Fazer Prince Chocolate box filled with my grandmothers old cardboard toys, some beautiful china that once belonged to Saima (my great grandmother), a sea urchin, sand and rocks from places that were exotic decades ago (like Lanzarote) and a granite core sample
the most awesomest lamp that used to greet my family from the hallway window with its light whenever we arrived to my grandparents' in the evening is now mine and looking for the perfect spot to stand on
my new old bookshelves and slide-door cupboards and V's magic carpet that has yet to show signs of aviation
Everything else is still dusty and disorganised, but I've successfully merged the contents of my bookshelf with V's. Now we have alphabetized sections for Finnish fiction, translated foreign fiction, English fiction, poetry; and unalphabetized sections for non-fiction, music and film, sci-fi and fantasy, children's books, comics, art books, dictionaries, and, of course, bookbinding and other crafts. And yeah, I did alphabetize our good dvd-films by the director's name. The not-so-good films I couldn't be bothered with. It's way too hot in here to do anything, but boy did I have a good time sorting stuff anyway. I realised tonight, being home alone for the night for the first time here, that it really makes a difference, the bookshelf stuff. This morning my father brought me a load of treasures from my maternal granmother's home and the first thing I did after we had put the shelves up and all the miles of wires (one serious movie freak in this household, and I can tell you it's not me, even though I love a good film any time) into their correct places and had a good lunch with some super salty chips (chips as in french fries), was organize the bookshelves. I'm guessing we easily have around 1000 books and 250+ films, so that's quite a lot of organizing to do. And it all really, really made me happy.
Like having a plastic bag full of buttons to sort according to various variables happy.
(so much to show, so much to tell, too hot too messy too many furniture hanging around just for fun, but I tell you this much now, I also have an awesome 1950s sofa and V has a huge tv and I can't remember the last time my home had both those things. Wait, never. Actually, never since leaving home ten years ago have I lived with both a tv and a sofa in my household, and whenever I've had one or the other, it was a very brief encounter. Also, I'm baking bread, trying to make a caramel spread myself, succeeding in burning the sugar without realizing it until it was too late and now I have a batch of salted caramel spread that tastes like the icky almost burnt sugar your grandmother used to glue the pieces of a gingerbread house together and you even remember leaving the corner bits uneaten because of it.)