The Sangria Room Project

Four years ago, after our mom died, Cara and I began sorting through her belongings, taking on the daunting task of deciding what to do with a lifetime of accumulation.  We made decisions together as we went along, but the items like photos, recipes, and letters we set aside.  We just weren't ready to sort those more emotion-laden pieces, so we filled the spare room in her condo and called it the 'sangria room'.  Our plan was to get together some evening, make a big pitcher of sangria and make our way through the keepsakes and memories.  When we sold the condo, we randomly divided the contents of the sangria room and each took our part home to store and do some preliminary sorting on our own.  

Last night, nearly four years later, Cara came over and we had our sangria night. I made the sangria (her wonderful recipe, perfected over the years) and my best approximation of a Dos Padres taco salad.  We sorted through memories and treasures and drank sangria.  We browsed through pictures from our childhood:

 We looked through stacks of artwork created by Mom.  She never talked about her artistic ability but when we discovered her high school artwork after our grandma died, we gave her some oil pastels and a sketchbook and encouraged her to use her talent. She took an art class through the Roeder Home.  She seems to have only practiced her art during those two periods in her life.  Here is an example of her high school art:

Amazing!

 We found little booklets that were dance club programs, from the days when our mom and dad and a group of friends would rent a hall on a Saturday, decorate it, then go home and get dressed up and came back and spend the evening dancing!

We looked through letters that our dad wrote to Mom while he was working in Alaska in the months before they were married--very sweet and romantic.....

Here is a picture of our grandma as a young woman:

and our dad and mom's senior pictures (around 1942 and 1946):