Day: July 30, 2024

Unpacking the Trunk: 18-Year-Old Financials

18-year-old me felt it was important to keep all my check stubs from Pizza Hut. I’d like to say I find that kind of dumb, but I enjoyed looking at them. I find it interesting that the stubs don’t list my rate of pay.

My very first pay stub, ever! (My previous job paid me under the counter, which I didn’t love. I wanted to pay taxes and get things like check stubs!) Rate of pay here: $4.25, which was minimum wage at the time. For most of the time I worked at Pizza Hut I worked 10-ish hours a week, maybe a little more in the summer.

My last pay stub from Pizza Hut before I headed off to college. My rate of pay had increased to $4.70, though only because I found out that I was training people who were hired at $4.50 while still making $4.25 myself. Important lesson learned about advocating for a raise on a regular basis. The summer before I left for college, I worked as many hours as I could. They always kept me below 40 hours, though.

These notecards were a fun find because I have wished, now and again, that I had saved them. Turns out I had.

When I started to receive regular paychecks, I dutifully deposited the money and assigned it to categories. It turns out I wrote about this in an essay about money. The percentages are still hazy. But here are the records.

Savings DNETS meant “do not ever touch savings.” This was my pile of money to be saved for, something I wasn’t entirely clear about. I knew I just needed to save money.

Savings SUFSG meant “saving up for something good.” I also kept some of my paycheck for spending money, so SUFSG would be for things that cost more than my spending money.

It looks like I took out the following amounts from SUFSG: $70, $30, $40, $63.62 (a very exact amount), $20, $50, $45.76, $100, $20.

I think there is another 3×5 card that would reflect the money I earned the summer after high school. As I recall, I took about $2000—the DNETS amount—with me to college. I offered it up to defray tuition, but my mom said I should use it for spending money as I wasn’t going to have a job straight off. I blew through $1000 in the first semester—those catalogs had a lot of cool stuff in them—and then reformed my spendthrift ways.

So that was my early earnings history. Thanks, growing-up trunk, for holding that information for all of those years.

Unpacking the Trunk: Books Edition

Being the reader I was and am, I made sure to stock my growing-up trunk with important books from my childhood and adolescence. In no particular order:

I was given this Little House set when I was still a baby, so I got the yellow box edition. My friends who had their own set usually had the blue box edition. I liked the yellow one better. But then the next iteration was a nice gingham theme. I would have gone for that one too.

You can see that these books were read many times. First they were read to me, then I read them on my own, then I read them every summer. Sometimes I started at the end and ended at Little House in the Big Woods. When that happened, Mary regained her sight, rather than lost it.

My friend Cindy had a tiny book called the Paper Bag Princess, and I loved it so much (despite being in high school and thus “too old” for it) that she made me my own copy one Christmas.

She had fun adding the commentary on the back, which she adapted from actual blurbs on books in her possession. “Now a spectacular film from Orion!!” cracks me up.

My favorite Little Golden Book to read at my Grandparents’ house. It was originally my Aunt Carol’s book, and the paper dolls aspects had been lost years before I found it. I looked for my own copy for years before finding one in the toy store in Seaside during this trip. I did not include the book in my chronicle of the trip, and I have no idea why as it had been a decades-long quest. Anyhow, this was the original one.

Oh, Alice. This book, so many feelings. It was fun to listen to the series of episodes the podcast “You’re Wrong About” did, starting with Go Ask Alice Part 1. I also read Rick Emerson’s Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries, so it’s been a big year for Go Ask Alice.

This might have been my entry into Chris Crutcher. I loved how the descriptions of cross country running made me want to be a runner.

I read a lot of Cynthia Voigt, but these two made the cut. This is a loose sequel to Jackaroo, and I didn’t know how to pronounce the main character’s name Birle, so I stopped in a jewelry store in the mall and asked. Because we didn’t have the internet to pronounce things for us back then.

And here’s Jackaroo. My historical fiction preferences are quite clear.

When I watched the film The Princess Bride I had no idea there was a book! When I found this, I loved it so much I read it aloud to my family.

Fannie Flagg was a favorite author once the movie version Fried Green Tomatoes was released, and I read the book. But the description of the Miss America pageant in this book was hilarious, so I went with Daisy Fay over Fried Green Tomatoes.

Who the heck wouldn’t count the Outsiders as an important book from their youth? Probably kids now, as I’ve recently reread it and found it a bit stiff. But I sure loved it then. I also like this cover. It’s very of its time.

This is the book in my collection I find most cringeworthy. I really, really, really liked it though when it was released. At least my bodice ripper entry has a classy cover on it.

Here’s the book that probably no one has heard of. I loved the New York City immigrant 1940s experience. And it was also really sad. This one, I’m holding onto. Will I read it again? Maaaaaayyybeeee? What if it’s not that good?

A book I always thought of as a good companion to this one, though contemporary, was Walk Through Cold Fire by Cin Forshay-Lunsford. It’s too bad I didn’t track down a copy for the trunk as they seem to be scarce. There are currently three copies available on Thriftbooks and the prices range from $112 to $129. I’ll keep my eye peeled for it to turn up somewhere for a normal price.

I was a huge fan of The Secret Garden, but A Little Princess has always been my favorite Frances Hodgson Burnett book. And one MUST read the version with Tasha Tudor illustrations.

More historical fiction. This one took place in Hungary, pre-WWI.

And this sequel took place during the war. I’m pretty sure my mother read these as a child, and thus they came into my life. Good choices.

And another classic. I read this book several times, both as assignment and on my own.

And that’s the tour of my books. I hadn’t realized how few would be contemporary. Really just Running Loose. I’m a diehard historical fiction fan and have been since I was a child.

Unpacking the Trunk: K-k-k-katy

Back when I was still an only child on the precipice of becoming a big sister, my Aunt Fran sent me a doll to distract from the fact that there would be a new baby in the house.

She came in this trunk, and her name was Katy, though I quite liked the K-k-k-katy song, so sometimes she got a few extra Ks added to her name.

Here she is with her eyes closed and her original outfit.

And here she is sitting up with her eyes open. Her shoes had ribbons, but I cut them off at some point.

And here are the handmade clothing items I dressed her in.

I love both of these prints.

Here’s a fancy dress and a robe (I think?)

Cute top and pants ensemble with polyester coat. (Matching lace collar!)

Knit poncho with hat and another cute dress.

Some flowery choices.

More tops. I especially like the one with cherries.

Here’s the front of the blue shirt. All sorts of fun patches.

I had a great time with growing up with Katy and these clothes. I’m not sure how successful she was in distracting me from a new baby in the house. But points for trying.