Pressing Leaves and Yard Sale Prep

J likes to collect leaves sometimes.  I thought it would be fun to press a few and put them in wax paper.  He was rather ambivalent about the whole thing, so maybe he's not old enough for this activity yet. 

Magnolia leaf from my yard

He got to touch the iron, with supervision of course.

We worked out in my dad's shop, sorting through 40 years of tools and other items.  It was a huge, HUGE job.  We could have used a few more weeks to get ready for the yard sale, but just kept on working as long as we could. 

A fun toy, all outgrown.

My dad stored his books and old clothes up in the attic of his shop.  It was a lot of trouble to get them down, made even tougher by the fact that my dad loved his books so much and we knew they were almost all going in the sale. 

My dad was not a hoarder, but he did have a *lot* of stuff.  He had a use for most of what he kept, and he was good at fixing things that to most other people would be considered beyond repair.  He had a rough childhood, and served in Vietnam.  He wasn't much of one to talk about his feelings, although as I grew older and so did he, occasionally he would open up and I would get a glimpse of how tough his life had been and how it had shaped him as a man and as a father. 

Mr. GV up in the rafters, lowering things down from the attic space of my dad's shop.