COLLECTIONS

What prompted this blog post? Two things really. First, my parents have moved from their home to a retirement mobile home park down the road. This meant that I needed to clean my stuff out of their attic. Boy, was there a bunch of STUFF! Secondly, my oldest brother has begun sending me items for my latest collection.


I think it's because of my oldest brother, Peter, that I have all the "collectibles" that I have. I don't know, maybe I've always collected and he & I are a lot alike? My earliest memories of collecting go back to when we would vacation and I wanted knick-knacks to take home. I've had collections of small "ceramic" animal families, mushrooms in fourth grade, shells, rocks, balloons and bears in college, angels, cows, Noah's Arks, and now of course, sheep. I found many of my earlier collections packed away in my parent's attic. Many were broken and were disposed of. The rest were repacked and are now in my in-law's attic. Can you guess that we have no attic?



My latest collection you see here. My brother came for a visit from Pensacola, FL in the spring, and he brought two unique gifts for me. The first gift he brought was of a dachshund (we have a live one) that is colored like a Holstein bull with horns and it says, "100% all beef hot dog." He thought I was still collecting cows. I still have a few around but that was about 15 years ago. (My favorite is a black and white cow clock with a swinging udder for the seconds.) When he found out I was collecting sheep, he purchased a sheep made of cauliflower with a mushroom head. It is adorable! (You would think with all the real sheep we have, it would be enough. Nope, I have many inside as well.)

We discussed what fun it would be to collect these "Home Grown" animals and keep them in the kitchen. Well, leave it to Peter. I received my second one in the mail in April. The next one came in May for my birthday and yes, I received one in June. He calls them my "jelly" of the month. I so look forward to each month to see what critter I will get next. My brother loves me and keeps me collecting after all these years. (When I was collecting mushrooms at 9 and 10 years of age, he helped me set up a mushroom display in our local public library!)

Cauliflower Sheep Lemon GoatLime RabbitOrange CatsI can't wait until July to see what the next "jelly" of the month will be. Thank you, big brother! I love them.