Mini Project #1: Childhood

There are 10 months remaining in my Revive55 Project!

I am really excited at the progress I made in my Childhood Mini Project.

My main goal for each mini project is to complete what I call: 5Top5.

My Top 5 in 5 Categories:

1. Stories
2. Photos
3. Mementos
4. Accomplishments
5. People

It's difficult to just have 5 in each category but I think it's a great exercise to just reflect and try to choose.

I think even with my childhood long over, it's a work in progress. As I was writing this post today, I remembered my badminton racquet that I kept and was in our furnace room with other sports equipment. I am adding it to my mementos list, bringing it out of the basement and into my memories room.

So here goes my 5Top5:

1. STORIES:

1. I like it my way
2. I'm Number 3/Almost Perfect
3. Childhood Dreams/Ambitions
4. Family trips
5. Tourist Hostess Summer Job

Although I have blogged and written many of these stories, I started recording my stories while walking my dog using the Voice Memo app on my phone. When I arrive home, I label the voice memos to find them more easily in the future. I haven't decided what I will do with the recordings, but for now, the stories are preserved.

What are your top 5 childhood stories?

2. PHOTOS:

5 months old

I'll sleep anywhere
At the airport on our way back from Florida in 1977

Back from school trip with some of my souvenirs
Love my school jacket on the suitcase as well
(jacket was originally my brother's)

I'm so happy playing badminton
wearing my favourite outfit at badminton camp

The Terry Fox monument in Thunder Bay
was originally on the side of the highway
Terry Fox died in June 1981
Monument was unveiled in June 1982
We visited a few months later when we drove
my older sister to her new home in Thompson, MN

3. MEMENTOS:

1. trophies, medals and plaques (I can't pick just one)
2. badminton racquet
3. records (45's and albums) (just one? really?)
4. charm bracelet (and high school ring)
5. shells from our Florida trip in 1978 (and shells necklace)

I am preserving some of my favourite
childhood mementos in this
heart-shaped Lindt box

I'm not sure if this 45's box was originally mine
(it may have been my older sister's)
but I have taken it out of storage and
enjoy seeing it on display

4. ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

1. 2nd Franco-Ontarien Track Meet 800m
2. OFSAA competitor volleyball and badminton; All-Ontario track 3000m
3. Music Festival and Royal Conservatory Grade IX
4. Offered job at my first interview & tourist hostess job
5. Badminton training regime, learned to sew to make badminton warm-up outfit I loved

5. PEOPLE:

1. Family (👋🏻 to those reading)
2. Childhood friends
3. McDonald's boss
4. Grade 1 and Grade 13 English teacher
5. Coach

Along with my 5Top5, there are other parts to Revive55 Project that are works in progress.

I bought a shelf for the trophies I'm keeping. I need my husband's help to put it up on the wall. It has pegs for medals and a corkboard.

I am updating my Personal Timeline which is a chronological list of memorable events in my life.

I am updating my childhood album. Years ago, I took the photos that were originally in my magnetic childhood albums and preserved them in a Creative Memories album. After making albums for my siblings when they turned a special age, I found lots of other photos from my childhood that I am adding to my original one. I am splitting it up and also adding mementos like report cards, ribbons, certificates and newspaper clippings. My first album is from birth until Grade 8 and my second is my high school years. I will make a third for my university years.

I think that I had decluttered quite a bit from my childhood already so there wasn't too much more to do besides trophies, report cards and certificates. I had one big box of childhood memories that I have split up into smaller boxes that are more easily accessible. Things that could be added to my childhood albums are preserved there.

I have started Mini Project #2: University Days.