Moving houses may be the worst chore to undertake, a daunting and wholly un-fun task that makes me instantly cranky as I try and sort through the junk that has continued to accumulate in our home. Each item that comes due to pack forces a decision of keep, throw, or ignore.
We are about a month away from moving so my strategy is to pack a little bit each day and a lot on the weekends between now and then. If I am forced to have concentrated packing time, I just may jump right off the cliff and into the river. Hopefully this allows me to remain calm(ish) throughout the move.
Paul and I share very different views of items that should remain in our lives and those that should fulfill their destiny in a shallow land fill grave!
In any event, packing has begun and despite my wish to use a leaf blower to push all the errant paper in our lives into a bag and call it a day, my nostalgic buttons get pushed hard when I sort through some wayward drawers that haven't seen any day light in a decade or so.
Here are a few items I uncovered this weekend from ONE drawer in our spare bedroom.
These Polaroids (do they even make Polaroids anymore?) are from my days with the Muppets. Life was much, much simpler back then...I was young, full of energy, and had less chins than Miss Piggy!
This is a classic! I had totally forgotten about this clipping from our local newspaper. Who says the gays can't be sporty!?!? This is from around 1980-ish and I was apparently a rock star in the 60-yard dash. (...although I was wagging my tongue even then.) If we were playing 'pick the future gay?' you'd chose the guy in the middle right? Ironically, he became the muscle built tough guy jock by high school.
"Lucy, you have some 'splainin to do..." This was CLEARLY never a possession of mine and I'm a bit horrified it shared a drawer with my innocent memories above! When I confronted Paul about this, he did the math to remember where he was in 1992 and smiled like the Cheshire Cat as he admitted it was his.
This was the first presidential election that either of us were qualified to participate. I was going to riff on this for a bit but I just remembered I was still dating my high school sweetheart during this election and I in fact voted for Ross Perot! YOWZAH!
I love your unused cabinet drawers. Now the question did you keep these or toss them? I have moved very little in my life but my kids moved around in college and things always were sent home in the summers to accumulate in my garage. When I decided to make my garage my art studio a few years back, my grown sons flew home (one with a wife, one without his) to go through every treasure I had save for them. I had kindergarten paintings, trophies you get the idea, up through high school. They each took to their homes anything they wanted the rest was recycled, thrown out or given away. Down to three big boxes each to store in their own homes. As my younger son said at the time his whole life was now boxed away, thrown away or in every neighbors trash bins but he was happy I saved so much. However,most he didn't have the need to keep. Just reminisced and tossed. I am not a keeper of much. Most of my stuff is used everyday or it is gone. I have kept a few memories but I know when I die my kids will bring the dumpster and will go over my salt and pepper collection and chocolate memorabilia and say wow isn't that great, anyone want it, okay in the dumpster or ebay. When my dad passed away and my Mom got to disabled to noticed we had the whole family go through their house (with my Mom unaware in her bedroom) we all picked what we wanted and auctioned off all the fine art and things worth real money. It surprised us all what we wanted to keep. Amazing how detached we were from so many things that were not our taste or had no meaning to us. My kids and their families will do the same with my "treasures" and it will be okay. Loved reading and seeing your photos today. I have a McCarthy button and Kennedy buttons.
ReplyDeleteI still think the tough jock is gay. I mean, look at that photos. C'mon! That big Mary!
ReplyDeleteMoving is a pain in the ass but how lucky you are to be able to Spring Clean early.
m.
I was exhausted after your buying a home post, and now the packing! Have fun, chuck alot...it helps! If you haven't used it in 6 months it is trash! Should be a very different move now with 3 girls to tend to!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE THE HOUSE!!! But damn on the packing front...a agree with Kerrie, chuck it if you havent used it...try PACKING LIGHT with 3 girls ha!
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I saw the picture I thought...dude in the middle is gay...even if hes was all mancho in High school! I think I may have dated him. LOL
ReplyDeleteTina