Birthday Party / Garage Sale Redux / Boxes of Memories
Last Saturday was my rather modest birthday celebration. But I like simple, comfortable parties. It mainly consisted of my sister, Val, as well as Leann coming over and everyone having home-grilled burgers. It was a nice day and we all had a good time! My parents and Val got a wonderful chance to really hang out with Leann and see how she meshed with my family. Val brought over her brand new Beatles edition of Rock Band and Leann actually got involved by playing the drums. As a gift, Leann gave me a plush doll of Stitch from "Lilo and Stitch" listening to headphones. He even had a little pouch he's carrying in the front that holds my Sansa Clip MP3 player perfectly. It was like the two were made for each other. It's ridiculously adorable. Here's a quick photo:
My folks have been trying to get a second garage sale going for months now since our first sale at the beginning of August was such an overwhelming success. We have now officially committed to having our second sale the weekend of October 2nd through the 4th. So committed, are we, that we've gone ahead and paid $27 to place an ad in the local newspaper. This is it. It's happening. Since the last sale, my dad has been scrounging around the house, looking for stuff to sell. Recently, he zeroed in on the shed and specifically the dozen boxes of Christmas stuff our family has. Everything we use for the holidays is in those boxes, and over the years, we use less and less of it while seeming to acquire more and more. This gave him the idea to theme the new garage sale as "Xmas in October." After going through all of it and picking out everything we want to sell, it's obvious that the majority of what we've collected to sell altogether really will be Christmas stuff. Xmas in October is right.
While we were in the shed pulling holiday boxes out, I noticed a bunch of boxes with my name on them. These are boxes of my childhood stuff: Toys and junk that my folks never got rid of or that I wanted put away. I decided that it was time to go through that stuff. Maybe some of it would work for the garage sale or maybe some of it was pure garbage. I pulled the boxes and over the last few days, I've been going through them one by one. It's like a time capsule of memories. It's like Christmas morning with each box I open as I rediscover all these old toys. There's old puzzles, board games, LEGOs, Micro Machines, trading cards, clothes, strange gadgets and even an assortment of McDonald's Happy Meal toys from the mid-90's. However, the majority of what's here is actually collectable Jurassic Park stuff. I was/am rather fond of the Jurassic Park movies and, at the time, I decided to collect and preserve a bunch of the toys and merchandise.
As for the final destination of this crap, I'm hopeful to get rid of most of it in one fashion or another. The purpose of holding onto this stuff was to one day pass it onto any children I may have, but after seeing the ratty condition of this crap after it's been sitting in a shed for more than a decade, I can't imagine doing that. Plus, some of this stuff is completely obsolete and would be pointless to pass onto anyone. For example, one of the boxes contained an electronic handheld game, Gauntlet, from the early 90's. Today, such an antique is eclipsed by modern handheld video game systems like the Nintendo DS or even the iPhone. By the time I have children, if I have children, imagine what we'll have that'll make today's crap look undesirable even as a hand-me-down. To that end, I've realized that only a fraction of this crap is worth keeping. Some of it will be kept and some of it will get sold at the garage sale but most of it will simply be either recycled or thrown away. Even though that may sound depressing--to so simply eliminate precious childhood memories--a lot of this stuff never should have been held onto to begin with. Some of it is even broken or warped from years of summers and winters in the heat and cold of our shed. Tossing this stuff has been something I've been meaning to do for years. The memories these objects bring back are vivid and it's a world of fun to rediscover everything but I feel great about getting rid of this stuff. Their time has come.
My folks have been trying to get a second garage sale going for months now since our first sale at the beginning of August was such an overwhelming success. We have now officially committed to having our second sale the weekend of October 2nd through the 4th. So committed, are we, that we've gone ahead and paid $27 to place an ad in the local newspaper. This is it. It's happening. Since the last sale, my dad has been scrounging around the house, looking for stuff to sell. Recently, he zeroed in on the shed and specifically the dozen boxes of Christmas stuff our family has. Everything we use for the holidays is in those boxes, and over the years, we use less and less of it while seeming to acquire more and more. This gave him the idea to theme the new garage sale as "Xmas in October." After going through all of it and picking out everything we want to sell, it's obvious that the majority of what we've collected to sell altogether really will be Christmas stuff. Xmas in October is right.
While we were in the shed pulling holiday boxes out, I noticed a bunch of boxes with my name on them. These are boxes of my childhood stuff: Toys and junk that my folks never got rid of or that I wanted put away. I decided that it was time to go through that stuff. Maybe some of it would work for the garage sale or maybe some of it was pure garbage. I pulled the boxes and over the last few days, I've been going through them one by one. It's like a time capsule of memories. It's like Christmas morning with each box I open as I rediscover all these old toys. There's old puzzles, board games, LEGOs, Micro Machines, trading cards, clothes, strange gadgets and even an assortment of McDonald's Happy Meal toys from the mid-90's. However, the majority of what's here is actually collectable Jurassic Park stuff. I was/am rather fond of the Jurassic Park movies and, at the time, I decided to collect and preserve a bunch of the toys and merchandise.
As for the final destination of this crap, I'm hopeful to get rid of most of it in one fashion or another. The purpose of holding onto this stuff was to one day pass it onto any children I may have, but after seeing the ratty condition of this crap after it's been sitting in a shed for more than a decade, I can't imagine doing that. Plus, some of this stuff is completely obsolete and would be pointless to pass onto anyone. For example, one of the boxes contained an electronic handheld game, Gauntlet, from the early 90's. Today, such an antique is eclipsed by modern handheld video game systems like the Nintendo DS or even the iPhone. By the time I have children, if I have children, imagine what we'll have that'll make today's crap look undesirable even as a hand-me-down. To that end, I've realized that only a fraction of this crap is worth keeping. Some of it will be kept and some of it will get sold at the garage sale but most of it will simply be either recycled or thrown away. Even though that may sound depressing--to so simply eliminate precious childhood memories--a lot of this stuff never should have been held onto to begin with. Some of it is even broken or warped from years of summers and winters in the heat and cold of our shed. Tossing this stuff has been something I've been meaning to do for years. The memories these objects bring back are vivid and it's a world of fun to rediscover everything but I feel great about getting rid of this stuff. Their time has come.