Things

I've been thinking alot about material objects and I've been wanting to write about it for like a week but haven't had time (now that I am a working mother of 2!!). The first thing is pictures. This is very stressful to me...when I take pictures (which is every day). They almost immediately go onto my computer and I put them into folders by month. I usually put my favorites on facebook and this blog within a few days. Then at the end of each month (or when Mallory turns the next month old) I upload them to shutterfly and order them to put in photo albums that I have at my house. But I'm thinking that step is getting kind of pointless. Whats the point of having albums upon albums of pictures when I have all of them online and on my computer to look at any time and order if I ever want them for anything. I ordered almost every single picture I ever took of Max but now I just have all these albums of pictures that are just stacked up on a shelf and I don't really look at them. So I'm thinking of changing the routine and only ordering pictures that I need for their baby books (first smile, first steps, etc) or ones I want to put in frames or on the fridge or just have in my wallet and then maybe waiting until Mallory turns 1 and making her a first birthday book, the kind you actually make and get bound and everything through shutterfly. Maybe doing the same for Max when he turns 3 and then doing a yearly book for our family with everyone...like a book for 2010 etc. I figure I spend $10-15 monthly on ordering pictures so I might as well not do that and then just spend $50 or so at the end of the year. Who thinks this is a good idea?

So that whole thing got me thinking about what I will have to show my kids when they are older. I mean is everything just going to be online or will people still care about old stuff and heirlooms? I don't consider myself a packrat (not compared to those people on Hoarders anyway) but I do keep important things. A few years ago, someone who I won't name right now decided to throw away all of my memorabilia t-shirts. I had a pile of shirts at my parents house that I had kept throughout my childhood. It included all of the "I ___ at ____'s bar/bath mitzvah" shirts, Some camp shirts including one from my first summer at Louise, My class shirt from Pikesville with the whole class's names on the back, some sorority shirts including my billboard greek "letters", shirts from israel...like this one that had cocacola written in hebrew and a hebrew army shirt. Just lots of shirts that I wanted to keep. Not because I thought I would ever wear them. But they were just things I wanted to hold onto forever and always thought it would be cool to show them to my kids one day. Anyway, they are gone and when I used to think about it I would think...well I probably won't have a daughter anyway and my boys aren't going to care about my shirts so it doesn't matter. Well now I do have a girl and I feel like she IS going to want to see my stuff so I got upset about it all over again. So I went on a rampage looking for other "things" that I do have. Here is what I have that I hope my kids will care about one day:

-Alot of notes that I wrote from middle school all the way up through college and after
-All of my class pictures from elementary school
-All of my bunk pictures from beth tifiloh and louise
-Lot of other pictures
-Some report cards
-Some diaries
-All of my yearbooks
-My Pikesville High School sports jacket that says "Kim 97" and has the basketball and soccer ball on the back
-A ring from israel that has my hebrew name
-A few DPhiE clothing items like scrubs, a sweatshirt and maybe 1 t-shirt
-My Camp Louise Circle Pin
-My DPhiE Pin
-A ton of Bat Mitzvah Jewelery including a HUGE gold Kimberly necklace. haha.
-Lots of 80s jewelery including some pretty funny earrings.
-Lots of cool rings that I wore when it was cool to wear alot of rings.

I do not have:

-My high school class ring...no idea what happened to that
-My shirt collection.

So I guess I still have enough to show them. Hopefully they will care. I'm sure Mallory will just be dying to wear my Kim '97 Pikesville High Sports Jacket.

So this is the last time I will mention the shirts. I think I am finally over it but I might still need some therapy later in life when Mallory calls from college and says "Mom I'm pledging DPhiE, can I have your shirts?" I'll just tell her to call Gigi and ask her what happened to them :)