Memories and Junk

Messy Messes
Sometimes you open the door to your storage room in the basement and you find a giant mess. You've been telling yourself, your spouse and others that you need to clean the storage room out, but you just haven't done it yet. Sometimes you spouse comes to you and says, "Jen, we really need to clean the storage room."

So Saturday, Jeremy, Reese and I embarked upon a fast and furious clean out of our storage room. Henry wasn't here, so he got off easy. What the three of us would find this day would shock, sadden, disgust, amaze and amuse us.

By the way, if you're thinking to yourself, "Jen surely can't be so desperate for blogging material that she's actually going to write about cleaning." Before you judge me, you should be aware that if you proceed with me into my tale of junk boxes and found treasures, that you are actually the one reading about someone else's cleaning. Who's sad now?

Here's how it went down. We all had assignments. It was my job to help retrieve items from storage as well as to sort items into keep, donate or trash piles. In short, I was The Decider. Jeremy's assignment was unfortunately the least appealing. He did most of the retrieving, hauling and packing items. However, he was excited to go to the dump at the end of the day. He seriously loves it, even if he won't admit it.

Reesie's job was to supervise and look cute. See what a good job she did. Here she is looking at our junk.

Here's the junk she was looking at. (This was only the beginning of the boxes)


Here's Reesie judging us for having so much junk.


I was so excited to find some fun things that I had forgotten about. Look at these cool dishtowels that either my Aunt of Grandma made for me so long ago. Thanks Grandma or Aunt! The kids will love these.


We also found these pans that have removable handles. These will be great for camping.


Also, more kitchen stuffs. These fruit oven mitts are fun! I'm so glad I held onto them for 20 years. These are totally cool now.


At this time you might be thinking that this can't be getting any better. Well, you're wrong, cause it did.

Way back in a teeny-tiny corner of the storage room sat a box marked "Jen Memories". What? My memories in a box in the corner of a room? (Just the like song, but instead of the corner of my mind, it's the corner of a room. How symbolic!)

I opened the box and let out several small squeals of delight. I found the most awesome stuff. I didn't comb through everything, but I found a few treasures and I can't believe I had forgotten about from my youth.

First, I found this high school notebook with eraser art on the front. I did this to all my notebooks. P.S. I still loves me some disco.


Next I found a program for the Freedom Festival circa summer 1985. Wow. I think I performed in this when I was dancing. Look at the star studded line up they booked that year. Utah's Own Sharlene Wells, a former Miss America, The Osmonds, The Hoff and some guy from Hee-Haw!


Don't think that I didn't get to "hassle The Hoff" and his Knight Rider Car, Kit at the Freedom Festival "85, cause I totally did. Our dance group did some cheesy number where we danced around the car. I remember meeting The Hoff and thinking he was a big idiot back then. He warned us to keep our hands off of the car because it would get fingerprints all over it. My friend Kari and I totally touched it a bunch of times just because. Take that, Hoff.

Here's The Hoff before he tried to eat hamburgers while drunk and bloated.


Here are the lesser-known Osmonds that were at the show. Apparently at the time, Donny and Marie and all their teeth were too big of stars to come celebrate their freedom with us.


Also found? A Program from a Monkees Concert at Lagoon from 1988. For those of you that don't know, I had a serious addiction to The Monkees growing up. I had all of their albums on tape! Me and my friends Kari, Lisa and Alisa all picked our favorite Monkee and then stalked them on television.


We went to a concert at Lagoon and I took my stalking to another level. I totally stole this sign from their trailer.


In hindsight, they might have not been such a big deal in the mid-80s. They were all sharing one trailer and it was marked with yellow legal notebook paper. Hmm.

No worries. I still have kind of a crush on Mickey Dolenz. Here's me kissing his picture when I found my program in my memory box.


So right now, the only person that is still remotely interested in this post is Julee. All you others, thanks for reading on.

Next I found a certificate the shows that I am loved and that I am beautiful. I was selected out of a crowd of people to be the Queen of Love and Beauty at Midievil Times in L.A. in 1990. Here's me and the King and Queen of the event. If the King already had a Queen why did they need me?


It was about this time when I looked over at Jeremy and noticed a sad look on his face. I asked him what was the matter and he told me that he was sad because he had no memories to find in a box anywhere. Where had they gone?

Here's Jeremy sad about having no memories.


Next, we found my old Student ID card from my Senior year in high school. My picture is a bit odd. I was being initiated into Rockettes (dance team) and they had hosed me down and put shaving cream all over me. My Mom was horrified when she saw my ID picture. She told me that one day I would look back at it and be sorry. I am sorry, Mom. I'm sorry you were wrong. I totally still think it's funny.


Jeremy found this piece of memorabilia and asked me to explain. I had totally forgotten about this. During my Junior year in Seminary Class in high school my teacher had a mock awards program. In Seminary Class (LDS religious class) I received the "Most Likely to Become an Exotic Dancer" award. Whah? I think it was a play on that I was on the dance team in high school, but I can't be sure. Were my peers trying to tell me something?


Here's my favorite memory I found that day. These are letters from my Dad while I was in college. The yellow sticky note says Fall Semester 1991. That's a lot of letters you guys! Aww. I love my Dad. I kept every letter and card he and my Mom sent to me. Thanks guys.


At the bottom of the pile, I found this piece of memory. It is actually a memory that Jeremy and I share. It is a room service slip from our hotel in San Francisco while we were on our honeymoon in 2000. Aww. Love.