Day 10 - Childhood Memory

I started my "photo challenge" on February 7th. Today is May 7th. Three months, huh? and I'm only on day 10. :)

Oh well. I guess I'm just being true to character. It would probably shock the senses of all people close to me and cause them to start questioning the consistency of the world around them if I were to do anything different.

Taking four times longer to complete a project than normal people do. 

Story of my life.

Maybe when my kids are grown, it will only take me twice as long ------- it's something to shoot for anyway, right? {wink}

So the assignment for day 10 is "Childhood Memory". 

In the house where I grew up, my dad had an enormous shop on the back of the garage. It was nearly always a mess (which I'm sure was not entirely the fault of my dad OR entirely the fault of his children) and always filled with lots of fun things to get hurt on or with. :) (just ask Ben about the time when he lost several fingers on my dad's table saw)

I think I followed my dad around a lot. I'm sure I was totally in his way, but I loved just being with him as he changed the oil or cleaned up the garage. I have lots of fond memories of watching my dad in his shop - either building something, fixing something, welding something, or maybe just puttering around. :) It always smelled like metal and sawdust.

My dad was also really good about "letting" us use his stuff. ---- Well, he probably wasn't around most of the time when we were doing it and really would have preferred if we didn't get into his tools and then leave them out --- and I'm sure that he had other plans for most of the wood that we cut to pieces . . . but I don't actually ever remember him getting mad at us for making things. :) So I'm going to remember that he was awesome about letting us use his tools. :)

One summer, Jake and I decided that we were going to make treasure boxes. We drew up plans, measured and cut all the pieces, glued, nailed, and sanded them together. I can remember riding our bikes downtown to get hinges and locks for them from the local hardware store.

I've kept mine (and I know I've seen Jake's too) through all the years - probably close to twenty now. Every time I see it, I'm reminded of my little brother and how much I love him. How thankful I am for all the years of fighting and playing we had as children. So many of my best childhood memories are filled with him. (Recently, I've started telling the girls stories about when I was a kid - they ask for the ones featuring Jake over and over again.)

Over the years my box has truly become a treasure box, of sorts. It's become the keeping place for many of my teenage memories. It carries notes passed in class, cards attached to roses that were left on my car while I was at work, my first driver's license, concert tickets from MxPx and Gladys Knight, silly fortunes from countless cookies from Wok Lin, letters and trinkets from dear friends and missionaries that imagined I was going to wait for them while they were on their missions.

The box smells like "Tommy" cologne, from the little sample vial that I kept and sometimes sprayed on my pillow in high school to remind me of my boyfriend, Jaron. A ticket stub from our first date and under the lid remains a stick figure drawing burned into the wood, of Jaron and I holding hands (4-EVER). :) Put there, by him, on perhaps our three month anniversary? :) It holds a teacup from my grandmother's china, a Ricks College sticker that was enclosed with my acceptance letter, and tiny seashells I collected from Laguna Beach while on my Senior Trip two days after graduating from BHS.

The outside sports a "Semper Fi" sticker, collected from Marine recruits with my teenage BFF, Caroline, and a Toadies sticker Nels gave me when we were dating.

My box actually carries very few reminders from anything or anyone later than 2002 and in that way has become a bit of a time capsule. A place dedicated to Rachel Emily Moon. Not to wish for the past, but to remember that part of me.

Two summers ago I decided to make some boxes with my big girls. As the years pass I hope to make one for each of my little ladies. 

Everybody needs a place to keep those things that are perhaps not important to anyone else, but carry little pieces of the person you have become.