Bump

 

Rescuing Unwanted Diaries - from the you tubes

Irving Finkel of the British Museum posts on YouTube, mostly on cuneiform related topics. He posted one video about unwanted diaries . Due to his lobbying, the Bishopsgate Institute will accept donations of personal diaries, no matter who they're from. I'm re-listening to the video to be sure that they will take non-UK diaries.

Ah! He hasn't said so outright, but one of the diaries he presents as an example is from America. So I could, theoretically, send Grandma Lil's diaries to Bishopsgate. Reading them depresses me. I may mention why later.

The Great Diary Project has a website:  https://www.thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk/. Their address is: 230 Bishopsgate, Spitalfields, London EC2M 4QH, United Kingdom.

He makes a point of stressing that none of the institute's diaries were written by politicians.

Book Case Organizing

 I'm not even going to check to see how many years it's been. I am currently bringing books up from the basement. The books were put in boxes in the basement when we painted my room. I still don't have things the way I want them in that room, but the painting is done and the new windows have been finished. I have a murphy bed that's almost in the right place and a teak dresser that I really like.

I also have the two-tier bookcase that Grandpa B built. It had to be painted, too. It's oddly shaped and maybe not in the right place. That may be why the books stayed in the basement for as long as they did.

I brought up a handful of books from the basement and decided to donate half of them. Then, because the books in the bedroom bookcase need to be sorted before more basement books come up, I started sorting the books in the dining room book case. Not that we have a table and chairs in the dining room - what we have is a couple of desks, three sets of book cases, a filing cabinet, and some shelves.

There was a reason for shifting to the dining room book case. There really was. It wasn't just because I got distracted or gave up on the bedroom book case. It was because I decided that 1) a couple of the basement books really should go in the dining room/computer room, 2) if I was in a mood to get rid of books, that book case was really full and could use some pruning, so 3) I started sorting through the dining room book case to see what should go into the bedroom and what I could stand to do without.

I have half a box full of books to go away and a wastebasket full of papers to recycle. I also have a stack of stuff I've deliberately collected that need to find a place in my bedroom closet. Organizing always makes more work.

But the reason I'm writing is that I'm about to throw a few things out that I feel guilty about tossing. I could take pictures first, but so far they're things that I'm that stuck on. 

I'll be 65 in January, so I don't really need to keep high school report cards. 1971 may sound like the olden days but I really don't need physical evidence that I once got: a B in PE, a B in trigonometry, an A in American Literature, a B in French II, and an A in Chemistry. 

I'm also going to toss the Commencement 1969 program from Harbor Jr. College. Mom got her AA that year. I'm proud of her for going back and getting that. In '69 I was in junior high, so it was a good example for us.

Oh, my. Here are some clippings. Yeah, those are worth scanning and keeping the scans. They're from the 80s and older and peripheral relatives may enjoy them. So even though they're yellow, they won't be tossed until they're scanned. 

Sigh. Christmas letters. I admire people who can remember what they did all year and line it up like that. I'm going to toss them, though. I'll feel really guilty, but they're going. 

Found a letter from my sister that I'm going to keep. Here's her Certificate of Birth from the hospital. Don't know how I got that. Possibly from clearing out Mom's place. OMG! It's got her footprints on it and Mom's thumbprint. I'll have to send it to her. And she got a Youth Fitness Achievement Award in 1972. 

There are some things from my other sister that I may send to her, too. She probably doesn't need her report cards, but there are some awards that  she might like. A bunch of them were related to FFA (Future Farmers of America). Dang, that's her HS diploma. 

This is how organizing gets bogged down. Mom things. Dad things. Dang - Dad's birth certificate. A hospital log printed in the Torrance Herald with my Mom's name and my date of birth. I can toss that. My HS diploma - may keep that. Retention Basin Design Standards - that can go.

The class photos from elementary school can be sent to whoever is in them. May scan them first, but I already have scans of the individual photos, so maybe not. And I have to file mine.

