If you were a girl during the 90s there are a few things you remember. The Macarena, jellies, boy bands, Lisa Frank, and of coarse Beanie Babies. Like my fellow children, I LOVED Beanie Babies. During the height of the frenzy, my sister and I got into the cute bean-filled critters. My amazing mother went all around town trying to find who still had the new ones. She got Happy Meals every day trying to get two of all the Teenie Beanies (one for each of us). Now we didn't always get them right away. My mom would save them for birthdays and Christmas or as rewards. In fact, we didn't even know which ones she had. We were not under the illusion that they would be worth anything; we even took the tags off and actually played with them. We had Beanie Baby sleeping bags, clothes, food, and houses made of cardboard boxes. When we moved to a new state, we took Beanie Babies in the car with us instead of in the moving truck. I remember my sister and I playing with all our Beanie Babies spread out over the floor before the furniture had even arrived.
By the time I was in sixth grade, I still loved the little critters. I was also an avid reader. My mom came up with the brilliant scheme of keeping us off the television during summer break by making a deal with us. Every time we read 100 books, we would get a Beanie Baby. I got out my Lisa Frank notebook, wrote the date, and #1. I read those books and got my Beanie Baby. I asked my mom if I read another hundred if I could have another Beanie Baby. She said "yes" so I kept writing. I can't remember if I got that second Beanie Baby, but I do know I have been writing down every book I have read since summer of 2000. That's 14 years worth of books!
It may sound a little OCD but when I started doing it, I never envisioned it would become a sort of life-long list. In 2011, my husband surprised me by typing up my whole list (I was still writing them all down in my Lisa Frank notebook). Some of my numbers were off, so the typed version actually had the most accurate information. I was so excited! I started typing them all on my list instead of writing them down. I planned to do both, but kept getting sidetracked. Then, tragedy struck. Our hard drive failed. I had all my photos backed up, but none of my documents. One of the documents that was lost was my book list. Luckily I had emailed the list to myself, but it was only updated through 2012. I was on a couple of reading social sites, so I was able to piece some of the list together (30-40 books). The order is probably a little off, and I may be missing a few still, but its better than nothing. We have tried to recover some of the data, but the hard drive is physically damaged. It would cost a lot of money just to recover a few documents (if they are even able to be recovered
According to my most current information, I have read 465 books since summer 2000. These are completed books, not the amount of books that I've started. I used to make myself work through the most putrid of books, just to say I finished it, but my time is too precious. I'm learning that it is about quality, not quantity. The list has become a sort of overview of my life. It has books from college, books for entertainment, fiction, non-fiction, book club... My life in books.
The moral of this story is to always back everything up! Not just photos, everything. You won't realize what you have lost until it is gone. Oh yes, and Mom, you owe me a few Beanie Babies.
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