Cleaning Out My Closet aka the 80's Called

My husband had to take a trip to Geneva to get paperwork in order for our upcoming move to South Africa. I texted my mom to tell her about his trip and she said that she was actually wondering if I had time to help her clean out some stuff in my old room and in my sister's old room. Now, I should stop right here and tell you that I absolutely love organizing things and going through old stuff and throwing most of it away. I know that's a little unusual. Maybe it's because I was born under the sign of Virgo. Maybe it is because I have some kind of OCD, I don't know. I can't even watch the show hoarders because I hate clutter so much. So anyway, when my mom mentioned closet cleaning I screamed "get the garbage bags ready" and rushed up to my parents' house to assist.

I definitely didn't inherit the organization gene from anyone in my family. I think that's pretty much evidenced by the fact that neither my sister or I have lived in this house since the early 90's yet so much of our stuff remains.

I did keep a few things that I found in my old closet. I'm not a Vulcan after all. Here's what I decided to keep, and thus bring with me to Africa.

• My rock collection. These are shiny polished gem like looking rocks. Not just gravel gathered from the yard.
• a collection of seashells. I like shells and I will organize them in a pretty glass container.
• The Laura Ingalls Wilder collection of Little House on The Prairie books. I may see if my god daughter would like these. If not, I will just keep them.
• A pastel drawing that my middle school art teacher made of Tom Cruise that my husband thinks looks like him. I will frame this.

I took some funny pictures of a few of the items I found. All of these ended up getting thrown away. So grab your time machine and take a look!

I made this alligator in elementary school out of plaster and paper mache'. I think it's pretty good.

Hahaha. I think was a game similar to Simon where you had to remember patterns.

Only part of the cassette collection that I found. Even by 80's standards I think this Walkman cassette player had to be bulky right? 

I begged my parents to get me this game. They did not. Someone else finally got it for me around 1982.

Does anyone under 40 even know who this dog is?