But that's a few more things out of the house and a whole shelf empty in the dining room book case. Sadly, there's a bunch of stuff now on my desk to be sorted and filed. Pity I don't have tomorrow off, or I could keep going. Not that I'm not going to keep going now. I'm just not going to get much else up from the basement today. 

My last post was three and a half years ago.

My last post was three and a half years ago.


I feel a little guilty about that.  


More later.





Maybe.

Ah, The Smell of Mildew

There would have been less guilt if I'd just gone through the box and tossed things.  But, no.  It wasn't handled that straightforwardly.  In one of the more recent iterations of clearing the garage, we found a box of old school things.  It looked at first like is was mostly my Dear Son's things.  

Did I toss it?  No.  I had set it aside, with the idea of going through it to at least see what was there.  It was in a cardboard box.  It got left on the back porch and ignored for weeks.  Minor guilt every time I went out the back door.  Then it got rained on.  I hauled it in to dry.  Shoved it into the front room for "someone" to go through.  I knew it should be me, but was sort of hoping someone else would deal with it.  A few weeks ago it someone shoved it into my bedroom during a "someone's coming over" clear of the front room.  

I shoved it into a corner.  Now I'm tired of it being there.  So there will be tossing.

It's mostly Dear Son's old school reports.  There are reports on:

Pandas
New York
Homo Sapiens
Walt Disney
Yellowstone


There's a quarterly report from his GATE class, report cards (sheets, really), letters to me, and art assignments from elementary school. 

Ah, there are things from Beloved Son as well.  I feel worst about that.

His high school football pictures and letters.  Fortunately, those are in ziplock bags.  No mildew. 

A file full of grade reports, school newsletters, art work, and citations.  Also letters to me

Reports on:

Richard Byrd 
The Solar System
The Beaver
Mexico
Alaska

At least one manila folder of Eldest Son's things.  There are letters to me, worksheets from the second and fourth grades, his high school graduation announcement, 

There are also envelopes of my old taxes and the original loan papers for the house.  The taxes are old enough to go. I have a different loan, now, so most of the loan papers can go.  I may want to keep the original inspection report.  I'll read it and see.

About five sixths of the old school things can go.  And I can mail most of the things for Beloved Son to him.  I'll take photos or scans of the school certificates that have their pictures on it.  Pictures are good.  

The box can be recycled with the rest of it.  

Go Through Those Boxes More Than Once: Abe the Newsboy

I successfully threw out a political pamphlet in the last post to this blog.  Now I'm hesitating over getting rid of a book.  It's full title:  Life Story of Abe the Newsboy, Hero of a Thousand Fights.

This is apparently a vaguely historical book, and you know that I have a weakness for the vaguely historical.  It's an autobiography of a Navy boxer and it has pictures of Presidents in it.  It was also self published, which usually didn't work out that well, back in the day.  Did I hear you ask which day?

Looks like the first edition was in 1930.  That would be the year my Dad was born.  This is my Grandma's copy, which she obviously bought after 1960.  She had a thing for sailors.  She married . . . .  Well, let's just say that Dad's dad was a sailor when they were first married.  So it fits in with family history.

I've looked it up online, and the book is referred to as "important".  It's also called one of the first memoirs, which is a crock, and the exact same wording has spread to many internet sites.

It sells for as little as $2.49, plus shipping, and can be downloaded for free in PDF, ePUB, or mp3 from a place called bookalist.  It downloads as a passworded file, then you have to log onto another site and download the password.  That's where I got cautious.  So I can't tell you if the site is fishy or not.  Can anyone vouch that this is a safe site?

I can't find a review of it online, although it is on the recommended reading list at jewishboxers.com.  Amazon has a bunch of consignment copies for sale, but, again, no review.  The first few sentences were very 1930's sincere.  Part of me wants to read it just to write the review.  The rest of me knows that I have many more important things that I'm behind on.  

