12/20/2010

Vacation Project

We have homeschooled for more than 19 years. I was careful to put all the childrens school work into banker boxes and at the end of the school year put the boxes into the attic. We had over 30 boxes in the attic dedicated to homeschool memories. I was determined to keep it all! You see I do not have anything from my childhood. Each time I moved ( I was a foster kid) I started with a clean slate and all was left behind. So keeping all the stuff is really my hang up and not really what the kids want or what we have room for. This past year we have had a rodent issue in the attic. This critter found her way into each box. She chewed a hole in the corner of each one as if going on a treasure hunt. She nested in a few but for the most part just made a mess. By the time we discovered that she was in the attic she had damaged all the boxes and destroyed much. Today I went through the last of the school boxes.




There were twenty boxes in all. I pulled treasures from each box and discarded the rest. I had permission from each of the kids to toss it all but this mama could not! Here is what is going back into the attic. Two tubs! We are trying to replace all cardboard with rubber tubs.




Remember that picture I got at the thrift store? Here is the before. It was really dirty.




Here is the after. It is behind the candle holder. I know it is a smaller photo but you can still see it cleaned up really well. It has a beautiful old wood frame.



For the last 8 years the fish tank sat in front of this fireplace. It is opposite the one we use ( on the backside of it) and not useable. We gave the fish away this week and hung the stockings in their rightful place! We will cart all the photos and frames up to the attic. We stored them behind the tank because it was easy. Now it is not so pretty.


Well thats it so far for the projects. I have plenty more on my list. I will leave you with this! Everyone needs a good laugh. I have always taken plenty of photos at Christmas. Each present, all the decorations, each beautiful face. Well this year I was so pleased with myself for finding my dear husband a wonderful gift that I just knew he would love. Yesterday I was looking for a specific photo from a Christmas past and guess what I found? I found that I had already purchased the same gift for my dear husband 3 years ago! I have a lovely photo of him holding it! Thank goodness I could return the gift. The moral of this story is take plenty of photos because you never know what you will forget!

I even take photos of stuff like this. What is this? Well it is a gift from my 19 year old son. A hershey's kiss. I find them daily at my desk, by the sink, on the kitchen table. Anywhere I may happen to be working. Just one. A treat! I love it!

6 comments:

  1. So sorry about the rodent problem in the attic. I've dealt with that before, and it's never fun. Though I didn't have as much as you, I use to keep every thing the kids did too. Now I pick their best work throughout the year and make portfolios for them. They really like it, and think it will be fun for them to show their children.
    I love the fact that you found out, through a picture, you had already given him. That is just too funny. And how sweet that you get little treats like that. :)

    JoAnn

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  2. That is so sweet of your son! And, I am trying to be "good" and not save every scrap of paper, but it really is hard. Good job getting it all down to two. Merry Christmas, too!
    Jenn

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  3. Oh Tina! What a sweet gift from your son! That just warmed my heart :-)

    I remember when we were still in the public school (Bryan went thru 3rd grade there, Nathan thru 2nd), the principle had his children's artwork framed, on his office wall. He said that each year, they would pick one treasured piece to keep and frame it, and the rest had to say "goodbye." His wall was filled with delightful art, but his home wasn't filled with boxes! Others (myself included), will take a picture of projects (we did that with the dozens of 4H projects) and keep a photo album of them, but the projects get tossed.

    The bottom line is, keeping a momento in a box in the attic isn't doing justice to a "treasured" item. If you can't enjoy it whenever you want to (because it's buried until a mountain of other boxes in a closed-up attic), then you're not able to treasure it. But if it's photographed and in an album on your living room shelf, then you can pull it out, look at it, smile over it and have a fond memory, then tuck it away safe on the shelf until next time.

    Something to think about as another option...and rodents won't nest in your photo album in the living room, LOL!

    Blessings and (((HUGS))),
    Lori

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  4. Oh, I forgot to say that I know something of what you feel about the things, given that you don't have any childhood momentos of your own...but I didn't know you were fostered as a child! Another layer of what has made you the wonderful wife and mother that you are is revealed! I have always admired you for the way that you DO focus on making treasured memories with your dh and your children, in the things you do together, little things, walks, trips to the thrift shops, collecting dresses, cleaning up old things (that old photo you bought DID clean up so beautifully! My mom would have done that, too), etc.

    I was the 3rd born and was blessed to have the mom that I do. She wasn't perfect, and it wasn't a Christian home (church-going, but not Christian), but after I became a Christian, she began to look more at the Bible, and then my dad did also, and they are now Christians as well. Anyway, by the time I was born, my mom was so busy that they only took a couple of photos of me as a baby. There were tons of my siblings, but not of me. Those 2 photos were on a proof sheet, which they lost, so I never saw baby pictures of myself.

    When I had my own kids, my mom and dad moved out here to IL. I unpacked the boxes of jumbled loose photographs. In an envelope, I found this sheet of little proof photos...a bunch of 2x2's on a single page, black and white, and there was an infant in 2 of the photos. I asked my mom who that baby was...she let out a whoop and a hollar, cuz it was me! That was quite fun, to finally see my own baby pictures, even though they were tiny!

    I've now done the same thing as you...I took HUNDREDS of photos of my kids as babies and toddlers! But I never got them in albums, and they are now in a jumbled mess, filling 3 rubbermade tubs and 2 laundry baskets, and we are unable to enjoy them. If they were neat in albums on the family room shelf, we could pull them out and sit by the fire and have a lovely memory!

    So you see, I didn't mean to just "scold you" in that first comment...I was commiserating with you, LOL! One of my projects this Christmas break from school (after I get Bryan's grad. party finished) is to attack the photos. Many, MANY, will be thrown away. It was so hard for me, years back, to throw out ANY photo of my children! But now, I only need one of the baby propped yup with pillows on the sofa, not 8!

    So here's to us, Tina-Girl...happy sorting and memory-making!

    Love and {{{HUGS}}},
    Lori

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  5. Ohhh boy ! What a way to make you de-clutter school boxes. You are amazing in getting all that done.

    I loved hearing and seeing sweet memories in your family. I wouldn't mind if one of my ds' would leave me a choc. kiss here and there. *grin* Praying many "warm" blessings on you and your family.

    Blessings and ((HUGS))
    In Him<><
    -Mary

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  6. Sorry to hear about the mice in the attic, that must have been a lot of work sorting through 19 years of paperwork. Thank you for stopping by my blog and posting a comment. I appreciate it. Have fun making fudge today! Heather

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Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you. Psalms 143:8