Jaci Dawn

I tackled the attic today. That’s a thoroughly frightening activity. We don’t have black widows here, but we do have the occasional brown recluse. I didn’t see a single spider, but cam across hints of spiders (cobwebs, egg sacs, and just general “I think it’s gonna drop down on me” feelings. Yes, my friends who think I am spider-invincible, I have moments of vulnerability. Those moments come when I suspect I may be in the eyesights of poisonous spiders. (Eyesights=they DO have eight eyes).

I attacked the right hand side of the attic first. I don’t know what is in that box labeled “Arwen’s Stuff” but I do know for certain that if it is ever moved again, her husband is going to be the one doing it. I think it had books. A lot of books. Arwen, you are grounded until you come home and take your things with you.

You, too, Levi. At least your boxes aren’t heavy.

My husband is grounded, too. I lost count of how many boxes I moved around that were labeled “Don’s Stuff”.

Unfortunately, I did not find what I was looking for on the right hand side of the attic and I had to move to the left hand side. Note that the attic is about 10×6′ and more of a crawl space over the addition than a real attic. I had to do this on my hands and knees. Insulation dangles overhead, the pink fiberglass stuff that used to have a paper cover and now just hangs free..

I moved everything to the right and discovered… <ahem> a number of boxes labeled “Jaci’s memorabilia and saved letters” possibly matching the number of boxes labeled “Don’s Stuff”.

I hauled them out, vowing to go through them and cull the less important stuff (I refuse to throw out the newspapers of November 23, 1963.). I was 7 years old, in the Third Grade, and I remember the day vividly. But i could probably trash a lot of other stuff.

I did find what I was looking for: our stash of slides. Film slides, for those of you too young to remember. A friend loaned me her digital converter and I wanted to make certain I converted every single slide to digital* (*assuming the photos are worth saving or have meaning to our heirs). I didn’t expect to find all the other photography stuff: negatives, lost photos, my first SLR (a Kodak), and boxes of my memorabilia.

Damn. Now I really have my work cut out for me. Fortunately, I have four empty photo albums to fill. And plenty of time. I stacked my boxes in the middle of my studio, spider egg sacs and all.

I did finish scanning all the slides. A lot were throw away worthy. I converted over 200 slides to digital. That’s done. I can return the converter to my friend (I wanted it to convert 120 film to digital, but it doesn’t work for that size film. But it worked for the 35mm slides). Will return when society returns to normal.

Meanwhile, I have this stack of boxes to go through. Oy vey. I won’t be bored.