One woman's treasure is another one's trash

If you think that I have a lot of belongings (that are all necessary!!), you haven't met my mom or seen all of the things we have scattered around Dallas and Boise. Boxes and boxes and boxes....

This past Sunday our family task was to move boxes out of a storage unit into a house. The house is actually the one that I grew up in but now we've been renting it out. Anyways, the whole moving bit was not the most fun but a good number of things were unearthed that I haven't seen in a hot second. A LOT of it were things we definitely didn't need to hold onto (so many bins of old baby clothes) but there were some gems.

My mom has always been adamant about keeping our old school stuff which is good but also at times unnecessary. To me, things like small projects and writing are good to keep but things like pages of math are not worth it.

Here's a sample of stuff I found and am glad we kept --

stephanie's journal from 2004 where she wrote: " well Rachel might be a pain but she is still my sister. It's like the Olsen twins I mean where not the same age but they fight and argue but Mary-Kate and Ashley still love and care for each other" And then over it says "Don't read ever"

Mary's character portrait about me when she was in 3rd grade. I especially like the last paragraph which reads "she says a lot Can I get a fish? because all our other fish died she also says Can I have candy? because she really likes candy. The last thing is she always says I'm streching! In the morning because she's really sleepy and wants to stay in bed" ... not much has changed since 1st grade I see

Mickey Mouse boy doll with mysterious red gunk that makes it look like he murdered someone but is actually probs just red marker. Mcdonalds used to also give out beanie babies in happy meals and people would go nutzos for them. Sad story: my mom had a whole bin full of beanie babies which was worth something back in the day. They were unintentionally put out in a garage sale I think and they all got stolen!

I see the value of old memories and also feel an urgency of not letting objects go because they're precious and irreplaceable, so I'm trying to be more deliberate about the things I initially hold onto. Having to move in and out of rooms so often though, I'm also starting to better understand what things are worth it and which are not.

Pray that I don't become too much of hoarder and also that my mom will be able to Marie Kondo the ridiculous accumulation of things we have in our garage (although according to her, every individual item sparks joy...)

Some other updates/ thoughts:

- I'm leaving for Smith this Saturday!

- I found out about the host family that I'll be with in Paris :-O. The family is a dad and a 15 yr old son who will only live there part time bc his parents are divorced. This should be interesting bc in my home there's always my mom and sisters. I'm optimistic that it'll be a good experience though!

-I'm going to be in Boston June 28-31 and NYC July 1-5 👀 for any cool cats who might want to hang!!

- I just tried this Japanese mango soda that I recommend