Top Five Friday: Preserving Our Memories

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. 
~ from The Wonder Years

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oday I begin my foray into hobby farming.  The down and dirty part: walking the property, gathering estimates from country boys with work boots, easy grins, and mellow accents, filling the beds with aged compost and soil, and transplanting veggies and putting in direct-sow seeds.

This will leave little to no time to search the vaults of my grey matter for a list of five very important items you will absolutely need this weekend.  But I didn’t want to leave you orphans!  So I cheated.

Since it is Preservation Week [what, you didn’t know!? My bad!], @YourLibrary has some great articles about preserving books, digital photos ~ even fabric!  And I know everyone has at least one box of slides sitting around.  I have more one, I fear.  Not to mention a projector screen, and even the huge clunky projector!

Preserving family items ~ whether they have been passed down for generations, or just last year ~ means more than just taking care of material possessions.  It means preserving memories.  It is one reason why I journal and encourage others to do so.  Even if it is only journaling in scrapbook or photo album.  Someday, you will have trouble remembering.  Capture it now, while the moment is still fresh. 

Otherwise, that bed that George slept in so many times will get donated and your children and grand-children will miss out on that awesome family story!

The Basics: Archive 101

A great place to start your preservation research. Has a list of resources and links to help as well.

General – Preserving Your Treasures

A quick and dirty list of things to do and watch out for.  Follow the link for How To Care For…and it takes you to another page of external links such as The Henry Ford Museum, and PBS for a video from “The History Detectives.”

Preparing for the Worst

Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods.  How can you preserve family heirlooms against accidents?  This page has another webcast that you can access to learn more about protecting your past against Mother Nature’s future fury!

Slides

This one is a top five within a top five!  The only thing I would add to this list is to find a reputable company that can transfer or convert your slides into digital files.

Fabrics

This was a webinar on how to preserve, store, and display textiles.  There is a session recording as well as presentation slides.

Have a great weekend digging in picture boxes.  I’ll see you next week!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Do you have boxes and boxes of slides or pictures?  Do you scrapbook?  What items have you preserved that are precious to your family’s memory?

National Library Week: April 8-14, 2012

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy. 

~ Edward P. Morgan

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t’s  National Library Week!  I’m a little late with the notice, but there are still two days left to celebrate the awesomeness that is a library!  Hat tip: Debbie Ridpath Ohi over at Inkygirl ~ where she has cute, ROTFL illustration to go with the theme.

When I was growing up, the library was a magical place, filled with adventure and excitement.  The ladies that worked there [forever it seems!]  knew our family very well.  We always walked out with our arms full of books; they were skeptical that we could read them all within the allotted time we had them checked out.

I don’t remember how much my mother and my sisters read, but I certainly devoured my stack fairly quickly.  Inevitably, though, we had to extend our time, and generally were still late returning our books.  Oh the shame!

My local library introduced me to Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins, The Boxcar Children, Trixie Belden, Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot ~ notice a pattern here?  Not to mention the classics: Treasure Island, Heidi, Swiss Family Robinson, Tale of Two Cities, Little Women, and of course, Little House on the Prairie.

Reading can be a huge mind opener and most people can’t afford to buy all the books that a lirbabry offers.  We certainly could not have.  But because of that library, I fell in love with books, and ultimately, with writing.

We don’t often think about it, but libraries really are guardians of knowledge and freedom.  A people that can’t read are a people more susceptible to manipulation and deception.  Today, we seem to have become a people that can read, but chooses not to.  Even with the advent of e-books, people are reading less and less substantial, mind-expanding works, and settling for the crumbs of pulp fiction – the fast food of writing.  Easy to swallow and oh so tasty ~ but a steady diet of that and eventually you’ll die of a heart attack, complications due to obesity and general lack of nutrition!

Nowadays, libraries don’t just stock books; they host educational events.  Mine is hosting a series of events around organic farming and sustainable living.  I’ll be attending as many of the talks and farmer panels as I can, so expect to hear more about that in the coming weeks.  At eh MyLibrary site, you can find a library near you.

Step inside ~ an adventure awaits you somewhere among the stacks!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

When is the last time you visited your local library?  What books did you check out?

Word Count Blogathon Day 28: Summer Reading List

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.

~ James Bryce

Summer is almost here.  Actually, here in Virginia it has felt like summer for a few days now: thunderstorms, humidity [or “humisery” as my yankee friends like to call it] and lovely, baking, ninety degree weather.  A small price to pay, in my opinion, sweet iced tea, fried chicken, and being able to enjoy the changing seasons.

School’s [Almost] Out!

Viewing the calendar in semesters and three months of vacation becomes a habit after living that way for over twenty-two years.  And even though I have been out of school for [cough, ahem] years, I still feel the rush of “Summer’s here!  Relaxation!”  Growing up, that translated into multiple trips to the library. 

I will never forget Linda at our local library.  She always laughed and commented on the enormous stack of books I took home every other week.  It was always at least a foot taller than me.  “Are you really going to read all of those books in two weeks!?!”  Some I would have to renew, but most of them I devoured in a few days.  I don’t know if my family was a burden or a blessing to those sainted librarians: we were always checking out almost half the library!

The “List”

Sadly, the days of three month vacations are over [unless you’re lucky enough to be French].  But it is still a great excuse to read more!  And my library cup runneth over with un-read volumes that I have been meaning to crack open.  Most of them will improve my mind and some will give it a little rest.  Both are important to do.   Here’s a partial list.

Love and Will by Rollo May

Love’s Executioner by Irv Yalom

Can Poetry Matter? by Dana Gioia

Interrogations at Noon by Dana Gioia

The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Conner by Flannery O’Conner

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling [as a refresher before the last movie installment!]

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Gone with the Wind, 75th Anniversary Edition by Margaret Mitchell

Beauty and the Beast by Marie Le Prince de Beaumont

The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria by Marlena De Blasi

What do you plan to read this summer?  Any books you would like to recommend? Do tell!

Oremu pro invicem,

~ Mikaela