’d like to make a regular item of writing about material things I own that bring me joy. I’m hoping this will encourage me to not focus on the many, many material things I covet (like new countertops).

I have met people who “belong” to the upper class (those of old money and genteel education) both American and British, and yet I have never met anyone who had more innate class than my grandmother, a woman of modest means. She was a remarkably gracious, stylish and glamourous
woman, and yet she had a reserve to her that people noticed throughout her whole life. She was also very kind. I wish that my husband and children had met her, she unfortunately passed away in 1999.

My mother gave me two pieces of her costume jewelry when she passed. I pinned one of them, a gold and pearl flower brooch, to my wedding bouquet and carried it down the aisle with me when I got married. The other is a gold and jeweled butterfly, and I love it. My grandmother often wore it to jazz up an outfit, and it is whimsical and colorful, yet tasteful. It is missing three pieces of paste, and I would love to replace them someday.

It’s probably worth $25, but to me it is more beautiful and valuable than Kate Middleton’s sapphire engagement ring.

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