Halloween Spring Cleaning

I've been trying to clean out one thing a week for the last month or so when I can. There are closets and drawers my fingers haven't touched in years. There are boxes that haven't been opened since my adopted kids took permanent unauthorized field trips in 2002 and 2003. (They ran away. There are some spooky memories packed in with all those skeletons...)

There have been some real treasures in there! As well as a few scary finds...

I found and put up our Halloween decorations. We hadn't decorated for any holiday since... gosh, I can't even remember the last time.

I have a Christmas village I'd sort of forgotten about. I'm not sure I will use it next month, but something needs to be done with it. It might find a spot on the local marketplace.

There also are some Christmas crafts from the turn of the century that need to be finished and either sold or gifted.

And then there are memories. Oh, boy, are there memories!!!

I believe this was my son's calculator in sixth grade, but I'm not sure. It still worked when I first pulled it out of the box. I shouldn't have dusted it. The dust particles must have been its super power. It won't even turn on now, even after solar charging. I can't remember when I last saw a pocket calculator that wasn't a phone app.

I remember the days of calling up a web page on my old Mac Classic and then doing a load of laundry while waiting for the page to load. I couldn't believe I still had the key to that level of internet!!!

Not sure whose bike this came from, but I'm sure the bike probably has gone to wherever old banana seat bicycles go two decades after they've been declared old fogey.

Back in my newshound days, I used to be the denim queen. So I couldn't resist buying anything made of denim or at least that looked like denim. I can't believe one of these survived. I'm saving it!

Neon green was another thing I was known for. I remember buying this at the Space Needle in Seattle, and I remember it dangling from my jeans pocket for years and years and years. I didn't know I had saved it when I became a little more professional in my attire.

This was to repair a camera bag I don't even own anymore. None of my current cameras, except for the phone, would have fit in that old bag. This has got to be circa 1988 or or older.

Back in the 90s, if I found a bumper sticker I liked, I'd buy two. Because I knew the bumper sticker would outlast whatever car I was driving. The twin for this baby is still on my 22-year-old 4Runner.

I loved swirly pencils as a kid. When I found a handful of them at a gift shop somewhere when my kids were young, I had to buy the whole stash so my kids would get to enjoy the same swirly creativity I craved when I was their age. This is the only one that survived. And it wouldn't have survived if I hadn't stashed it away and forgotten about it!

All that other stuff was fun. But this... I guess you might say this is the jackpot. I still remember the valentine's day back in high school when one of my classmates presented this to me. We got to spend an afternoon together again back in about 1998, and he couldn't believe I still had it. He couldn't believe it still had chocolate inside. I didn't open one then. Good thing.

I didn't remember hiding change beneath the candy. I wonder if my kids made deposits if they found this and borrowed some of the sweetness...

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