If you could only save one personal possession...
You can only save one personal possession. What will it be?
Of course this doesn't include family, friends, or pets.
Humans, by nature, are materialistic. We all have many things we hold dear but when faced with an emergency situation, I'm asking you what's that one thing that you'd really miss if you could never see it again.
You know that "What would you save if your house were on fire" question?
Well... I've lived through that and I know what I wish we had saved... but didn't.
Quick! What's your most prized possession?
What would you save if your home were on fire?
You don't have time to think. Your house is burning!
Give me an answer.
What do you grab? (Not counting your family or pets)
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- paperfacets paperfacets Sep 10, 2009 @ 5:11 pm
- The one time we were close to evacuation we put our photos in the trunk.
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- Pastiche Pastiche Jul 3, 2009 @ 10:16 am
- My grandmother's coffee grinder that she carried here from Germany and my keepsakes trunk.
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- Gandree Gandree Jul 2, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
- My Laptop and the Metal Box we have our important papers in. Things come and go but the box would help me pick up the pieces after the fact.
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- genglo genglo Jun 24, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
- Family photos, definitely!
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- Euryale Euryale Jun 23, 2009 @ 10:30 pm
- Having lived through some natural disasters, I have to say in those instances I was prepared to lose all the "stuff" as material things are so unimportant in comparison to human or animal lives.
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- BigGirlBlue BigGirlBlue Jun 21, 2009 @ 10:41 pm
- We have too many photos to save so it would be the hard drive that has our digital photos. It changes the longer I keep thinking about it. The list grows! LOL
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- KimGiancaterino KimGiancaterino Jun 21, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
- I would save my grandmother's crochet and needlepoint items, plus the afghans that were made for me by my friend Lillian who lived to be 101.
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- ClassyGals ClassyGals Jun 21, 2009 @ 11:53 am
- My photo albums are stored away in a hope chest. Interesting subject, Robin, one I've honestly never thought about. I totally love the way you presented this subject! Five stars.
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- Trekkiemelissa Trekkiemelissa Jun 20, 2009 @ 6:34 pm
- There are two things. My computer and my purse.My purse usually holds my kindle so, I will have both.Technology is my life.
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- annetteghallowell annetteghallowell Jun 20, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
- We had a small window of time to get things out of our house when we were evacuated during the fires in Durango, Colorado. Luckily there was time to get more than one thing out, but it was also easy to choose. First my daughter's favorite things since she was still attached to her "things". Then art work, photos and computers. Good question and one that I think we all need to think about.
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- JJNW JJNW Jun 20, 2009 @ 1:09 am
- Too hard! My laptop? Gpa's desk? Gma's quilt? AHHH! Too hard!
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- mukunda22 mukunda22 Jun 19, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
- It's a surprise!!
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- Ladymermaid Ladymermaid Jun 19, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
- Gosh, but I am at a loss, the only thing that I can think that I would grab is my purse. It has all my id in it, and I guess so long as I had that and the keys to my car, then I would be fine. My car keys are always in my purse, there is a hairbrush in there and a few other neccessities so I could manage without a lot of other stuff.
I would sure miss my computer though.....
Ladymermaid
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- ElizabethJeanAllen ElizabethJeanAllen Jun 19, 2009 @ 6:37 pm
- Our autographed drawing given to my husband by Charles Schulz.
Lizzy
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- puzzlemaker puzzlemaker Jun 19, 2009 @ 6:27 pm
- Well, humm. What a great but hard question. I'd grab a family cookbook and the few boxes of old pictures. I'd get the computer hard drive too if I could, but honestly it's all hooked up to other stuff so I don't know if that is a possibility.
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- SquidooKimberly SquidooKimberly Jun 19, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
- The response is overwhelming about computers! I'm with you on that. It has the photos and videos and everything I need to get started again with my personal life and career.
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- LindaJM LindaJM Jun 19, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
- I'd grab my external hard drive. And my journals. (Sorry I couldn't settle for just one thing.)
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- Frankster Frankster Jun 19, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
- For me, it is definitely my cats. Since that's a given, I have to really think about this some more. What a great question to ask though.
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- Susan52 Susan52 Jun 19, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
- My external hard drive, but it'd probably be gone before I got the pets out.
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- CCGAL CCGAL Jun 19, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
- Memories box. It's full of photos, and stuff my kids made when they were small, and a few mementos of bygone days. After people and pets, even my beloved instruments take second place to my memories box.
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- MsSnow4a MsSnow4a Jun 19, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
- My computer
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- Joan4 Joan4 Jun 19, 2009 @ 9:11 am
- my mother's diary!
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- monarch13 monarch13 Jun 19, 2009 @ 8:31 am
- my late grandmother's rosary.
My house really did burn down
Awful memories
When I was a kid my house really did burn down and although it didn't burn to the ground, we lost everything that didn't actually go up in flames, to smoke and water damage.
I have to admit, at the time it was devastating to my family and I'll never forget the image of my mom sitting on the curb, head down, hands covering her face while the firefighters reloaded their trucks and my dad tried to figure out where the six of us and our furry friends would all sleep for the evening.
As awful as that night was, we recovered. We moved on with our lives and we even eventually stopped having nightmares about it.
It wasn't until we were back to a normal living situation that we discovered there was one thing we'd lost that was truly irreplaceable.
We learned the hard way
Some things just can't be replaced
The night of the fire, we were just thankful to get out alive, and uninjured, and as time passed we were able to replace all of our lost and damaged possessions.
Well... We were able to replace almost all of our possessions.
There was something lost that we could never replace... our family photographs.