Oh, man.  Someone presented a paper on it.  Mangun, Kimberley. “Abe ‘the Newsboy’ Hollandersky: Self-Promotion and the Hero Myth in Newspaper Coverage of the Jewish Boxer.” Paper presented at the American Journalism Historians Association National Conference, New Orleans, September 2013.

Sigh.  It's starting to look like it's going to end up back in the box.  My only excuse is that I can use it as a prop to talk about those relative that have gone before us.  If I actually manage to get it out of the house (or to post a review), I'll post it here.  

[ETA:  To make up for my indecision regarding Abe, I've tossed The Salem Frigate by John Jennings.  It's listed as an adventure romance and you can get it for $0.13 on Amazon.]

Go Through Those Boxes More Than Once: Goodbye Mr. Max Rafferty

My Beloved Son and his wife (who are expecting - yay!) go through everything they own twice a year to see what they can throw or give away.  You can see the results of the constant pruning in their house, which is spacious and easy to clean.  This is not a thing that either of them learned from me.  

I am trying, though.  Since I'm not at their level, yet, I sometimes prune in stages.  Recently we did some organizing in the garage and I brought in three boxes to sort through.  From the look of them, it's all family stuff.  When I put the boxes away, I think they were meant to be deep storage.  Today, I'm looking at them as being full of things that I couldn't bring myself to throw away, yet.  And I'm giving myself dispensation to prune in stages.  If it ends up being one box going back in the garage, I'll consider it a big step forward.  And who knows, maybe that's what I intended to happen when I stored them.

What's in the boxes?  Well, I found one thing I can let go.

Not sure where this came from.  I had one uncle who did political networking that was job-related, and my father was more than a little right wing.  

Either one of them would occasionally get involved in political mailings, so this could have been a leftover from one of those.  The lack of address means that it wasn't mailed to Dad, but he could have picked it up when visiting a local campaign headquarters or it could have been passed out in a door to door campaign.  

It wasn't a campaign that Dad was particularly active in, or I'd remember the candidate.  As it is, the name is only vaguely familiar, and I'd have to look him up to see if he won or lost.

I suppose I could make a comment on 'the hoax of "forced housing"' vs 'housing equality', but I'm not feeling the need at the moment.  For now I'll just shrug and say it was the sixties.

I have no clue why this political pamphlet was in my Mother's things.  I only know that I hung onto it because it felt vaguely historical.  I have a weakness for that.

So, if anyone finds any historical value in this little, unmailed piece of paper, you have these images to download.  Take them with my blessing.  Unlike the cooking pamphlet, I didn't hold onto this one to see if anyone else wanted it, though.  The paper version has been recycled.  

Recycling wasn't one of Max's issues, but then it was the sixties.  

I could decide that it's sad that it took all this effort to throw out one piece of paper, but I won't.  I'm enjoying this little effort at memorializing my life and trash.  Goodbye, Mr. Rafferty.  

Climbing Mount Guilt (Books)

Sometimes you can measure guilt.  

This particular stack of guilt is eight point three feet high.

Let's try a different perspective.

This is a stack of all of the books that I've bought that I have not finished.  About a quarter of them haven't been started.  

The books in the shelves have been read, and so have the books in the shelves in my bedroom.  Not to mention many, many books that have been read and donated to the library or the thrift store. 

I tell myself that this is not a horrible thing.  But like any unfinished thing, they sort of nag at me.  "You meant to read me," they say.  "It's not like reading is a hard thing."

They're each one more unfinished thing that implies that I'm the sort of person who doesn't finish things.  Well, I may not have read them, but I've used them, now.  I have the photo to prove it.  They were, for a few hours, an art installation.  For a few hours, they were a homage to my guilt.  True, I had to add four books that I'd actually read to make it high enough to touch the ceiling, which was necessary in order to keep it from falling.  But eight point three feet of it is solid guilt.

