Don’t you love it when people suggest that you do something and it’s a really great idea and then they follow it with “you, know? In your free time…” or “when you have time…”?
My mother is the culprit, but this time, it was a REALLY good idea and I know that I need to do it… but it’s that whole time thing…
You see, I collect keychains… let me show you…
I have hundreds of them. I started collecting them when I was in the 10th grade and we made a trip (in a car with a pop-up camper attached) across the country, from Philly to the Grand Canyon and back. I thought it would be a great way to keep up with our trip and it stuck.
The keychains aren’t all from places though. Some of them are cute ones that people gave me. Some of them are ones that I’ve purchased and some of them are ones that someone else got for me.
I have ones from all over the world… like Ireland, Germany, Spain, and Afghanistan… now that was interesting to get.
When my brother headed over there, I did like I always do… “Be safe, send postcards, call when you can, and get me a keychain.”
I ask everyone for a keychain and I always offer to pay for it, although no one makes me.
But when I said that to my brother, he goes, “I’m pretty sure that they don’t have little shops set up with keychains for sale that say ‘greetings from Afghanistan’”. I politely told him that it didn’t have to SAY Afghanistan, it just needed to be from there.
“What do you want me to do, Heather? Shoot the bad guy, walk over to him, pick off his keys and send the keychain home?”
“If that’s what it takes…” I responded. I was joking of course, but I needed to get my point across — I wanted it for my collection.
When he returned home from his Tour of Duty, I got this in the mail.
So I got it. Yes, I have one… straight from there.
So, anyway… my parents are on their winter tour of the south and she called today to see if I had a key chain from Savannah or Hilton Head.
When I told her that I couldn’t remember, I headed to dig through the box. She says to me… “You should put them all in a spreadsheet like your dad does with the golf courses that he plays… then when I call to ask, since you’re already at your computer, you could just look it up. You know, you could do that in your free time.”
I chuckled. My dad is very organized and super anal, and while I do aspire to be like him? I did not get that gene.
But I told her that it was a good idea. Because as I was sifting through the box looking for ones that donned the words “Hilton Head” or “Savannah” memories from trips or people flooded my mind and I thought that it would be good for me to record these.
Many of them came from the kids while they were traveling with my parents or when they were traveling. I won’t remember all of them one day… shoot, there are some now that I would need help with to remember where they came from.
So we had an idea… with Matthew’s new found interest in photography, I’m going to have Matthew take a picture of each of the keychains and then I will catalog them with memories, the year that I got them, and any other information that I can remember and then get Mom and the kids to fill in the holes…
you know… in my free time.
Until next time..
Heather
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
“When my brother headed over there, I did like I always do… “Be safe, send postcards, call when you can, and get me a keychain.”… in your free time. LOL.
And when you die, your children will fight over who HAS TO TAKE the collection!!!
It sounds like a great collection seriously, and good for you for keeping them.
Idea: If Matthew will write in a note pad the name of the keychain when he takes the picture you will have the keychains in the same order as the notebook.
Then by using Picasa (free from Google) it will sort your photographs by the time stamp on the image.
That’s almost like having a spreadsheet!
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That is a good idea, a lot of scrapbookers do things like that. I real common one is with ornaments, since most have meanings behind them. You could even print the pictures as wallets & then put in a 4 x 6 album, half of it the pic & the other half journaling. A 6 x 6 scrapbook would look really nice to, you could fit a full sized picture with 2 x 6 room for journaling. Good look getting that done, start with your favorites & then work your way through them. Really you could even do it in blog format, upload the pic & give the story. That would be a lot cheaper
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I was googling for a keychain with the saying, “Meanest Mom in the World.” (This is what my children used to call me when they were young - now they strive to earn the title for themselves!) Anyway, it brought me straight to your blog, and I love that you have this wonderful collection.
Oh, and I am still looking for that keychain!