From the purge - homemade cards

I'm finished with the purge project. It didn't take as long as I thought, yet I still have stuff scattered around Madison's bedroom where I worked. I don't know what to do with this last bit of stuff like my Sony walkman, a hand held cassette player, my unfinished stories. I feel like I shouldn't chuck these things, but don't know what the point is in keeping them. I got rid of quite a bit of stuff, but held on to more stuff than I thought I would. I did a good job of putting things into category envelopes and writing on the outside so my kids will have some idea of what is what when it is their turn to dive into this stuff and purge.

Back in my day, dare I say the old days, we didn't buy cards we made them. Our parents sat us down with construction paper and markers and told us to create. Even as we got older and could buy our own cards, we stuck to the tradition, realizing even then that these cards meant more. Here are a few that were held on to.

A mother's day card my mother kept. It was in the folder of keepsakes she passed on to me years ago during her own purging phase. It was probably done in school, although my dad was good about directing us children in card creations.

A family portrait. I'm not sure why my mother and brother ended up with legs and my father and I didn't. But we all looked good and happy. This was to my whole family.

This was a card from my neighbor across the street, Michelle, who reads my blog. Hi Shell! We were the best of friends and we went through a huge phase where we created our life stories, usually using pictures cut out of magazines. I got rid of those several years ago during one purging phase because I didn't look like any of the women she cut out for me. Nor did I have the amount of children we tended to give ourselves. But this book, handmade and full of photos, was and is still a keepsake. Especially the last page!

Guess what? The fingernail chewing hasn't gotten any better even today! But thanks for pointing that out, over and over, and over again.

I remember this birthday party because it was "themed" and so unlike anything my mother would have done. I'm assuming the birthday girls was Snow White while her guests were all dwarfs. That alone is hilarious! I certainly hope there are more photos of this birthday

Some of these pictures I have, but I'm going to scan the others to have in my scanned group of photos since they are so good.

Love the "good drugs" comment because that was a saying our generation said, well, the generation of kids who never did drugs. We thought it made us cool.

Finally, "The Poem". It's my favorite. Oh, thanks Michelle. It was a great card!

From my Daddy. Every holiday and birthday he had cards and goodies waiting for us at our place setting on the kitchen table. I have several of his store bought cards that he use to give me when I got older and they are the best. He loved sending cards and was always on time. That trait skipped me...obviously.

Hey, maybe that's my new birthday thing for next year. I'll make everyone's cards! Maybe the creativity will inspire me. Or not. Maybe it's just a lost cause. But I do appreciate those people who actually get me cards on time, homemade or not.