Stuff with a story

I love stuff.

My house is full of stuff.

And most of our stuff has a story. (My favorite kind of stuff.)

I spend a depressingly large amount of time at the kitchen sink, so that's a good place to have stuff with a story.

Everything you see here has a story or a memory behind it.

Inside that little cupboard is a bunny jar my mother-in-law gave me, a sugar bowl I bought at the yard sale of a friend, and salt and pepper shakers from my friend, Maria.

And vintage spice jars (please note that they are in alphabetical order):

In the middle of the spice jars is a nurse given to me by my husband.

This nurse is his representation of ME as a nurse. It is his theory that I am a terrible nurse. (It is my theory that men exaggerate their illnesses and should get their own dang ginger ale.)

This is a ceramic turtle clock made by my son when he was about 6:

A frog we bought at a restaurant when we first moved to Boston 20 years ago (and to the left of it you can catch a glimpse of a sterling silver rattle that was my husband's as a baby):

A little dog we got on in Nogales, Mexico when we were on a roadtrip in the Southwest:

A plate from a trip to Italy:

But this one is my favorite. It is a brass "K."

When my son was about 7 or 8, we went to London. We went to the theater to see Oliver. While waiting to be seated, my son looked down at the floor and said, "Look, Mom, a K!"

He then tried to pick it up.

That K, of course, was the letter of the row we were at and was, of course, attached to the floor.

We've laughed about that story many times over the years.

Several years ago, my husband found this K in a junk shop somewhere and put it in my son's stocking at Christmas.