The Big Clean-up

On Saturday, we went to my mom's house for round three of the third-floor attic storage closet clean-up and managed to toss out about 10 boxes of old paperback books, and my husband parted with several old college notebooks. He felt better when I suggested that he tear out the pages with the clever doodles on them to use them in a scrapbook.

I found my old weaving loom and I'm planning to give it to my daughter, that is if my husband promises to set it up! It's no fun if it doesn't work. Even it's a pain going through old things, it's also wonderful. I found all of the boxes that I put aside when I moved after college. Some of the choice items include:

• My childhood blankie
• a yellow satin bridesmaids dress from my best friend's first wedding (now qualifies for serious dress-up!), favorite books on ballet
• text books from my 18th century English literature class
• my first dictionary (still has some pressed leaves in it)
• a collection of leaves with Latin classifications from my advanced high school biology class
• yearbooks from 1983, 1984 and 1985
• a little pink box containing fine white sand and pretty little shells
• my diary from high school and freshman year of college -- good stuff here, all written in code and subtle text, of course.
• author bios collected from my days at the children's book publisher, most of them from the 1990's
• my kids' baby clothes and first pairs of shoes
• my husband's year books
• cassette tapes from the 1980's -- college and high school -- including Olivia Newton John, Madonna, Sting, The Police, REM, and some classical music from my music listening classes in college
• cassette recordings of my dad's voice recitals from 1980 and 1981

Tales of sorting to continue -- we'll be at this project for months to come.