A few days ago I found a check to Pacific Telephone for $200.46. It was dated Jan 22, 1988. There, in its sealed envelope, it had been tucked into a book and forgotten. It made me think of this post I wrote last year…and I thought it was worth repeating.
…There are three old black and white photographs and a utility bill from the city of Pleasanton (January, 1981 for $31.27). There’s a yellowed envelope with a letter written in beautiful spidery penmanship. (It was delivered with a five cent stamp.) There’s a boarding pass for Northwest Airlines, a lottery ticket, and 43 “official” bookmarks.
I have this pile of things I collected again this year. Things left in books. We have a book business and buy boxes of books from estate sales. It always interests me to see what people have tucked into books and forgotten.
There’s a 1982 map of The University of California at Berkeley, a little tract from 1976 (Knowing God Personally), a birthday card, and a cigarette quiz booklet published in 1967. Most amazingly, we found 3 twenty-dollar travelers’ checks from 1964.
Did the man who lost the traveler’s checks get his money back?
Did anyone miss any of this stuff?
In this quiet week as we close 2012, I want to take some time to flip through The Book of My Year and see if there’s anything important I have forgotten.
Is there any trash I need to get rid of? Are there any pages I need to reread? I marked certain pages for some reason…
Today is a good day to look over 2012 one more time. Volume 2013 will soon be in our hands.
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Welcome! My name is Andrena Paladini and this is a blog about family and love and faith and fun. I call it Paladini Potpie because a potpie is like an adventure in a crust. You never know what might come up, but it’s always going to be good!
Think of the best potpie you’ve ever eaten…hot flaky crust holding a rich savory sauce and all kinds of pieces of meat and vegetables…and who knows what?
As a family, we’ve chosen to live within the parameters of God’s love and protection. This is the crust of our Paladini Potpie. The crust never changes. Within this crust, the savory sauce of family love binds it all together. That is also fairly constant. But beyond the crust and the sauce we can add just about anything!
Good ideas come our way and we’ve adopted and adapted them to add to what John calls our treasure box of memories. These stories and ideas from John’s treasure box of memories are the ingredients I’m putting into our Paladini Potpie.
(Okay, so this ridiculous mixing of metaphors about treasure boxes and potpies is exactly what I’m talking about. Silly and ungrammatically correct. But both illustrations work… so we’ll mix them together and it’ll be just fine!)
John and I have been married for 30 years. Our children have wonderfully doubled in number since David married Amanda, Monica married Dan, and Matthew married Sarah.
And the newest little treats that have been added to our potpie are six adorable grandchildren - Ethan, Angelina, Nathan, Audrey, Maleia and Caleb!
I hope you’ll subscribe to my Paladini Potpie blog, and keep up with all the fun new ingredients I add. Hopefully you’ll enjoy our stories and ideas, and find something you’ll want to put into your own potpie! Bon appétit!
Paladini Potpie 
December 29, 2012 at 10:47 pm
Hmmmm. When I get home I am going through the books I am ready to pass on to another reader!
December 30, 2012 at 6:29 am
Now that was very informative; how many people will be browsing through their books of this last year to find that very unusual item they have tucked away only for the next reader to discover the surprise?!