cuz today, i'm cleaning out my closet

or my mom's closet.

4 or 5 hours, and we only did the front half.

some key findings:
old art portfolios. proof positive that i am an irredeemable pack rat. i found this old gessoed picture of some japanese fish that i HATED. hated making it, hated how it looked, hated that my parents put it up on the wall, told my sister i hated it when she held it up, and STILL had a hard time throwing it away.

a whole box of my sister's old school stuff, cards, etc. two great language arts sentences from her, age 11 (vocab words bolded):
1. Will you probe my case?
2. The Red Sox will vie with the Mets to see who will win the Super Bowl.
also learned from language arts folder: my sister didn't think her name fit her...she would have preferred Joni Marie.

other great finds from my sister's old stuff: a valentine's card from second grade from a "J.J." it was a super cute little kitten that said "you'd be a Purr-fect Valentine" with a hand written addendum "not for me."

also: a card from my grandmother, my father's mother, written after she talked to the two of us on the phone, a long long time ago. she made reference to me saying hello and saying some things "in [my] own language." we also saw on other cards her progression into dementia -- she went from writing long notes in cursive to signing her name in six-year-old scrawl to having my aunt sign for her. she died when i was ten, and wasn't with it for a long time before that, so i don't remember her vibrant, clever, and happy, how she was in this card.

also: several cards from me, including an original valentine poem. the cards were always well chosen like: "sweet...compassionate...caring" (outside) "but enough about my teddy bear! it's YOUR birthday." (inside) when i showed her, she said "yeah, you were always weird."