After weeks of urging by my husband (perhaps it was months) I finally cleaned out the junk drawer in the kitchen. When it’s difficult to open and close the drawer it’s time to clean it out.

Under a pile of take-out menus and chopsticks I found my first treasure, my Mom’s address book. My daughter and I read through the book together and realized that it read almost like a diary of my Mom’s life.  In my Mom’s beautiful script writing we could see those people she added into the book and accepted into her life, and those she crossed out of her book and deleted from her life.

There were many other treasures in the drawer including used birthday candles from past family celebrations as well as old invitations to family parties. I even found an old deck of playing cards that was routinely used by my stepson and mother-in-law during their weekly card games.

I had no idea how much of our families’ life was still in that junk drawer. What’s in your junk drawer?