Bringing back new memories, while making new ones! I love it!
Marked 1961 True Vintage cocktail monkey charm picks zoo carnival circus piks animal hanger figurines retro Halloween Day of the Dead party supply, available here
photo via VintageToGoEasy
This Etsy buyer not only sent me her story, but sent me several email of inspiration and motivation to keep me on my Hoarder Rehab adventure!
Here is her story about the monkeys!
By the way, I thank you for your shipment of plastic monkeys that were common during my childhood. I intend to put them on ice cream cones for my father's 74th birthday next month as a tribute to special times he provided our family when I was a child.
Even though we struggled for money, my dad would take us to a special ice cream shop once a month and we would get amazing ice cream cones that had little plastic monkeys on top. He would always let me have his monkey along with my own. It was one of my favorite things to do as a child and I always kept my collection of monkeys lined up on my dresser. Somewhere along the way I lost my collection but I've always remembered the monkeys fondly. My dad suffered his second major heart attack a while ago and had a quadruple bypass. He should not have survived but clearly the Lord had other plans for him. Every day we have with him is a gift!
So I thank you for providing me with something special that our family can enjoy as we remember how blessed we have been and still are to have my father still with us!
Imagine how cute these will be on top of ice cream cones!
Marked 1961 True Vintage cocktail monkey charm picks zoo carnival circus piks animal hanger figurines retro Halloween Day of the Dead party supply, available herephoto via VintageToGoEasySuch a heartfelt story! I can relate, my Dad loved this kind of stuff too! Here's what I wrote back: (BIG apologies for the format and spacing, but every time I try to change it, it just gets worse, so please excuse my technical difficulties.)Hi Nicole! Wow, I love your heartfelt story and can totally relate to it! I hope your father is still doing great and so happy he can enjoy another birthday with you and your family and that you have such good memories at the ice cream shop with the little monkeys! I bet he's going to be so surprised when he sees your birthday ice cream surprise!Again, thank you for all your encouraging and kind words. I feel as if I've met a kindred spirit!Your emails make me smile, thanks again,KennedyShe also sent me some other emails and they came at just right time because I still haven't slept due to so many bathroom trips at night and I have had or have a weird head cold with gunky eyes and off and on ear aches and headaches and have not felt like doing anything! But her emails got me going again, little by little even though I'm still struggling with my health and I am so thankful for her kindness in time and emails, inspiration and motivation!Here is one of the email that got me going again!Hi Kennedy, it's Nicole in Utah! Thank you so much for the shipment of plastic monkeys and for your kind note and surprise gift inside. Thank you for sharing your unique struggles.I am very happy for you that you are working so hard to overcome your hoarding! It took great courage to even begin the journey you are on, so I salute and honor you for that! Know you're going to struggle at times and want to allow yourself to feel defeated. I beg you to face that with the same courage and determination that you showed at the very moment you accepted you have a problem and chose to overcome it! I KNOW you can do it!We all make mistakes and bad choices, and we all have our challenges and disabilities; it just that they take different forms and affect us in different ways. And those challenges others face at times seem nonexistent or "easier" for those others to overcome.That is not the case I have learned in my 48 years on this earth. Don't feel alone in your quest. And please never feel as if you're damaged. You're only human, Kennedy, and you are beautiful, unique, special and loved!Sending nothing but positive energy and support out into the universe, hoping you receive it someday and know that you shall overcome!Sincerely, Nicole P.S. When your package arrived today and I saw the return name and address I thought to myself that your name, Kennedy Miranda, is perhaps the COOLEST name I have ever heard! You have a fantastic name! And surely you have an even more fantastic spirit! Stay cool my friend :)Sigh, what a beautiful email! and what timing! I will not let my health defeat me and I will allow my body to heal itself by helping it with plenty of rest, healthy foods and beverages! And I will keep learning about myself and read books that will help me overcome!Each tail reads 1961 Zoo piks Pat PendMarked 1961 True Vintage cocktail monkey charm picks zoo carnival circus piks animal hanger figurines retro Halloween Day of the Dead party supply, available herephoto via VintageToGoEasySaying Goodbye: I think I'll be happy, when all my hoard sells out! And they have been, we won't be restocking a lot of items anymore and I've gotten to the point where I have found other healthier ways to deal with my stress and anxiety, however I'll see what happens during the winter holidays when they are at their worst!What I Learned:1. As a recovering hoarder, hoarding had become an ingrained easy non thinking habit I've created since high school to cope with stress, anxiety and fear. It was a way for me to get some relief from all my troubles. My troubles did not go away, but hoarding was such a relief for a few hours, it was like releasing all the air out of a balloon that was going to pop into a 100 pieces, so it could fill right back up, instead of exploding.2. It's taken a long time, over 5 years for me to learn many other ways to release negative energies and stop hoarding. I still have a long way to go, but my progress has been positive most of the time. I am now able to throw away paper, especially scrap paper and paper that I could use the back of and as