Turning anxiety into awesome. Or where I star in the next episode of Hoarders.

When you walk around with your ankles shackled by anxiety on a regular basis, your mind can get trapped on a merry-go-round of crazy thoughts. But every now and then I can them, like the persistent one in which I convince myself that I'm going to die young, and turn it into a brilliant idea. 

Now the skin mole check, or whatever that unsexy exam where they mark all your freckles and moles on a paper and then scrape a few off with a razor is called, wasn't necessarily brilliant, but it was a smart idea. And phew, all clear. 

And there is the circus money I've started to stash away, which is really smart, or possibly brilliant if they all decide to major in art history or something.

Yes, so I was inspired by a Matt Damon movie. Shut up. 

No, the actual brilliant idea came about when I saw these pretty "Q" hoop earrings on Etsy when Quinlan was a baby. And I thought since she had such a unique letter, that it might be cool to collect jewelry with it and give them all to her when she was older and wanted to change her name because it was so weird.

KIDS. 

This then turned into a collection of initial necklaces and other fun trinkets for all the girls which I stuff on a regular basis into our fireproof box. 

But then THEN the real brilliance happened thanks to the lovely Courtney who posted a link and photo to a tin can on my Facebook Wall, which generally speaking I HATE when people post things on my wall but it was a can with Quinlan on it. 

No, not her face but her name, because apparently a long time ago there was a Quinlan pretzel company in Pennsylvania and so of course I had to buy the really expensive tin can, which led to a search for other such tin cans, which led to an obsession with finding ALL THE QUINLAN TIN CANS THAT EVER EXISTED, as well as old bar trays, and most recently, weird mugs with pretzel handles. 

This is all I could fit in the photo.

At the time, Drew was really into fire trucks, which he promptly grew out of the second I put a unbelievably challenging fire engine decal on his wall and purchased a whole gaggle of old fire truck toys, particularly old Fisher Price ones, all of which sit gathering dust on his shelf. 

Remember those?  

And while Margot was a bit of challenge, I did a little research and found out that her name means "pearl" so, duh, vintage pearl purses!, stashed haphazardly in a box that sits on a shelf in her closet. 

 

"These are my special purses, right Mama?" she says. 

So far, Bridget is racking up quite a collection of octopus jewelry, which, funny coincidence *I* have a pretty extensive and rapidly growing collection of octupus jewelry (ahem). Poor fourth kid. 

Of course, there's the stories I write here, that they can chuckle at and laugh over, which I might force them to do every year on my birthday, even after I'm gone, while pounding on tin cans, playing with fire trucks, and wearing pearl purses and octopus jewelry. 

Or they can sell everything I bought and go on a fabulous trip somewhere. 

And then at least I can say that all this stupid anxiety was worth it. 

If you're curious: I don't spend tons of hours or money doing this, really. I just search every now and then on Etsy, set a budget that I refuse to go over, then tuck everything away in a safe spot so they can't get into them and toss the $25 vintage fire truck off the 2nd floor deck.

Comments

[Julie Marsh]

I don't do anything like this, but I think that's the reason it made me so happy. Such a cool idea.

[momofone]

My daughter's name is Lucy, so we already have a decent stash of Peanuts gear, I Love Lucy stuff, and some Beatles (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) stuff, too, so I feel ya. She's only 3, but it's fun for me! Love your pics!

[Lesa Shkolnik]

My daughter's name is Zoe and I have done the same with jewelry and recently stumbled across some cool olive oil tins. I'm heading to etsy right now!
Thanks for the great ideas! (& for everything else you've EVER written)
XoXo

[Vicky]

Do you have any idea how many books, pictures, shirts, etc that Reagan has stuffed in her room? There is even a black and white 8X10 glossy on her wall. I collect Lucy Burns stuff for Lucy too. Avery is a bit harder but my neighbor insists I can just give her a box of name tags and labels.

[schmutzie]

This is how we become those crazy old ladies with houses full of weird stuff. I like it :)

[Fairly Odd Mother]

I became obsessed with finding a book with my kids' names in the title. My son's name is easy---though he won't want to read that until college (if ever). My two girls though took me a little time but I found one of each. The oldest's is awesome and I love, love, love it. The middle's story is a little weak but b/c of the number of times I find the book next to her bed, I know it's a winner in her mind.

Love those pretzel tins! My sister's last name begins with Q and they look for neat things with their name on it too.