Buried (in plain sight) treasure

When I was at my parents' over Easter I found a bunch of old pictures (and by "found" I mean "pulled out the box that was sitting right in front of my face.") Soooo many treasures to behold in that box of old photos. It was a virtual cornucopia of awkwardness and odd faces caught at inopportune moments. It was beautiful. And then I came across this picture:

I know, right?!

Look at that face!

Check out those clothes! (okay, okay....it was the early 80's...)

I'm all elbows and knees and giant mouth! (Anybody have any doubts anymore about the whole fist-in-the-mouth thing? Makes sense now, right?)

And the hair?! Was the mushroom haircut ever a good look? (Sorry, mom.) Who takes their kid to get their hair cut and says to the stylist "Make it look like she is wearing a hair shower-cap" ????

Jump-roping was my favorite activity at that time. (I was seven) That Cinderella dressed in yella had so many doctors taking care of her snake bite, it was ridiculous. And later I would expand my jump-roping repertoire to include Double Dutch. And even went so far as to enter into a Double Dutch competition with my Girl Scout troop. We spent hours and hours practicing technique and making up a "routine"......and never went to the competition. I don't know why. Perhaps a camp out with the requisite jungle breakfast (Does anyone remember those? Little boxes of cereal and bananas that were hung from trees and we had to forage for in the early morning dew-covered woods. Why this was considered fun, I will never be able to explain.) caught our collective ADD attentions. Perhaps we simply realized that a routine that consisted only of the ability to jump into the ropes and jump back out without becoming hopelessly entangled would never really win any awards....

But I love the joy this picture captures. And I like to think that I finally grew into those poky elbows. And maybe next time I go visit my pit crew I will ask Molly for a little shower-cap 'do...... for nostalgia's sake.

And there were so many more treasures found... I will be sharing them from time to time....