In high school someone organized a blood drive every year. Usually it was for our exit project, but inevitably one student would gather up the organizations required and set up a blood drive in the gym. The strange part about doing a blood drive in a high school is that most of the students are not allowed to donate blood. My senior year I donated my first pint, and since then I have worked my way up to over a gallon.... unfortunately not at the same place, so I don't get a cool shirt for it, but I did get a pint of ice cream this time. This is my first pint past a gallon and it was also one of my hardest, I'm not sure if the needle just didn't go in quite right, or if my vein wasn't sticking out as much as usual, but either way, it hurt more than normal. It is always a little irritating to have a needle in your arm slowly sucking blood out, but I think it is worth it. Not only do I feel like I did something good by donating blood, I only had to root around my house to find ONE thing I would get rid of today. Yesterday, while I planned to blog after a museum excursion, I ended up attending a music performance with a friend... and was there til past 1am. By the time I got home I practically fell asleep in the doorway. Probably not the best to do on a night before donating blood, but I did still get 8 hours of sleep. Not only do I get a feeling of being able to help out when I donate blood, but I also know that I can continue to donate for my life, or until I get a false positive for some kind of disease.... That's the part that always scares me the most. I had a friend who was called once after donating blood and told she had Hepatitis C, luckily it was determined that the test was incorrect. The few days of calling the doctors and getting new tests run made the whole experience scarier than I would ever want to imagine. Hopefully for me I can eventually donate in all 50 states (that's a lot of blood) and never get a false positive for anything! So one pint of blood down, now a physical object to remove from my pile of stuff in this small apartment.
Sentimental things always have a special place in my heart, as they do in many other homes. This pillowcase was given to my parents when my oldest sister was born, and has been in the family ever since. 
My mom tried to get rid of it when I was home last time, and I couldn't bring myself to allow her to do that. My cousins had outgrown the Peanuts cartoons and wanted to give my parents something fun for their new child. My sister is now 27 and very much outgrown of Peanuts. The old cotton is now almost see through and the pictures and sayings are as old as they can be, but I still shy away from getting rid of this, yet, out it goes. While I think I will throw it away because it is old, faded and thin, I know it was used well, for many years. I even used it for over a year in college, only to bring it home when I got a new pillow case, thinking someone else may want to have the joy of sleeping on a pillow case we used as babies. This item reminds me of Hoarders, a TV show on A&E, again, one of the reasons I am writing this blog. Many of the featured homes have items kept for sentimental reasons, and for memories. One man couldn't get rid of a few bricks he had taken from his old high school. The man was in his 60s, had grand children, and lived a normal life outside of his home. The bricks were taken when they refaced the school, yet he did not want to lose the memories of the school, and the bricks brought back those memories. In the end, he agreed to throw those out with countless other items in his house, realizing that the memories will still be there, even without the bricks. While I have not reached the point of hoarding everything, I do find myself keeping useless things purely for the memories they force me to recall.
My mom tried to get rid of it when I was home last time, and I couldn't bring myself to allow her to do that. My cousins had outgrown the Peanuts cartoons and wanted to give my parents something fun for their new child. My sister is now 27 and very much outgrown of Peanuts. The old cotton is now almost see through and the pictures and sayings are as old as they can be, but I still shy away from getting rid of this, yet, out it goes. While I think I will throw it away because it is old, faded and thin, I know it was used well, for many years. I even used it for over a year in college, only to bring it home when I got a new pillow case, thinking someone else may want to have the joy of sleeping on a pillow case we used as babies. This item reminds me of Hoarders, a TV show on A&E, again, one of the reasons I am writing this blog. Many of the featured homes have items kept for sentimental reasons, and for memories. One man couldn't get rid of a few bricks he had taken from his old high school. The man was in his 60s, had grand children, and lived a normal life outside of his home. The bricks were taken when they refaced the school, yet he did not want to lose the memories of the school, and the bricks brought back those memories. In the end, he agreed to throw those out with countless other items in his house, realizing that the memories will still be there, even without the bricks. While I have not reached the point of hoarding everything, I do find myself keeping useless things purely for the memories they force me to recall. 
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