Memories

I went through my Hope Chest last night. Not the one that I started when I met my husband, but the one from Jr. High and High School. It's an ugly black trunk, that I painted with brightly colored finger paints. I'll have to remember to take a photo of it...just for a memory.

I went through and threw out old dried flowers...especially if I couldn't remember who they were from. I have some old corsages that were dried and petals had long fallen off. I found a few old books from my Marriage and Family class, as well as my Home Ec classes. I threw those away too...I'm not sure why I saved them. Maybe, I thought I'd use them...I did laugh at the test we took on Pregnancy and Child Birth...I got a D on it!! Maybe, that's why my first two children are only 13 months apart, I didn't understand how that whole process worked!?!?!

I laughed and laughed last night at some of the notes, trinkets and newspaper clippings I kept! Matt couldn't believe all the stuff I saved...some stuff he didn't understand why on earth I'd kept it...others he was jealous of and wished he would have saved more of his memories!

I smiled at notes from my grandma, dad and mom. I teared up at cards from my Mamaw..I miss her horribly and wish she could have met my boys. She would have ADORED them! It was fun to read my old diary and laugh at the drama that surrounded my teen years!

My favorite notes were the ones that my cousins and a friend of mine all wrote back and forth...we pretended we were married, to our then TRUE LOVES, and that we had super successful careers as mothers, pediatricians, presidents and great musicians. Our spouses were equally successful and famous! It made me chuckle to think we thought we could have SEVEN children, be pregnancy, juggle a house, a job and a marriage and still have time to jot three page letters to our dearest friends!! Little did we know, the reality of that situation!!! It was fun to pretend though! The three of us were avid readers back in the day...and it shows in our writing! Such imagination!!

It also made me stop and pray for my boys! I hope, they can avoid some of the heartache and drama of high school! I want them to love and enjoy their teen years, but I want them to stay teenagers!! I hope that the fact that they are MALE will cut out some of the drama for them. I'm certain many of the boys we ladies were crying over, didn't think twice about our "breakups" and then were off to play ball with their buddies!!

If only they'd learn from us...and listen. I know I didn't' listen to my parents about all of it, so I can't imagine my boys will listen any better! Let's hope my husband is better prepare for teenagers than I am! Thankfully, I still have a few years to prepare myself!