(You'd think books would be steadier in a stack, but without the pressure of the ceiling, it wouldn't have stayed up for five seconds.  One of the minions had to steady the stack while I added the cappers.  Even then, the top third came down in the night.  It didn't wake me.)

While they were stacked, and half-stacked, I took advantage of the space and cleared the last of the plaster dust and hunks off of the bedroom shelves.  So that's another success.  (The plaster was from when we replaced my bedroom window, going to double-paned from feel the breeze - another success.  I could feel guilty about clearing the plaster three weeks after the window replacement, but I won't.  We also replaced the siding on that side of the house, and there have been other things I've been doing to clear out the debris from that.  Including buying a trap and trapping a cat that had crawled under the house while the siding was off.)

But let's look at the books again.  You'd think that stacking them up like that would make them more intimidating, but it doesn't.  When they were salted through the rest of the books, they nagged at me a lot.  Now I've seen them in their entirety.  I've seen the actual magnitude.  And you know what?  I can deal with them.

They now have a seven foot long shelf in my bedroom all to themselves.  A few of them are in the shelves you see by the desk.  And the rest are, um, still in a stack.  But it's tucked beside the desk shelves, where it isn't in the way.

Why are they stacked on the floor?  Because they're part of an art installation, for one.  I like having one.  For another, I like having usable space in the second set of shelves by my desk.  It helps me keep my desk clear.  It looks airier when it's not filled with books, and I can use the look of open space.  

The remainder stack is maybe three feet tall.  I can deal with that.  And with everything in order, I've started reading - - a new book that my daughter-in-law sent me.  It's Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi, and I'm loving it.  Hey, I am not going to be controlled by an art installation.  

Do You Know What This Thing Is?

This is the story of an inherited piece and the joy of Google.  When I first unpacked this, I thought it was an incense burner.  Then I noticed that there were no vents to allow smoke to escape.

So if it wasn't an incense burner, what is it?  The loop on the handle looked like it's meant to hold the lid, but the lid loop didn't fit into it. (I later learned that this was due to corrosion.)

There were two bird's heads on the lip of the main body.  They looked like they're meant as hooks or supports.  I thought that maybe they would hold the lid tipped up, to let smoke out, but I wasn't able to make that work.

There was a grate, which would work for an incense burner.  And maybe the lid was supposed to be used to smother it, saving incense for later.

There was a mark on the bottom.  Meriden Silver Plate - Quadruple Plate 1339 1/2 - with a lion holding a rose. 

OK.  That's googlable.  Aaaand, it's a butter dish!  The grate is called a pierced liner "which served to keep the butter above melting ice."  And the lid IS supposed to hang from the handle. The bird's head supports are meant to hold a butter knife.  Cool beans!  I never knew that butter used to be sold in "one pound circular cakes, which measured roughly four inches in diameter."

Now I have to decide whether to keep it or not. 

If It Feels Like History, It's Harder For Me To Toss

I don't know which relative I inherited this catalog from, but the fact that it feels a little historic has made it more difficult for me to just toss it away.



New Illustrated Catalog of Fine Linen Drawn Work
A.B. Culver Jr.
Aguascalientes, Mexico

So I scanned it and I'm posting it here.  If it has any historical value, it has been memorialized.  I couldn't find a date on it, but other booklets in the box were from the late thirties or early forties.  Not that my relatives sorted things by date. 

I won't blame you if you don't want to look through all of these doilies and handkerchiefs.

I'm trying to remember the last time I saw a doily.  A real doily - paper doilies under brownies or cupcakes don't count.

Ah, look.  They claim to have made the "very first fine linen handkerchief ever made of Drawn Work. . ."  Definitely history!  Well, if you believe it.

Centerpieces, Tea Cloths, Lunch Cloths, and Table Cloths . . . I'm assuming that these are prestige items.

My Grandma D had a few doilies.  She had many more antimacassars.  I think that was because she had more comfy chairs for people to sit in than she had horizontal surfaces with nothing being stored on them.

