Wow, its cold!
I'm freezing to death. The heater has been cranked back up because the house is an ice box.
On another note, I'm so sore today! We got a wild hair yesterday to bring in some more boxes from the garage to unpack and now the house looks like a bomb hit. I love having a garage in that we can hide stuff out there until we're ready for it and not have to pay extra for storage...but the downside is it is packed to the gills.
We sent out an email to a friends a few months ago asking if they had any hand-me-downs for kids items that we could have for when we adopt. One friend sent the email to another friend and next thing we know, D is driving out every few weeks with truckloads. Our garage didn't have a chance!
We got a few things that were just not acceptable, and unfortunately they were furniture. We figured we would sell them at the annual garage sale this summer but when the Zombie film came back into to town to film we donated it to them for the sets. They smashed them and burned them to make them look like town destruction, LOL.
While sorting things for the garage sale and trying to get to our boxes from the move last October, we found a box that hubby's Dad brought by to throw away in our trash can a few months ago. (I guess he doesn't have access to a dumpster where his camper is parked or something.) It looked like recycling so we decided to look through it just in case....I'm so glad we did!! It contained all the letters he wrote to his mother (who recently passed away) from boot camp and then to his stint in the military. They are dated 1959-1968. What a find! We also found his Draft Letter from the Army, etc. What an awesome piece of history to have. I have never seen a real Draft Letter, it was pretty cool. (We're really into military history because most of the men in our family were in the Army or Navy). Hubby's Dad is not the talking type--and he's very negative so this was a rare coup for Hubby to learn more about his Dad--just in time for Father's Day. It figures that we are very unhappy with the man these days, as he's been a real jerk. *sigh* I could tell R. wanted to talk to him, just because, based on his reactions to the letters.
We haven't read all of them. We barely made a dent in them! There are some really old stamps on them too...we're curious to take them in to a collector and get them appraised. I have a ginormous box of stamped letters from overseas from back then as well, as well as new stamps that are unopened that I collected as a kid. May as well take the whole huge box in now. There were some 4c Lincolns, including a two purple ones, some 5c George Washingtons (a pair that hadn't been stamped-they got sent but didn't get sent through the machine somehow), etc. Really neat to see! My stamps were all from my Great-Grandmother's travels around the world so I have stamps on the envelopes everywhere from Atlanta, GA to Zimbabwe. It may sound boring but I love it. (Not a fan of plain stamp collecting, mostly just letters with envelopes).
>>Just talked to my Grandmother and she said she has a few letters of my Great-Grandfather's to his wife, her Mom...and some from my Grandfather to her while he was in the military. They are now earmarked for me when they pass away. YAY! I'm going to have to figure out a good way to preserve them. Maybe I can find a way to make a book out of them (make copies and bind them) and then just put them in plastic sleeves or between sheets of non-acidic paper or something...any thoughts? Let me know. Ok, have I said enough about my letter fetish?? It's just the only way I have been able to learn from my family since they are notorious for lying or omitting or just plain denial and forgetfullness. It's aggravating.
We also unearthed one of my memory boxes with letters and trinkets in it. I don't have the heart to go through it today even though it's calling me. I don't want to end up mopey. LOL
I was thinking that its very sad that no-one writes letters anymore...its all in email. What a weird thing to try to pass down to our kids. Hey Kid, here's my hard drive, go see what you find! (Ack! That could be bad in general, lmao). R. and I are weird in that we save every hard drive we have just for that reason. (Well and so we have the info too). One of our kids is going to open a "memory box" full of computer boards someday. At least you can print out your Livejournal in book form-I was so glad when they finally implemented that feature.
We also found the boi's comic book collection, his baseball cards and gaming cards, etc. Whew! The task of organizing and packing them for even longer-term storage seems insurmountable right now. Someday! But we want them put in a temperature-controlled archival facility so we must get to it very soon. One never knows when a fire could strike an old victorian house! We lost a hotel here due to fire 100 years ago...
Ok enough. I'm going to go finish my coffee and get on with my day. I do have another post to finish from yesterday for friends only. Be sure to go back and read it if you wish!
FYI-I still can't the lj cut code to work. The old one or the one in the RTF. Nor can I get the friend tag to work to let you link directly to another's journal...Any help would be appreciated.