Mementos

I've had horrible allergies this week, and they've been the worst when I've been in the bedroom, particularly when I wake up in the morning.  We vacuumed and dusted, and my allergies were just as bad.  They started when we turned on the heat, and they're much better when the heat is off.  I finally realized that the air vent in the master bedroom closet was blowing dust from the closet into the bedroom, leaving me with full sinuses and puffy, itchy eyes when I woke up in the morning.

We've been needing to clean out the closet for... oh, maybe a decade now.  I can't even reach the other end anymore.  

One of the boxes in the back of the closet - not because it's unimportant, but the opposite, it's so important that it's not going anywhere - is a box of mementos from older relatives who are gone.  

I know the prevailing cleaning philosophy is that, if you don't use something for a year (or, for some very lenient cleaning gurus, two years), you should take a photo of it and give it away.  However, I don't have the kind of room in my house to keep everything special out on a shelf.  That doesn't mean that I want to get rid of things.  Some of them will end up in a box and only come out occasionally - like this weekend.  

Photos wouldn't do these mementos justice.  There's nothing like holding something in your hand and being ten years old again with your godmother next to you.