I think my mother had one or two doilies.  She used them under decorative candy dishes.  Usually the candy dishes were empty.

Although I have vague memories from when I was very young of candy dishes with hard candies that had been sitting in the dish long enough to have sealed together into one, dish-sized hard candy.  That could have been at some half-remembered great aunt's house, though, rather than at home.

Oh, hey!  Collars and cuffs and shirt waists!  I've seen lace lady's collars, but not men's collars.

I don't have any personal experience with lady's lace collars, but I was aware that they existed.  They could be moved from one dress to another.  From the ad copy above: "Wheel Collars are now all the rage and we make the latest and most popular styles." 

Ending with lady's collars and cuffs and a baby cap.  I'm going to assume that you have to send for the price list because the catalog was expected to be used for years. 

And now that the whole catalog has been posted, I can throw the catalog out.  Even if the company were still in business, "North Side of Plaza" probably isn't a good enough address any more.  So I wouldn't be able to send for the price list.  I will have to face my future doily free. 

Grandma L's Diary

I read through Grandma L's 1960 diary.  I'd have been four that year.  I dog-eared the pages where she was complaining about my parents, who were doing it all wrong.  Also pages that contained OMG.  I may post some of it here.

I'm definitely going to type it up somewhere and then throw the book away.  That will only leave about two dozen to go. 

Let This Be A Record

Today I resorted the things in my room.  The main goal was to consolodate everything that I still need to sort or value and then get rid of into one set of shelves.  Not the pictures still to be sorted.  Those are separate.  This is stuff that I still haven't convinced myself I couldn't get a few dollars for, and letters that I haven't read. 

I may be keeping more than is sensible, but the pile gets smaller every time I sort through it.  Right now I'm sorting through old 45 rpm records. 

Dad's:  Begin the Beguine, The Shifting, Whispering Sands, Deep Purple (Bing Crosby), My Happiness, To Each His Own, What Is A Girl?/What Is A Boy? (Jackie Gleason), Cold, Cold Heart (x3), Daddy's Little Girl, Riders in the Sky (x2), Tennessee Waltz, The Glow Worm, Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Your Cheatin' Heart, You Always Hurt the One You Love, Born to Lose, Mockin' Bird Hill, The Wayward Wind, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, and It's Been a Long, Long Time.

Mine: Rainbow Connection, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, and Blowin' In the Wind/Puff the Magic Dragon.

Unknown:  Chasing A Dream, Blueberry Hill, I'll Take Care of Your Cares/Ballerina, Song of the Islands, Over the Rainbow/You Made Me Love You, Till We Meet Again, Anytime, Hopelessly Devoted to You, and a box set of La Traviata, on clear red discs.

Dad had a preference for LPs, so some of these may have been records that I bought cheap to remind me of him, or that I inherited from somewhere else and kept because they were songs he played and songs he sang us to bed with.

I may keep the red ones for awhile, but the others are going.  Also going is a box of LP albums, album sets, and 78 records that were definitely his.  His name was on most of them.  Two were in the cardboard box they had been mailed to him in.  I'm glad I went through the box even though I didn't keep any of the records in the end.  There was also a photo album that he had kept in high school.  There were enough pictures of other kids to show that he had friends.  But most of the pages were filled with pictures of planes.

He was always interested in WWII planes.  Some were post cards.  Some were the size of, and had backs like, playing cards.  Some were smaller photos.  I'm going to mail them to Beloved Son, because he's shown interest in Dad's army time and his army time wouldn't have happened without this prior interest.  If BS wants to throw them out after looking at them, that's fine. 

I did my due dilligence.  I looked online, checking on the 78's.  The best advice there is that if it was a popular song, it isn't worth the bother of trying to sell.  Early jazz and pre-WWII country, western, or hillbilly might be worth something, but Bing Crosby won't be. 

