Emptying the Boxes

A couple weeks ago, Benjamin was happily toddling around by the garage--in and out, climbing up on things and doing some general exploring--so I took the opportunity to open one of the boxes of old papers that reside in the garage and see what I found therein.

I found a lot of stuff to throw away, that's what!  ;-)

But before I tossed the whole pile in the trash, I took a few pictures of things that particularly jogged my memory.  Like this set of bedding that I LOVED in 1997...

 I believe it was my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Rufus who gave us the sheets from this set for our wedding (and believe it or not, we still use them to this day); but because my mother made us a quilt and gave it to us at our rehearsal dinner, we never got the comforter that went with this set.  I would rather have had the quilt, of course.  ;-)  But it's funny how one glance at this picture took me back to those dreamy days of preparing for my wedding and for my first home with my very own Prince Charming!  :)

I've never received a ticket in all my years as a driver, but I have received a warning a time or two (maybe three, but who's counting?).  ;-)  This one was given to me while I was a college student and simply resulted from a little miscommunication between my brother and I (we shared a car) about putting the updated registration info on the car.  It wasn't a big deal, but it was the first time I'd been pulled over, and I still remember the darkness of the night and the trembling in my scared little bones that lasted long after the policeman pulled away.  :)

I unearthed a file with information about Y2K.  Clearly, I needed to be hanging onto that 17 years after the fact, right?  ;-)  The article was copied and given to me by my mom, and she took Y2K preparations VERY SERIOUSLY.  No computer malfunction was going to come in and rock her world--not if she could help it!!  ;-)

While I was in college, I spent some hours as a work-study accompanist, and I have the pay stub to prove it, yes I do!  ;-)

Last but not least, I found this page that I had cut out of a calendar and--presumably--hung on the wall of my dorm room.  "It Is Well with My Soul" is still one of my favorite hymns.  But it can still be my favorite, even if I don't hang onto this piece of paper any longer.  ;-)

When Jeff looks around at the boxes of papers that haven't been sorted in the dozen years we've lived here, his solution looks more like utilizing some lighter fluid and a match!  ;-)  But I'm always grateful when I get a chance to sort through them...and reminisce...and maybe take a picture or two...and possibly stick them into a blog post.

And then, and only then, do I send them up in smoke as kindling for our woodstove!  ;-)