Yesterday Doug and I were cleaning up in the basement. I have friends coming over to scrapbook on Saturday and thought they'd prefer to be able to walk into my scrapbook area and not leap over empty wrapping paper rolls, empty boxes and about a thousand other items that have been tossed down there since Thanksgiving. It's an unfinished basement, and I use half of it for my Creative Memories business. Once Thanksgiving rolls around, my business goes into hiatus for a bit so that I can use the tables up in my dining room, and wrap Christmas presents away from the ever-prying eyes of four children.
Once we tackled organizing one part of the basement and realizing that indeed, we DO need to hold a yard sale, we started on the large stack of boxes that we have moved with us several times. Doug and I have lived in 1 apartment, 1 rented house and 2 homes of our own since 1997 and we have lots of STUFF. Things like a street sign from the street he grew up on. Things like a rather large collection of cassette tapes (for LISTENING, not WATCHING) from back before either of us owned CD players. I pulled out a tape yesterday and it happened to be one that he made for me in 1991 (yes, that would be 19 years ago!) and popped it into my very ancient, but perfectly workable, boom box. Yes, a mix tape from my boyfriend-now-husband that I used to play on that same boom box. It was fun to listen to the music while we worked, and we had a good laugh at the schmaltzy music we liked to listen to.
In another box Doug found a little wrist rattle that belonged to Megan. It was a little pink elephant head. We had named it Ellie Funt and she loved it. I have a ton of pictures with her wearing Ellie on her wrist when she was little. I got really emotional looking at that silly little elephant rattle, partly because holy cow I STILL have it, and partly because she's going to be 9 in a week. That little girl that loved Ellie is a big girl who loves American Girl dolls, Taylor Swift and books.
We'll be finding more memories in the basement over the next few months as we figure out out what to put in our yard sale. We'll be trying to sell lots of the kids clothes, old toys, cribs, things that have been a part of our lives for the better part of 9 years. Part of me wants to hold on to them, to hold on to the past, but the other part of me is ready to move on. There are plenty more memories to be made, clothes to outgrow, toys to put aside. We have to make room for those, even while we hold the past in our hearts.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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4 comments:
I LOVE going through older things and being flooded with the memories.
I have a wooden chest (it was my husband's toy box when he was a kid) and in it are things from Morgan's early days that I couldn't part with: the outfit she wore home, her first little rattle/stuffed animal; etc. Everything else....I either sell or donate.
Your heart holds the memories. Keep smaller things (like Ellie, a favorite outfit you loved to put the kids in) and clear out the rest.
:)
I'm going through things for our move in a few weeks and yes...so hard to find the things from when they are little and realize how NOT little they are now.
i am the same way, i save everything. i am probably weirder than most though cos...ok, well, i still have the two (yes two) home pregnancy tests i took w/ the girl (she's 13). i know! it's gross. i also have her umbillical (sp?) cord that fell off. what???? we tried for 5 long years to get preggers w/ her so i saved EVERYTHING.
I had a similar afternoon on Friday. I went into the attic for something I can't even remember now and wound up sifting through all of the letters and journals and photos and mementos from the places my husband and I lived over the last 10 years. Thank goodness the baby stuff is in the basement. I don't think I could have made it out with my make-up still in tact if it was up there too!
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