...this IS my life...

Every day I spend a good deal of time looking for things I'd put aside so that I wouldn't lose them. When I die and my family has to go through my stuff, they will find a treasure trove of my favorite things. For your entertainment, a partial list follows:
1. A letter I wrote to the "Procrastinator's Club" back in 1968, requesting membership information. I have found it several times over the years, adding more postage as necessary. I still haven't mailed it.
2. A gift certificate for an evening at a hot tub...given to Scott and me for our anniversary in 1987. The place went out of business back in the mid 90s when hot tubs were readily available for home purchase. I don't know why I want to find it, since it is no good anyhow.
3. A gift certificate my daughters gave me for my birthday about 15 years ago, to "Glamour Shots". They were complaining that they didn't have any good pictures of me, and I was complaining that I take lousy pictures...hence this gift. I never felt comfortable enough "glamming up" for a picture, because it would be a LIE to have a picture of myself that actually looked good.
4. Christmas cards that I addressed and put stamps on in 1996. I hate to NOT send them out because I actually took the time to write our family update. Although I suppose that a lot of things have happened since 1996, including the marriage of daughter #2, and the birth of ALL of our grandchildren, for example.
5. My address book (contains birthdays, too). Misplaced it the year Meeghan (daughter #2) got married...I took it off its normal location on the counter in the kitchen when we were having her bridal shower.
6. A really good recipe for chocolate pudding cake.
7. A box of conch shells that I want to use as decorations for my catering partner (Vicky)'s daughter (Vanessa)'s wedding. Down on the Outer Banks in North Carolina in October...if a hurricane doesn't blow the location away between now and then.
8. A flock of pink plastic lawn flamingos. I had a huge flock of them in the front yard, but after a few were stolen, I hid the rest and now I can't find them.
9. The fabric part of the canopy that I bought two years ago. I found the metal frame about a month ago. We were so excited that we set the thing up in the back yard on the evening of the day we bought it, but the next day a bad thunderstorm came up and blew it into the neighbor's yard. We had to partially dismantle it to get it over the fence, and ended up putting all of the pieces back into the box. Last year we put it up, but took it down two weeks later when we watched the "tropical update" in the Weather Channel. I wanted to set it up a few weeks ago, but can't find the canopy.
10. The wiring for the doorbell. When our house got hit by lightning about 10 years ago, it knocked out our doorbell. We installed a new one, and it was working fine until Monica (daughter #1)'s boyfriend, Paul, installed some drywall and a new ceiling in the garage. He said, "I'm going to stick this wiring "right here" (pointing to the location) so you will be able to reconnect it. Well, that was FOUR years ago. They have since broken up, and I don't frigging remember where "right here" is. And I am NOT going to rip out the frigging ceiling to find the wire. People will just have to knock. And knock louder as I age and go deaf. Maybe I'll leave a bullhorn out by the front steps...if I can remember to buy one.