Fave Friday

We're having a clear out here at Bunny Towers. I think we've both got to a stage where we can't stand the amount of crap that fills the house. I think I have had hording schooled into me by my parents, while Mr Z has had his hording urge suppressed by Mother Z ("I threw your shorts away because they were going to get a hole in them," she apparently once remarked) and is therefore rebelling. Either way, every time I go to people's houses I look around and think, Wow, nice house, it's really clean, but where's all your stuff? This is a sure sign we have too much.

Getting rid of stuff is hard, though. Even if I manage to work against the urge to recycle, or to keep things because they might be useful one day, there's a whole load of sentimental stuff that I don't want to bin. So, I am going back to that idea I had where I photograph it, blog it, and then bin it. It will live on forever on the internet, so it's not collecting dust and making me ill in my home.

This gorgeous, pristine piece of clothing is first.

In the summer of 1998 I was extremely fortunate to be picked to go to Camp Black Hawk in Wisconsin as part of Camp America. I didn't feel lucky at the time, having been almost guaranteed log cabins, to find myself under canvas with approximately 17,000 ravenous mosquitoes; I still remember the abject horror at what I had done when I was sitting in Chicago O'Hare waiting to be collected. But, it was one of the best experiences of my life. I learned an enormous amount about myself during those 10 weeks, and I met some amazing people, many of whom are still in my life to some extent (God bless Facebook). I would go back one summer and work for free if they didn't start in May; I reckon I'd only have a couple of weeks of their season left by the time school kicked out for the year, 

I bought many camp shirts from the camp shop over the summer, having a paucity of suitable clothes (when I was at uni I didn't really ever shop for clothes), so I had lots of logo'd wear, but this was the official shirt of the summer. I didn't make it into the staff picture because a few of us went to see the Spice Girls in Milwaukee and were late back, but this is what everyone is wearing in it. And it was so comfy! Good length, great with the buttons, perfect neckline...it made a good painting shirt too because it covers a lot.

It had a third life as a doorstop for several years when we moved in here, as our bedroom door is hung in such a way that it closes itself, meaning we needed to have a wedge to allow the cat access, but then it was retired to the side of the wardrobe when a new doorstop turned up in the post from the Twitter teacher secret Santa. And now, I suppose it's off for ragging. Perhaps I will cut the logo off, though. It really was a very important piece of clothing to me.