Give me a sec.  There are at least four albums of 78's in the Going Away Shelves.  Some titles I'm not familiar with.  Probably not Dad's.  "That Mink On Her Back (Brought the Wolf to My Door)."  One of them is a picture disc with Cowboys and cows.  I may check on a value for that one.  It has fine scratches, but may not have skips.  Probably a lost cause, but out of nearly two boxes worth, checking on one or two won't hurt me.

So "Out Where the West Winds Blow" is number one of two to be checked.  Number two is "The Voice of . . . Barry Goldwater."  It's his acceptance speech from his nomination for president.  I had no idea that those were pressed into LP's. 

There's about a box full of LP's left, and those were probably mine.  These were the ones I was feeling guilty about, though, so those will be easy to go through.  The culls are by the front door, ready to be taken to the van.  With them are my old speakers and tape/CD player.  Getting those out of my bedroom is freeing up significant floor space.  I'm going to enjoy it.  I'll let you know if I can get big bucks for Barry. 

Oh, my.  I just took it out to see if it had been played much.  It hasn't been.  And it's an eye-catching transparent bright yellow.  A gold LP for Goldwater.  Nice. 

I Have Become Accustomed to Taking Loads to the Thrift Store

I think I posted, once before, about donating things to the thrift store and not posting it here, because I had done it enough that it had started to just feel normal instead of feeling like a little victory.  Well, I don't know how many times I've taken things there without posting them here.  I'm trying to remember - I think the last batch went three days ago, and it was a fairly big batch that had to be dealt with in stages.

Let's touch the guilt.  There's a little voice squeaking away that's implying that I didn't post about it, not because it seems normal, now, but because I've been lazy about posting.  No.  That's not appropriate.  Not for here.  The rule for this blog is that it's here to help me, not to give me one more chore to do.  If I don't feel like posting, I won't post.  That's not being lazy, that's using the blog the way I planned to use it. 

Too bad, little voice.  You lose.

But let me think for a minute about what it took to make this last donation.  Usually, a donation means I've sorted through a box or drawer or shelf and pulled out things no longer needed.  They stay in a box or on a shelf near the front door until there are enough things to take to the van.  If there's enough right after the sort, they're supposed to go to the van the next time I go out the door.

I allow things to stay in the van for up to a week before I allow myself to feel guilty about it.  It saves gas if I drop off a donation while I'm driving nearby on another errand, so I tell myself I'm doing that.  Occasionally I'll make a single run right away, but that's only if I feel like giving myself a little boost of accomplishment.

This load was in the van for two or three days. Not bad.  But before that, some of it was sitting in the back yard.  Why was that?  Because two or three weekends ago, I sorted through all of the things in the room off of the garage.  The little voice isn't even trying to make me feel guilty about not having posted about that.  Do you know why?  Because I completely sorted the room off the garage, which was an annoying mess, and however I may have dropped the ball afterwards, it was a big thing and doing a big thing is not lazy.

I know what's out there, now, and which plastic bins have which things in them.  Most of it isn't mine, but I still sorted it.  I convinced someone else to part with three or four boxes worth of stuff.  That's a major thing for me.  I have a real reluctance to poke at other people.

Half of it was tossed and half of it was set aside for donation.  There were also nearly a dozen cardboard boxes liberated, more than the recycling bin could hold.  Next week should see the last of them gone.  And some odd-shaped plastic bins were released to donation. 

There wasn't much of my stuff in there, but I decided to donate two old sewing machines that belonged to relatives, and probably tossed a few things.  It's been long enough that the details are fading.  The sewing machines were a big thing to let go of.  There's at least one relative who would be unhappy to think that they were no longer "in the family". 

So there was a pile of cardboard boxes and plastic donatables in the back yard for a couple of weeks.  I can remember when things were put into the back yard temporarily and then stayed there for months.  I'm a bit pleased that this particular set started to gall me by the next weekend and that I actually got them gone within two or three weeks because of that.

