Some days are diamonds....

Some days are gold....

I have been pretty stressed out by real life and this is my blue funk time of the year. I have been new car shopping and just spent many hours at a dealorship. On the way home I decided to stop by an antique shop and see if I could muster up a movie magazine for the next AB I'll be working in. The lady there is disabled. and slow in speech and movement, she tells me where to look but I don't find what I'm after. Bummer!!! I ask if she ever put the cabinet cards out I had inquired about months ago as I pause at a selection of postcards. "No" she replies.

Then she tells me she has a very dirty box I can look through if I don't mind getting dirty.She gets me a towel and an overflowing box . I can hardly contain myself. I have collected cabinet cards and old photos for many a year. I begin sorting, hoping she cannot hear my heart pounding.

There are old letters. I take a few of them they are all written in pencil.

OK so I have 3/4's of the box in my pile. I wonder at the price. I already have postcards of Hawaii on the counter. So I take them over to her and ask the price. She starts slowly counting then asks me if I had counted them. We work together and group into 10 pieces . She then says "What did you tell me you did with these?" I make art from colored copies, and I also collect them. I cannot believe family members would not keep them. "Yes its a shame people let family pictures go. I could never do it."

she says. She charges me $40 and my heart sings! I tell her I haven't had this much fun in a long time and to save all her dirty boxes for me to go through. She laughs and says "I will."

I can't wait to get home and see what I have. There are pictures dated from 1783 to 1865 of a man and another of his wife, folded under the picture of her is their marriage certificate! There is a tintype photo. An envelope containing 11 holiday postcards including New Year and Santa.Letters to and from the various family members. Newspaper clippings. One lady in several different poses on cabinet cards and she is a beauty, too. I'll be going back for the rest of the box just to keep that family history together.