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A Box

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This post is from my good friend Nicole from deliajude who I coincidentally know from back in the cringe-worthy years. Thank you Nicole!

I love parcels in the mail.
Even expected packages, you know, the kind you order yourself.
(I love the unexpected ones even more.)
This particular box was the kind of parcel I handpicked from Amazon.
A little indulgence.
A just because I deserve a new book…or two.
I knew what was coming.
Books I had heard a many great things about.
But how could I know just how amazing the books would be.

cringe

The Gentle Art of Domesticity and Cringe.
Patiently, I awaited the US release of Gentle Art,
as I was not willing to pay shipping costs from the UK.
Well worth the wait.
A lovely little, or as the case may be, not-so-little book.
I did the initial flip-through, stopping occasionally to read an excerpt and soak in the photographs…I definitely want to try my hand at making “rock cakes.”
I cannot wait to dive in…curled up on a cozy sofa with a cuppa joe in hand.

When I flipped open Cringe the first thing I noticed was inside the book flap.
What are those called?
The compiler, Sarah Brown, had a list from her teenage years of everything she wore to school for the school year 90/91.
I started chuckling because somewhere is stashed a box full of my teenage journals and somewhere in that box is a journal, on yellow paper is written every thing I wore for in grade 10.
Yeah, call me super vain!
Or super insecure. I suspect the latter.

I was inspired to pull out my old journals and notebooks and spend a couple of hours gasping at what I thought were huge life decisions…turns out I was a vain, selfish teenager who thought far too much about clothes, boys and death.

Also, it appears I have since tossed a couple of teenage-angst-filled diaries and what remains are many journals from my twenties, clipping notebooks (articles and photographs), and prayer journals. I thought about giving you a wee sampling but instead I challenge you to unearth the journals of your youth and take a good look at your younger self.

Entertaining I suspect.

Or go out and buy Cringe, which by the by is the perfect name for such a book, and be entertained.

Better yet, do both.

5 Comments

  • Gayle

    That is so true Nicole! I have just one journal from my teen years and I definitely cringe when I look through it. Makes me glad I’m not a teen anymore!

  • karen

    I’ve got a few of my teenage journals in storage, with the idea that I’ll hand them to my kids someday, so they’ll know that I was also insecure, self-centered, and terrified my mother would find out I’d kissed that boy. It’s amazing any of us survive our teens…

  • lynne

    I was thinking of buying the Gentle of Art of Domesticity as well. I hope you like the rock cakes. They should be moist and they are lovely warm from the oven spread with butter. I have a diary from my teenage years lurking about here somewhere too but I ma sure it would be toe curlingly embaressing. But we had to grow through the people we were to get to where we are now, so here’s to forgiving our self – involved teenage selves :)

  • Annabanana

    Thanks Nicole I think I just might do that. I have a feeling mine will be quite like yours. I even had a fashion journal, now that would be a hoot!!
    I was reading over at another blog a few weeks back about writing a letter to your 19 year old self. What would you tell that self?
    I think I would have a lot of yelling to do in my letter. But then again I think if I didn’t do the masses of stupid stuff I did and write the dark dreary stuff I did I wouldn’t be where I am now. I would probably be married to a certain ‘meeting’ guy and be miserably pregnant with my 8th chid and have never picked up my paint brush. Thank you Lord!!!

  • Sarah Brown

    Aw, thanks for the plug!

    Those outfit lists are actually Amy Shapiro’s. I fought hard to have them in the endpapers like that. My favorite is “Alabama tie dye outfit.” What? Oh yes.