Memory Lane

For some reason I've chosen this week to delve into the crazy insane mess of boxes in my craft room. Because of said boxes I am unable to actually use the room to do any crafting. So...I jumped into it and, as usual, I have only created a larger mess. Because, of course, I find it necessary to sort through every little thing which reminds me of something else that I need to find which leads me traipsing through the rest of my house. And if I do make progress (which is mostly just creating a toss pile) it looks worse because instead of throwing all the junk into a big black trash bag I have to make several more piles of stuff : one that should be shredded, one for donations, one for stuff to be recycled...and on and on it goes.

But this long and arduous process has gifted me with a few surprises and smiles. For example, a random photo of my step mom whom we lost 3 years ago; old birthday cards from Kristin; the past seven (7!) years of Valerie's family Christmas photos; a CASSETTE TAPE of Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians (I used the artwork from that cover for my 8th grade art scale-to-scale drawing project...21 years ago - egads!); some confetti shrapnel from one of Leslie's cards; a "Hot Shot" hot water dispenser (where were these in my college days?); four of my old cell phones; and this:

It was in a box of some stuff that didn't sell in our last garage sale but I wasn't quite ready to donate it for whatever reason. And remembering that I pulled some CDs out because people noticed that some were missing from the cases, I opened it to see if I could just throw it away. But the CD was still there and so was this:

The first year I went back to OBU to work as a dorm (excuse me, residence hall) director I had an awesome group of young ladies working for me. At the end of that year they printed 250 of these business cards and snuck into my office and apartment and hid them EVERYWHERE. I was finding them all over the place the first month. In drawers, in work files, in the key cabinet, in my sock drawer, in cookbooks, etc. I've kept every one I've found over the years and I think I'm up to about 200 of them. Everytime I find one (and it's getting much further in between findings) I can't help but smile. I hope I continue to stumble across them on into my 50s! What a fun group of girls!