I'm A Snoop

I didn't realize how much fun, and how rewarding, snooping can be. I don't mean like snooping in someone else's medicine cabinet although I hear that can be its own kind of fun. I mean snooping in my own house.

I have issues with my basement. I can muster up some courage to go into the basement if it is during the day. But there are two rooms in the basement that I will NOT go into, day or night, alone. It has nothing to do with any ghosts that I believe live in this house but because of BUGS. Namely, spiders. Can you say EWW??

The first of these off limits rooms is a dry cellar that is directly under the front porch. It's called a dry cellar, but it's really not. When it rains, we get water in there. It normally is a little damp and dampness in my mind equates to bugs. There are some shelves in this dry cellar with some odds and ends on it and an oak barrel (it was there when we moved in!) and old sink (again, from when we moved in) and that's about it.

On the other side of the basement is the old coal room. Years ago, this house used to be heated by a coal furnace. The coal truck would back up the driveway, there is a little door on the side of the house that they'd open the door, put the slide in the door and the coal would empty from the truck, down the slide and into the coal room in the basement. From there, you would shovel out the coal and shovel it into the coal furnace. Sounds like a lot of work to me! This is a very dark room as there are no windows in it and the walls are cinder block. Damn scary to someone with arachnophobia! No way I'm going in there, with or without Ron!

So, Sunday afternoon, I was putzing in the basement. Ron happened to be in the basement having a cigarette, so I asked him to go into the dry cellar with me. I haven't been in there in a long time and I just wanted to look around. You wouldn't believe what I found in there!

I found a box that I packed up when I left Houston. All the breakables in the box were wrapped in pages from the Houston Chronicle dated October 14, 2001. It's sad I've never opened that box since then! I lived in an apartment here for a couple of years and never opened it at the apartment. Then, in this house for almost six years, and the box was in the basement. Right now, a few things have been thrown out, one thing was broken and the rest is in the dishwasher. Bonus for me.

Speaking of bonuses, I really hit the jackpot in the dry cellar while snooping. I found a box full of goodies! There have to be 20 balls of crochet thread! Plus, books and books of crocheted doily patterns as well as a home made book of favorite crocheted doily patterns!

For the life of me, I could not remember getting this box. I looked at the writing on some of the pages and couldn't recognize the writing. My first thought was that I got it from my sister in law, since both of us had crocheted doilies throughout the years. According to Mary Jane, they weren't from her. This was a mystery. When I saw my name written on the box, I was really stymied! My mind was just drawing a blank.

Finally, going through the books in the box, I saw a name written on one of the books. Lil! My friend Jeff's Mom! I have a huge box of goodies and I am ashamed to say that I don't really remember getting the box. And WHY did I put this in the dry cellar? I have no idea how long it's been there, but I'm telling you, it was like Christmas here yesterday afternoon!

Maybe for that reason, I put the box away when I got it, because it was meant to be found on a day that I needed to find something that happy. Then again, maybe it was Lil herself stopping by to say hello. I know she was on my mind all day yesterday. And now today my mind is filled with creating these beautiful doilies. Here's hoping my bifocals will allow me to crochet with the thread again!

So there you go. Start snooping in your own house. You never know what treasures you will find.