long as I have a recycling bin I can put most everything I used to save, like anything glass or plastic, like reusable containers as jars and bottles.3. I used a lot of Immersion therapy to overcome my hoarding. The pain and anxiety of letting go of certain items and in the beginning almost all of my hoard was overwhelming and sometimes I felt paralyzed about it. Etsy was very helpful with that since letting go of items wasn't like purging, but more like one item at a time and I had time to think and process my feelings and attachment to each item. Thank you Etsy!4. I've done a lot of reading, none of them really about hoarding, but other self help type books through the years, right now I'm reading Codependent No More by Melody Beattie and I am learning so much about myself, my feelings or lack of being able to label them and my habitual non thinking behaviors and how to change them.I'm also just started reading Power vs Force by David R Hawkins, which so far, I find very interesting about how my feelings and consciousness can create a type of numerical vibe and how these vibes affect the world. He's much more scientific with his explanations than me, lol, but that's what I've gotten out of it so far.What interesting books are you reading today?The true vintage marked 1961 monkeys come in the traditional gray, red and orange only. Now we have many different colors of monkeys, but they are vintage retro style new!4 to 12 party animals monkeys retro vtg style cocktail drink cake toppers, available herephoto via VintageToGoEasyThank you Etsy buyer from VintageToGoEasy for bringing back good memories while making new ones! Most of all, thank you for your emails that helped me take baby steps to get back on track with my goals and dreams!I hope you, your dad and family have the best birthday ever and you can line the monkeys back on your dresser again as a reminder of your dad's good health and birthday!Everyday is such an adventure dehoarding on Etsy! I never know who I'll meet and I have met so many Etsy buyers who share their stories with me and every time I glean some insight about where my dehoarding journey is taking me and how to find healthier ways to cope with fear.Speaking about my dehoarding ways, in my last post I could not decide if I needed a break of not, from dehoarding and decided to keep on dehoarding at this time try and throw away some stuff and donate other stuff to quicken the pace! I am so proud of myself! More on that soon! Update: I'm having a difficult time throwing away stuff, but much better using our recycling bin! Baby step progress! Yeah!Thank you Etsy for the best Hoarder Rehab ever! And for all the kind people I'm meeting who are helping me indirectly and directly in so many ways with my Hoarder Rehab! I've been gleaning so much insight about my hoarding ways.Monkeys in brighter colors!12 or 20 Monkey vintage retro style cocktail drink cake toppers markers carnival circus zoo cupcake toppers, available herephoto via VintageToGoEasyI'm back to new listing daily at least on one or two shops! until I reach my goal of listing 180 at all the shops! Lots of items sold during our sale and continue to do so after our sale.Our sales were still fluctuating up and down, and then hit a low, but now we are back to 24 sales per week and growing. Etsy's Labor Day sale was a success for us and I am thankful I was able to let so much hoard go!Anyone thinking about joining the Etsy free shipping promotion? I was thinking about joining the "free shipping" promotion on Etsy, but I read some of the comments in the forum and decided not to participate.Issuing refunds with free shipping can get complicated, in the sense that since there is really no such thing as free shipping because it's just added into the cost of the item, then issuing a refund might turn into a loss of profits because one would be refunding shipping too.Also, the way Etsy processes their fees means one would also have to bump up the free shipping fees into the item fee and that just sounds like a lot of extra work and thinking to me! Personally I think the time, gas and money that goes into packaging, shipping and going back and forth to the post office needs more consideration and compensation!We will see how not joining Etsy's free shipping promotion will affect our sales.Anyone out there have any suggestion or ideas on how to use the new Etsy format and new Etsy Studio to their shop's best advantage? and if it has helped bump up your sales? How did your Labor Day sale go? and will you be joining Etsy's free shipping promotional?Click on the shop names to visit new hoard listed daily and/or weekly: HoarderRehab with 175 items, The Destiny of Things- 175 items, VintageToGoEasy - 178 items and JunkDrawerAndMore - 169 items.Maybe you'll find something to adopt and share your story too! Thanks for looking!We have monkeys and mermaids for those having mermaid pirate parties. We have them in true colors and we have mermaids in bright colors too. Mermaids in the above photo, available here. Photo via VintageToGoEasyRelated Stories: I just love it when old memories make new ones!Perhaps you'd like a sampler of all our drink or cake toppers!24 Assorted animal and mermaid drink or cake topper toy mix, available herephoto via JunkDrawerAndMoreAgain, BIG apologies for the format and spacing, but every time I try to change it, it just gets worse, so please excuse me."Harmony. It's not what's lasting or permanent. It is about individual voices coming together for a moment. And that moment lasts a length of a breath, or in my instance a transaction. That's what I think about my time here."---Frank Underwood from House of Cards or in my case, I think it's "destiny, as well as harmony."I love this quote so much because it relates to all the kind Etsy buyers I've met, I've used it in my art, here, here and here!Thank you readers from all over the world who continue to support my Hoarder Rehab and The Destiny of Things by taking part with your visits!
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