Another bright spot is that when it was obvious that I wasn't loading up whenever I noticed the stack and felt annoyed with it because I didn't want to do all that heavy lifting, I asked for help loading.  Got it, too.  With no complaints.  I need to do that more often. 

So there was a donation load delivered to the thrift store a few days ago.  And it was the result of me asking for help.  I asked for help because I was staying on top of no letting things just sit in the back yard.  And the stuff was sitting in the back yard because I HAD TOTALLY CLEARED, SORTED, AND ORGANIZED THE ROOM OFF OF THE GARAGE!

OK.  Now I can see that part of the reason the little voice was telling me that I was lazy with posting, here, is that it knew that I needed to acknowledge, not the load to the thrift store, but the bigger accomplishment behind it.  Cool.  Not bad, little voice. 

And the trash and recycling got picked up yesterday, so if I go out back now and bin the last of the cardboard boxes, the adventure of the Great Sorting will be complete.  I probably ought to get dressed first.  Now would be good.  (waves)

Tossing a Few More Photos

I feel justified tossing inherited photos like this one.

 

 

This is Grandma L's front yard.  The stump had sentimental value for her because it was made by a live Christmas tree that graced her front room when her kids were . . . well, I'm not sure how old they were, but they were all living with her.  They had live Christmas trees two years in a row and planted them both in the front yard in a time before the street had sidewalks. 

 

This is, I believe, the tree that wasn't planted with the pot.  There were some casual mentions made about why one of the two trees was so much taller and bushier than the other.  The short one had been stunted for several years until someone got curious enough to go digging and discovered that the poor thing was pot bound. 

 

I don't mind keeping the story, but (sorry Grandma) I'm not keeping a picture of a sentimental stump.  I've got lots of shots of people standing in front of the actual trees.  That's enough to keep the story in mind. 

 

 

 

OK, Grandma.  You got me.  If you stand one of my kids on the stump, I'll keep that picture.  Well played.  



Is Guilt Hereditary?

If you don't remember Mother's financial planner, it's here.

Back From Vacation - Am I Feeling Guilty Yet?

I deplaned Sunday and went back to work yesterday.  Finished reading ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life on the plane.  And only forgot to pack two things:  my bathing suit and something else that I'm forgetting, now.  Neither forgotten thing caused any trouble.  So, on the whole, I'm not feeling very guilty.  Just a little guilty for being a bit behind at work due to the vacation.  The vacation was rejuvinating, though, and no one at work has been put out, so if I think about it, the guilt goes away.

Oh, I could feel guilty about putting the plane ticket on the charge card, but I've had much larger balances in the past and I know that this one won't last long.  Also, I went to bed at a decent hour last night, which ADD FWOYL strongly recommends.  So yay, me. 

I'm trying something from ADD FWOYL called a stubby list.  That's a to do list with from 3 to 5 things on it, each of them meant to be done today.  You write it on a large post-it or, since I don't have those, on a small, portable tablet.  You write the few items in big letters, at least half an inch tall.  You carry it around.  I crossed off two things, yesterday.  Hang on a sec . . .

. . . OK.  That was one more. Might hit the rest before I leave for work this morning.  You never can tell.  And three is enough to make me happy. 

I'm testing some scents from ZOMG Smells.  [BTW, want a cool picture of a trio of Brachiosaurs?]  You can buy a selection of ten testers for not very much and go exploring.  It fits in the guilt blog because there is a scent from my teenhood that intrigued me and that I've never been able to identify or find.  It was the background scent at a shop in Ports O' Call, back in the early seventies.  It was musky and . . . thought provoking.  So I ordered ten of their squees (squee is their name for a tester sample) with a musk in them.  We'll see what happens.

One of my problems with ADD is getting stuck.  Having something that I want to do or need to do, but just not being able to take the next step.  And then having the task age.  And age.  Knocking loose a task from so long ago if very energizing. 

