Our move to Mexico – and the fact that we’re only taking what our van will carry – finally got me off my duff to handle a project that should have been done long ago.

At long last some old treasured family VHS tapes have been transferred to DVD. It will be fun to watch them again when we are settled in Mazatlan.

My dad being interviewed about food on the radio on Thanksgiving in the 1970’s is a treasure I enjoy listening to every so often.

But the thing I am really glad I did was have the tapes my grandmother recorded in the 1960’s transferred from cassette to CD. My aunt discovered the tapes long ago – old reel to reel ones – and had them transferred to cassette, which was the latest and greatest at the time.

The reason these tapes (now CD) are so significant to me is that they are my grandmother reminiscing about her childhood in Armenia from about 1908. She would never talk to us about those times, and we were all surprised and happy that she had given us that gift.

On the tapes she tells all kinds of charming memories of her parents and their large estate…but also of the terrible atrocities she and her family sufferred during the Armenian holocaust.

The picture above is after it all…my grandmother had found her cousin in Istanbul and this picture was taken as he was getting ready to leave for America. The outfit she is wearing was bought for her by her grandfather, the only other family member she had reconnected with at that time. (The picture is a scan of a color copy of the original…)

She ended up in France, and a set-up between her rooming-house owner and the owner of my future grandfather’s in New York resulted in marriage – and made her the dynamic, strong, matriarch of my family.

Photo Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times

Today marks a couple of milestones….Paul has only three more weeks of work, and it was the opening of the new Tacoma Narrows bridge.

Sunday was a festive day where more than 60,000 people walked and ran across the bridge to mark the occasion. Today when Paul crossed the new bridge he had his easiest commute in almost seven years. Too bad it didn’t open sooner so he could reap the benefit for more than three weeks.

The new bridge is for eastbound traffic – from the West side of Puget Sound, where we live – to Tacoma. The old bridge (which replaced a suspension bridge nicknamed Galloping Gertie for the dramatic way it broke apart shortly after being built in 1940) is for westbound traffic now.

I haven’t crossed the new bridge yet – but I think the most exciting crossing for us will be when the car is packed and we are on our way to Mexico!

If you’d like to see video clips of the collapse of Galloping Gertie, here is the link: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bridge/meetsusp.html)

My latest project is going through a number of boxes of pictures and memorabilia and scanning them so they can be with us in Mexico.

I am actually really excited about this project since my untidy boxes of yellowing paper and jumbled pictures will now be organized and easy to access. (Don’t worry, they will be backed up on Paul’s computer and also our backup hard drive.)

Once the item is scanned, I am putting it into a box for whichever family member or friend might possibly want the original.

I’ve discovered a few things….I spent way too much of my life overweight and/or with a bad haircut…..and I have been somewhat of a packrat – saving things that should have been tossed long ago.