looking back

short story prefaced with a disclaimer: i love things, stuff, nicknacks, otherwise unimportant doodads that remind me of that one time with that one person doing that one thing. as such, i have keepsake boxes - notice the plural there. whereas other friends of mine keep one box that only the most precious items go into, i keep many. notes, birthday cards from my childhood best friend, track ribbons from elementary school, candles that have psychedelic patterns on them, they all made the cut into these boxes.

before e and i moved to sc, we lived in a two story house that, although not entirely giant, did come with ample amounts of storage and a garage. it was here that my parents had stored my keep sake boxes of old and where i routinely added to them. fast forward to us moving to an apartment and things had to go. boxes had to be sorted and decisions had to be made. as an older and slightly wiser me looked through these boxes i realized that i did not remember half of the things in them. whoops. at least it made it easier to toss the stuff or take it to the thrift store for someone else to love. fast forward again to 7 months of living in sc and a few trips home and somehow more and more of my boxes keep popping up in my parent's basement. and each time one is found i begrudgingly go through it and once again find a whole collection of things that are no longer necessary to my current existence.

over thanksgiving my mom and i were going through yet another box when she decided to pull one of her own off the shelf and do a little sorting. what we found, besides an awesome tom petty band shirt, were her high school prom dresses. i think they are fantastic and although she is ready to let them go, i find that i am not so casual about the notion.

 

 

  

this is only three of the four. the top one is a really sweet floor length gown that has such a cute floral print trimmed with a lace bodice. the middle one has a fun lace up front against blue crushed velvet and a high collar. the bottom is a navy knee length dress that buttons up the entire way and also sports a crushed velvet bodice. 

 

of course i couldn't resist trying them on...

 

i added my own belt to give it a little more definition at the waist

  

i felt a bit like little house on the prairie while standing in the field...

 

sticking with the general theme, i wore these earrings that once belonged to my mom as well but i have since stolen them. she got them from an antique show when she was about 17 and they are absolutely gorgeous, definitely one of my favorite pairs of earrings!