A box of old stuff from 1986 or so

When Maren came up here last weekend, she brought a few boxes of stuff from my folks' basement.

It had been sitting there for quite some time. I keep telling them to just throw stuff away but that hasn't been working. So Maren hauled it up here.

Thanks, Maren.

That brown hairy thing had to be thrown away; it smelled. (A monkey puppet.) Please take note of the paperback copy of "My Girl" in the left-hand corner.

This generated a lot of excitment when we pulled it out of the box.

Nate was very impressed.

Old copies of Runner's World from when I ran cross-country and track in high school.

I read these cover to cover.

But I never won a race.

Maybe that's why I cancelled my subscription.

Then I found a book I had started to write. The title is, "The Day The Dollhouse Came To LIFE". Illustrated with stickers!

Did you ever have a Kit-N-Kaboodle doll? Please note my Brownie Girl Scout beanie I'm wearing.

This cute little box looked pretty innocent.

Then we opened it up and found this thing.

It's a keychain.

So I put it on my keys just for fun. Elin find it fascinating.

We opened up this ancient Osco Drug bag.

Treasures! Wait . . is that . . . a My Little Pony space suit?

Yep.

I used to pretend to make movies with this.

I can't think of any reasonable explanation why I had this in my possession.

A box of Peanuts books. Yay!

An assignment from fifth grade. I didn't know making Kool-aid was such a process.

Earrings made out of stickers and Friendly Plastic. You don't need to tell me; I know I was cool.

I remember having this little purse when I was about six.

Inside was a super-secret Detective Poc[k]et.

Whoa!

Inside the Detective Pocket were some cases I was working on.

I particularly loved Case #2:

"I can't find Maren's diray. What am I going to do?" I may or may not have snuck into Maren's diary, hoping to find thrilling information about Maren, namely true love, confessions, or possibly crime.

I never found any of that.

Not that I ever picked the lock and read it, of course.

Here's a little tidbit: if you need me, call and say "421 action".

If you call and say that, use your best secret spy voice and I'll know it's official business.

Now you know how to get a hold of me in a pinch.

Maren decoded this. It read, "I am tough". Hence the giant bicep illustration.

I guess I had this in case I ran out of codes to make up on my own.

Tons of paper dolls were found, but the Jem ones were perhaps the most exciting.

I used to think Jem was a wild rock-n-roll gal who lived life on the wild side. Just check out the pink hair and the dude standing there staring at her. Clearly a bad influence; I don't really remember these but Maren told me we used to play with them at Aunt Connie's house before we went to church . . . and we turned out just fine, and I never dyed my hair pink.

Let's not overlook my autograph from Kristi Yamiguchi.

I pitched most of it but kept the really good stuff.

421 action!