Adventures of the Amateur Archivist

We just returned from a visit to see my mom and my brother's family. We had a lovely time. While in Carlisle, I did a bit of excavating in a few boxes in the attic. I was simultaneously horrified and delighted to see the absurd things of mine that had been saved (by both my Mom and by me). We're talking serious documentation. Impressive stuff. Seeing as I don't believe anyone will be writing my biography and needing to visit the Bridget archives, I decided to embark on a serious weeding project.

First, there were boxes of my projects. Years and years of projects, from my early drawings and stories (from first grade) to my forays into various media such as macrame:
(Jake was particularly horrified by the hideousness of this craft)

and cross stitch:
Sadly, other than this digital image, the world will no longer have the physical evidence of my needlepoint abilities. And yes, that is a 4-H project sampler.

So saving my own project is one thing, but I also saved all kinds of other things. If you've ever sent me a letter, I probably still have it. I have a hard time getting rid of such things. In some cases, I have saved the envelops, too. In the eighth grade, I was good friends with a Japanese exchange student who was in my class. She was a most excellent artist, and was always drawing little caricatures of our classmates and teachers. I saved a whole bunch of stuff she drew. Here is a sample:


Yes, she has spelled my name a bit incorrectly. I have chosen this particular artifact to share because it depicts me (in a remarkably flattering and sympathetic manner) sporting my tragic haircut of the eighth grade. Many of you have heard the story of this dreadful, life-altering haircut, and a few of you have seen photos. Even fewer of you saw the actual offending haircut in person (I weep for you). Someday I will tell the sad tale of my haircut (spoiler alert: it involved a perm) and dig up some photographic evidence. For now, this will have to entice to you further reading of my "adventures of an amateur archivist" posts.

So anyway, I thought my saving of envelops and other random -- it has to be said -- crap was a bit, uh, excessive. I felt better when, among my stockpiles, I found these envelops with my mother's handwriting:

That would be two envelops. The larger one says "First Birthday Cards," and was in fact filled with cards that say "You're 1!" Obviously, I am not the one responsible for saving these. But it was fun to see them. In fact, I found a card from my Uncle Hot Dogs. I knew I had a relative who went by the name "Hot Dogs" (he was my great-grandmother's brother) but I somehow didn't realize that he was still around when I was born. Anyway, he wrote something nice in the card and taped a silver dollar into it. Sweet! So that was kind of a fun find. But more amazing is the smaller envelop. In case you can't quite make out what it says, here is the transcription: "Icing off my first Birthday cake." Seriously? Seriously. Inside was a small candle and a very crusty piece of cake decoration. Wow. After formally documenting them for this blog (archive edition), I properly disposed of the icing. Thanks, Mom, for keeping every artifact intact!

Stay tuned for further fun and/or horrifying revelations from the archive.