- One small silk-lined velvet bag full of old seashells and a few polished rocks. The opening was almost too small for my hand to fit through, but perfect for a kid's hand. I put the shells in a little cubical gift box that used to hold a candle and put it on my shelf. It looks very artsy now.
- Old handouts, homework papers, and tests from my Hiking, Physics 114, and Children's Lit classes at community college. It was crazy to look at all my math scribblings and remember how I was actually pretty good at that stuff, despite the occasional stressed times and all-nighters spent for that class. Physics was the most fun I ever had while doing math, I think. Fact: while surveying colleges (in particular U of I) I briefly entertained the notion of being a physics minor in addition to a music and English double major.
- A beaded necklace (plastic pony beads on plastic lanyard string) given to me by an odd man on a tourist steam train ride in Mossyrock, WA.
- Old 4-H record books and a plaque for one of them that never got hung up on my wall (I think because there wasn't enough room). Fact: The Kiwanis club that gave out record book awards since before I started 4-H decided, the year after I left 4-H, to stop giving out the awards because there weren't enough clubs participating. Our club was basically the only one that did record books anymore in our county.
- Flashcards from my German class at community college.
- Two prints of a sort of book cover I designed for a story I am still writing. The prints are from a couple of years ago.
- A 3-ring binder full of Beanie Baby collector's cards, c. 1999 (ages ago, right?). I actually still have a basket full of Beanie Babies. I never collected them because of the monetary value, though--just collected them because I was a kid and thought they were cute.
- Letters from past cabin-mates at summer camp when I was a camper 5 or 6 years ago.
- Half-finished scripts (written by me) of a Star Wars movie that me, my sister, and a few friends were going to make two or three years ago. We still have the costumes somewhere.
- Target "College 07" catalog. I remember looking through it and thinking I had to have at least half of the things in it in order to be fully prepared for school. I actually had a conversation with my dad along these lines, before I'd had a good look at my new room-to-be:
“What do you mean, ‘dorm shopping’?”
I stared at my dad, not having expected this question. “Well,” I started, “You know. To get stuff for my dorm.”
He gave me a funny look in return. “All you really need to get is a fridge.” By the tone of his voice, this should have been obvious, like a barren living space with a fridge was all anyone needed to create their own personal home away from home.
The mental image of the lists I’d created after a perusal of the Target catalog disintegrated as I grasped for an explanation as to why I needed so much stuff just to go to college. “Dad, they don’t give you anything except for a bed, a desk, and a closet. I need…storage. You know, bins and things. And a shoe rack and towels.”
“Don’t they give you drawers, though?”
“No.”
“I thought…”
“No, Dad. There’s no bureau or dresser drawers or anything. Just a closet. That’s why I need the bins to put my things in.” I was getting horrific ideas of mounds of clothing, jewelry, books, shoes, and makeup all accumulating in a mass of disorganization not unlike the disaster scene that was the floor of my little sister’s room.
“Maybe you’re right,” he allowed reluctantly. “I guess we could get you some storage boxes.”
“And a laundry hamper,” I put in.
“We used garbage bags for everything. Throw your dirty clothes in, and when it gets full, use it to take them down to the washer.”
“Then they’ll get smelly!” I protested.
“That’s why you close them.”
“Dad!”
*****[/end flashback sequence]
- Scribbled sci-fi story idea/fragment written.... who knows when. It eventually morphed into a story submitted in my Intro to Fiction class last winter.
- Music from Vivaldi's Cum Sancto Spiritu from U-Choir last year... not one of my favorite songs, but a catchy one. I remember that the A2's were a bit of a train wreck on learning our parts for that piece, but you couldn't even tell because of how loudly everyone else was singing.
- A huge chunk of papers from my Intro to Fiction class... mostly printouts of the stories I submitted and had peer-reviewed. I am sorry to say that Intro to Fiction was one of the least enjoyable classes I have taken yet... not because I can't take criticism (peer reviewing was actually really cool and fairly helpful), but because I was genuinely unhappy with everything I wrote for that class. Short stories are just not the medium I work best in. Poetry and novels, on the other hand...
- Lots of letters and notes to me from when I was a SALT (like a counselor/wrangler-in-training) at camp. I never realized or appreciated it then, but I was so loved and noticed by people. I just felt invisible all the time because I was quiet.
- Driving Test Score Sheet from the DOL when I went in to get my license. I scored 96 on my first (and only) try. The examiner was pretty surly, though.
- Shellfish/seaweed license from when I went geoducking last summer. It was a lot of fun, but I never got to eat any of the geoducks we found because my mom thought they were too gross to touch, let alone prepare to eat.
You decide: 
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