The Things We Keep

When I moved all my stuff to the garage while I did the conversion, this lamp ended up behind things on the work counter that I hadn’t found a place for yet. Cleared most of that out yesterday and found the perfect place for it. For some reason Rickie loved this lamp and had told me he hoped we had a place for it when he retired to the cabin. 

His collection of Texas history books are in the cabinet along with some of his little things. An owl feather, rattlesnake rattles, the Buck knife he always carried in his truck for cutting up jerky and sausage on trips, some porcupine quills, a piece of pottery made by a man from Mexico whose aunt owned the Mexican restaurant in Junction. A jar of dirt from Shotgun Ridge and a jar of Texas caliche. A dead mummified hummingbird I found, and a jar with the shotgun shell from the Ridge with its name and shell casings the hunters left in the Knight blind over the years. A baseball from a game he played in 1970. 

A quilt Elizabeth made from his shirts and a cabin quilting she made for me when I moved here, a fox skin from before he decided no one should shoot a fox at the ranch, some blackbuck antelope antlers a friend of his took from a dead blackbuck he found by a Texas ranch gate, an old jar Natalie bought me with ski lift tickets from the kids that come over, and some family photos of grandkids Jeremy, Emily, Bixby, and great-grandson Anthony. On the side is a scarf Sarah and Justin brought me from Italy and a wrap my friend of 40 years Deborah gave me when I moved here. 

I love this little corner. It tells a lot of our life. ❤️ I hope y’all have a corner like this with some of your treasures. When you downsize these are the things you keep. They tell your story. Not the expensive things you bought that have no value except money. My carpenter came over after I was moved in and as I showed him around he said “everything you have has a story, Sue.” And so it does. ❤️