U.P.P.T.I.s

Here's a video clip of Glacier Peak's recent lip dub:



Besides seeing Braeden in it, I saw his fur coat, the leather coat and sunglasses he bought at a thrift store (a friend of his is wearing them in the video), his walking stick and who knows what all.  The trunk of his car is filled with possible costume needs.  Braeden is kind of his own sort.

He has made up a new acronym.  U.P.P.T.I. (Useful Pot to Put Things In--the boy's mother read him Winnie the Pooh when he was younger.) He told me his trunk is his U.P.P.T.I.

Everyone needs an U.P.P.T.I.  Mine is the bottom drawer of an old dresser that I've recently decided to attend to.  It's filled with scrapbook type things including, but not limited to, greeting cards I've been given, cards and pictures from my kids, random photos, ticket stubs...Some of it is worth keeping and some of it will find it's way in the recycling but what is amazing is how it all fit in the drawer.  The drawer is like Mary Poppin's carpet bag.

I found a picture taken at a party celebrating our wedding that Adam's grandma hosted for us.

I asked Adam why he would marry a twelve year old.  (I don't remember being that young when we got married.  I felt all grown up at the time.)

Weird.

Braeden sat down Friday afternoon so I could bask in his presence/he could help me.  (His help was more like randomly moving things into the wrong piles but I did enjoy his presence.)

He found this:

It's a little laminated book Olivia--who he called Ciocia because that's aunt in Polish and he doesn't speak Polish, but she does--made for him.  Braeden picked it up and looked at it and exclaimed over it.  He kept saying, "I remember this!"  Whether you say it in English or Polish, she's a pretty great aunt/ciocia.

Speaking of Olivia, I also found a birthday card from her to Adam in the drawer.

Front of the card:

Inside the card:

Perhaps you have to understand the long standing/ironic/affectionate-besides she was mad when I got married because I was abandoning her nature of their relationship to get it.  But it cracked me up.

Olivia is kind of her own sort.  (And now that I think about it, she had a costume box when she was Braeden's age too.  Maybe it's a genetic trait?)

The funniest thing I've unearthed in my U.P.P.T.I. (thus far--there's a lot in that drawer) is this card from Emma to Adam.  I have no idea when it was written.

He must have followed her directive and not read it out loud because I don't remember this card.  Also I love that she signed her name with an exclamation point.  The card sums up Emma then and now.  Bold and cautious all at once.

Long live U.P.P.T.I.s!