Friday, January 3, 2014

day 141 : my favorite holiday gifts ; the $2 blanket & 50 year old pencil

happy friday! 
usually, i would share a round-up of links {kindness carousel}, but i am posting about christmas gifts.
i am not really a 'thing' person. i dont have a lot of 'stuff' and dont have many items on my 'wish list'. blake and i live well below our means on purpose & i am extremely practical. any 'thing' i purchase needs to serve a good purpose. each month, we give a large chunk of our money away to causes and groups that are doing great things. most everything we own is secondhand and we never go shopping for 'new' things.

for christmas, i asked for the usual : socks made in the us, a gift card to the co-op, money for my mutual funds and toilet paper. honestly, i have enough.
i am thankful for a warm, safe apartment. for a partner that has a great job. for the ability to start my own business from the ground up, ect. i dont need a lot of stuff. i am happy & thankful for what i have.

i worked the day before & the day after christmas, so i wasnt able to go home to iowa until a few days later.
my parents live in a small-ish town with a couple nice thrift stores! we hit up the local goodwill {which is huge and always super busy!} and i found this beautiful crocheted afghan! i love vintage items with a 'classy' feel. you guys, it was $2! someone spent *hours* creating this blanket and it made me a bit sad that it was so affordable. we bought it and i love it! the colors, the size ; its my new fave!

also while we were in iowa, we stopped to see my grandma. 
a couple years ago, my grandpa passed away and it was so sucky. i grew up without my dad, so all of my 'male guideness' came from my grandpa. losing him was one of the shittiest things i have ever been through. anyways, before i existed, he was a standard oil man.
he would drive the gas truck to peoples farms & fill up their tanks to run their homes, machinery, ect.
this was years & years & years ago ; back before they had paper business cards to hand out. back then, they put their business info on something you could use. {my grandmas family owned an implement dealership & had their info on a salt and pepper shaker!}
my grandpa had pencils with his name & phone number on them. i remember drawing, doing 'connect the dot' and word puzzles with these pencils, but honestly havent throught about them in 20 years.

my gift from my grandma? one of my grandpas pencils!! it looks and feels exactly the same as it did when i was a kid. 
seriously, what an awesome surprise! the tip is still dull and the eraser is half-used. my grandparents use to have these pencils EVERYWHERE ; in the car, the junk drawer, near the candy dish in the living room, ect. i feel so nostalgic. i am so thankful my grandpa was in my life for 26 years ; he was a really incredible role model.  

tell us : do you have anything now that makes me feel super nostalgic for your childhood? any items that have been in your family for years?

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