Treasure

Today I:

• Did 7 loads of laundry;
• Ironed 4 shirts, 3 blouses, 1 dress, 1 pair of pants and 1 shirt;
• Cooked 3 meals;
• Watered the plants;
• Gave the flower beds their monthly weeding;
• Cleaned Albert the hampsters' cage;
• Went out for a 50 minute run.

But I ALSO managed to find a moment to take some lovely pictures of some of the cool stuff I discovered when foraging in my mother's storage room last weekend. I don't think I'll show you everything at once, I'll save it for future blog fodder. But today I'll show you my treasure box.

Just a regular jewelry box, the kind pretty much every little girl must have at some point. I used to keep all sorts of stuff in here, jewelry (of course), but also stuff I knew was important, but didn't really know what to do with.

Like the necklace my babysitter made me.

This goes back to, oh... 1982? Think skin tight jeans, sneakers, leather jacket, and if you're still not there, throw in Tony Basil's Hey Mickey for the soundtrack. Are you with me now?

Or these babies: a bona fide Expo 86 Official Medallion, and an Air Canada UM badge (I had 2 of these in the box). I used to fly alone a lot as a kid, visiting my Dad, and it was a running joke that whatever question was asked of me when, when I was wearing this badge I was to answer "Uuummmmmmmmmm....".

Pretty neat, right? Then I noticed a bunch of... well... tissue paper in the bottom section of the box, along with a card.

I don't know if you can read that, but it says "List - Nursery Rhymes for Tara's children". The card was written my my grandmother, the very one whose picture you've probably noticed on the homepage of my blog, teaching me to knit when I was all but 5. And the tissue paper? In each bundle was a little Wade Red Rose Tea Figurine, each one representing a nursery rhyme.


Some of my favourites...

Clockwise from top left : Little Red Riding Hood, Little Miss Muffett, Little Bo Peep and Humpty Dumpty.

These guys I don't know, but I'll be sure to look them up and read their stories:

Clockwise from top left: Little Jack Horner, The Pied Piper, Wee Willie Winkie and Dr. Foster.

I can't tell you what it means to me to have found these. I'm sad to say I threw out a lot of stuff that I got from my grandmother when I was younger, too young I suppose to recognize the value of sentimental value. But I held onto these, and the fact that she wanted them to be for my children really makes them all the more special.

Especially when I read the bottom of the card:

It says "Given to Christopher (that'd be my Dad) Nov. 16th, 1986". She died less than a year later, in August of 1987, so I'm guessing she must have known that her time was almost up when she wrote this card.

After I was done taking my pictures, I wrapped each figurine in a new tissue paper and tucked them safely away in my treasure box. I promise I'll share them with my kids when they're a little older, Gramma, and can recognize just how important and wonderful they really are.

Happy Knitting Everyone.