Imagine losing your baby pictures, your parent's baby pictures, your wedding album, your high school yearbook, your son's graduation pictures, the photos from your vacation at Graceland, the images of your daughter's first step, first tooth, or first friend?
This happened to us back in the seventies, before there were PC's and digital photo keeping places like PhotoBucket.com.
Luckily we were able to scrounge up a few photos from family members we'd shared pictures with, so there's still a few embarrassing shots of me floating around, but the brunt of our images are long gone.
Photo of my 6th grade elementary school class appears courtesy of an old school chum and the magic that is Classmates.com.
I'm the dork wearing the white bib.
Keep your paper photos ready-to-go
And Ready-to-Grab
Store your precious paper family photos, and photo discs, where you'll be able to get to them quickly if you need to.
Don't keep them in the back of a cluttered closet or anyplace that isn't in line with your best escape route during an emergency.
Of course nothing is worth losing your life for, not even your childrens baby pictures, but give your photos a fighting chance. Keep them in plain sight- Just in case.
Pearhead Side Photo Album Blue
Amazon Price: $19.99 (as of 12/10/2009)
Store your digital photos online
- Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing
- Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos and videos to the world, securely and privately show content to your friends and family, or blog the photos and videos you take with a cameraphone.
- Digital Photo Printing, Free Online Photo Albums & Digital Photo Sharing - Snapfish:
- Free Online Photo Albums & Digital Photo Sharing
- Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket
- Photobucket offers image hosting, free photo sharing and video sharing. Upload your photos, host your videos, and share them with friends and family.
If you'd asked me the same question at the time of the fire.....
I would have said "My Levi's"
I cried my eyes out when I realized I'd lost my new Levi jeans (which were considered extremely HOT at the time).
Hey! I was 13-years-old. What did I know?
Levi's 550 Women's Relaxed Boot Cut Jean
Amazon Price: (as of 12/10/2009)
* cotton
* 99% cotton, 1% lycra
* 10 1/8" front rise
* 18" leg opening
* Machine washable
* Imported
How and where do you keep your family's most precious possessions?
How do you keep your family photos safe?
Share your tips for the best photo storage here.
How do you protect your family's favorite memories?
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- Gandree Gandree Jul 2, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
- I have scanned a lot of my old pictures. When my Dad died it was really hard to find a good picture with him in it. Make sure you take everyone's picture every once in a while and don't forget the person with the camera.
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- flighty02 flighty02 Jun 24, 2009 @ 3:02 am
- I don't really have many family photographs but what I do have are kept in a box in my wardrobe. I am working my way through them and scanning them but it is very time consuming,
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- JaguarJulie JaguarJulie Jun 22, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
- I've been wanting to go through all our old photographs and get them all scanned for posterity -- this would be a colossal job!
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- KimGiancaterino KimGiancaterino Jun 21, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
- We keep our photos in a huge wooden trunk that my husband's grandparents brought when they emigrated from Italy many years ago. I'm in the process of scanning and saving everything, but it will take a long time.
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- Heather426 Heather426 Jun 21, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
- Interesting idea to explore. I like the theme you chose for it.
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- clouda9 clouda9 Jun 20, 2009 @ 7:11 pm
- Besides the story of losing all your picture memories I loved that you added the bit about the Levi jeans. It just goes to show that each of us young to old do have something we treasure and it is not trivial if it meant something to you!
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- JJNW JJNW Jun 20, 2009 @ 1:13 am
- All over the place... hey, can I store some stuff at YOUR house? (I REALLY need to de-clutter)
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- LindaJM LindaJM Jun 19, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
- My best tip for photo storage is to scan them all, then store them in an external hard drive, and as email attachments in your gmail account, and on some other type of online data storage site.
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- EverythingMouse EverythingMouse Jun 19, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
- The photo albums are definitely the first thing I would save. Most are on the internet now but still some of the older ones are not. I keep all of my essential items in a box now - close at hand.
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- Susan52 Susan52 Jun 19, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
- Too many of my photos are scattered or in a closet, so they're not safe. Recent ones, the digital ones, are online so they'd be safe. A few I have in the safe deposit box. My own photo album and my husband's, the ones our parents kept for us as kids, are accessible and I hope I'd remember to grab them. Even the thought of being in a fire terrifies me and I think I'd lose my head just trying to save my pets, so obviously I should make some off-site storage arrangements for some of my old pictures. Frankly, it's not something I even like to think about, but I know that doesn't mean it couldn't happen to us.
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- CCGAL CCGAL Jun 19, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
- On my "to do" list is to finish scanning in all the photos I can find and uploading them to a storage space. Most of our photos are in a huge box ... not the greatest way to keep them, but the only way I know to make sure the photos stay close to the negatives.
Now that I take mostly digital photos, I have some stored on CD, some uploaded, and many that I'd be hard pressed to replace if my computer crashed. So I'd better make some time today to burn some more CDs. Thanks for the reminder.
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- sandyspider sandyspider Jun 19, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
- Though not a very good picture taker until my digital camera, I do have many pictures not saved on my computer or on the interest. everything else can be replaced. But photos are a piece of our life's memories.
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- MsSnow4a MsSnow4a Jun 19, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
- I dont really have much, all my photos are on the internet , safe and sound
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- Joan4 Joan4 Jun 19, 2009 @ 9:13 am
- In our senior years, we have so many of these treasures! Material junk can be replaced, but oh those sentimental treasures!
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by rms
I'm Robin. I'm an affiliate marketer and one of Squidoo.com's Giant Squid Community Organizers and the Squid Citizen, Giant Squid Mentor which means I...
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