So far I've tried The Chieftain's Wife:  " — the feminine side of pillaging and dominion. Royal jasmine, sandalwood, patchouli, dusty musk."  It's close to the scent I remember in some ways, but it's a lot lighter.  Let's see.  Should I try Wait Until Evening?  "A dark, funky, musky blend of patchouli, myrrh, red ginger, spikenard and blackstrap molasses."  That sounds promising.

Hmm.  Sharper than the target scent.  Definitely interesting, though. 

I think for my next post I'll list the old family things that are hanging.  You know, pictures, letters, home movies, etc.  I was thinking about doing that in this post, but now that I think of it, it's going to take some time and thought.  And some stacking and counting.  So, not this morning. 

If You Love Your Children LABEL YOUR PHOTOS!!!

I Have sorted, scanned, and labeled photos - an indeterminate trickle of them.  I tossed a couple dozen duplicates.  I have also filled in several slots on the family tree from notes on the back.  I enjoyed that.  

In line with the title of this post, I've also found many more photos that are unlabeled and unidentified.  They were added to the folder labeled "Who the Hell Are These People?"  I may have to visit relatives to see if someone else can place a name to some of them.  Oh, the horror! 

And speaking of horror, 

I've decided that this photo went unlabeled due to the enduring shame of a recurrance of toddler cannibalism in the gene line.  The horror, I say!

Quick Check In

We made it back from a wedding and a big road trip.  I only tossed 15 duplicate pictures this morning.  It was a small step forward.  maybe after enough steps . . . 

I need to see how badly things backed up at work while I was out for a week and a half before I relax.  

The Last Two Boxes . . .

     . . . are very densely packed. 


This is going to take awhile.  And it's going to take some research after all the sorting and scanning.  These are the boxes with the really old photos.  The ones that came glued to a cardboard backing, to make them more like paintings. 

I don't feel so bad about unidentified adults.  I figure the burning question, "Who the hell are these people?" will be answered eventually. 

But the unidentified babies may be forever orphaned.  Sigh.



YES! The Last Boxes from Idaho Are Being Sorted!

Recap - -

My mother died near the end of last May.  I live in central California.  She lived in Idaho. I have two sisters.  There was coordinating and travel and more coordinating needed before we could begin to deal with her things.  She had been trying to go through things, but was not a person who easily threw things away.  And she had been married twice, both times to people who tended to accumulate things that might be useful later.

At the beginning of last October my Dear Son and his Divoted Girlfriend brought back the last of the things that we were either going to keep or that needed to be sorted through in depth and couldn't just be chucked.  They came home driving a van and a truck with the truck pulling a rented U-Haul trailer.  All three vehicles were stuffed with boxes and other things. 

I've been sorting ever since.  The boxes over-stuffed our small garage and got mixed with our storage boxes.  It's been hard to tell how close I was to getting everything sorted.

Yesterday I brought in what I thought might be the last two boxes.  There was something that I was dreading.  You see, there were a couple of things that I knew I'd packed to be brought home that I hadn't found, yet.  One was a certificate that just tickled me. If it wasn't in one of those two boxes, then either there was another box that we hadn't found, yet, or there was a box that had gotten mislaid.

Last night I found the certificate that I had packed in Idaho.  I am chuffed to know that these are the very last two boxes to sort through. Well, the last two with photos and papers. There are at least three boxes with green decorative glass and small corning ware lidded casseroles. I'm not worried about what might happen to them if they stay in the garage unsorted, though, so they almost don't count.  

You have to admit, that's a cool certificate.  This is my great great grandmother.  The 1920 census lists her as a metaphysical healer, so she was still at it 25 years after being certified.  She also left a journal that only had four entries in it (my heritage!  none of my forebears ever completed a journal or album), one of which talks about the magnetic therapy she was doing.

Cool beans, Great Great Grandma Archibald.  (She married after getting the certificate and was thereafter no longer Sister L. M. Bates.)