pinned

I have a pencil case that I bought years and years ago in Portland, Oregon. It's made of denim and throughout my years as a student, it pretty much lived in my backpack. While it did, it started to collect more than just pencils. Turns out that a denim pencil case is the perfect place to display a growing collection of pins and buttons. You know the kind I'm talking about: metal pins to commemorate special occasions and cheap buttons to tell the world that "I've been there!" Each time I picked up another pin, I'd stick it to my pencil case and now, after years and years, my pencil case pretty much tells my life story. (Or a part of it anyway.)

Yesterday, as I was working on a small project, I had to pull out my trusty pencil case. Since I'm not using a backpack on a daily basis anymore, I hadn't seen it in a while, and as I looked at the pins and buttons attached to it, I pretty much did the 30 second whirlwind blast from my past. I had such a good time reminiscing, I thought it might be fun to let you guys join in that whirlwind blast from my past. So here's my pencil case, and here's The Story of Lindsay, As Told By Her Pin Collection.



1. BYU-Idaho Alumnus pin: I graduated from high school in 2000 and needed to get away from Provo for a while. So I applied to Ricks College. Three semesters and one transition to a four-year university later, I graduated from BYU-Idaho. And to commemorate that fact, they gave me a pin.

2. Piano Recital pin: I started taking piano lessons when I was 7 or 8, and continued until I finished the Alfred Basic course during my junior or senior year of high school. I was never very good at practicing my lessons, and consequently I'm not that stellar of a player. But I did participate in a recital twice a year which, generally speaking, I performed very well at. And because I did, my teacher gave me a pin.

3. American Flag pin: I don't remember where I got this pin. But I am patriotic. So, um, there you go.

4. 11 Sept 2001 United We Stand pin: NuSkin produced this pin for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. My dad worked a second job as late-night security at NuSkin during one of the several particularly difficult times my family went through while I was growing up. It wasn't a fabulous job, but it paid the bills, and allowed us to survive while he was both laid off and working at a small start-up company that didn't yet have the liquid funds to pay their employees. It was a rough time for all of us, but I think especially for him. This pin, which NuSkin gave to him, commemorates the tragedy of September 11th and the heroes who did their part to pick up the pieces of that mess. It's kind of a hero pin. And it's fitting, I think, that my dad was given it because he was our family's hero, making sure that we were taken care of.

5. Brigham Young University Olympic pin: In January 2002, after graduating from Ricks, I transfered to BYU. Just in time to be in Utah for the Olympics. And just in time to witness one of the few times in BYU history when students got a whole week of classes off in the middle of a semester in order to volunteer in various Olympic capacities. I didn't volunteer, but I bought myself a pin at the Bookstore to commemorate the fact that I was at BYU during the 2002 Winter Olympics. Which was pretty cool.

6. Young Women pin: I received this pin sometime between the ages of 12 and 18 when I was working my way through the Church's Young Women's program. And I'll have you know that I did indeed earn my Young Women medallion, which is currently hanging proudly in a shadow box on my mother's livingroom wall near her son's Eagle Scout pins.

7. National Honor Society pin: During my senior year of high school, I had good enough grades to be in the National Honor Society. Alongside friends who cared about school as much as I did, we organized and carried out various service projects that touched me in ways I will never forget.

8. Volunteer Candy-Striper pin: From 1996-1998 I volunteered at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. Girls my age weren't actually allowed to handle things like sharp surgical instruments, so they put us to work in the snack bar. And that was fine. For two years I served hamburgers and milk shakes to the tired, grieving family members of patients, and occasionally (when the "pink ladies" were backed up) I got to deliver flowers upstairs.

9. Ball State University pin: For two years, while Blake was earning his master's degree at Ball State, I also spent the better part of my week on that campus. I worked in the Center for Economic and Community Development helping to maintain the Building Better Communities program. It was a good job, and I made some fabulous friends while I was there.

10. Home Depot pins: During the two summers after my freshman and sophomore years in college, I worked at Home Depot, first in the garden department and then as a cashier. Alongside my kindred spirit, Emily, I worked muscles I didn't even know I had lifting peat moss and paving bricks into truck beds, getting scratches in places I didn't think it I could as I set out and watered the roses, and teaching customers how to install a pond in their yards. Home Depot instills a lot of rah-rah in its employees, and they were forever handing out pins to us. These are two that I got.

11. PHS Pride pins: At Provo High School, if you made the honor roll (or were an "honor dawg," if you will), you got to pick something out of their "free stuff" collection. Things like t-shirts, water bottles, and these pins. Obviously I picked the pins twice.

12. Hard Rock Cafe pin: Okay, so this has nothing to do with my life. I've never actually been to Hard Rock Cafe. But maybe someday I will. And when that day comes, I will have the pin ready to document it.

13. Happy 100th Birthday Dr. Seuss! pin: On March 2, 2004, the world (or perhaps just the country) celebrated Dr. Seuss's 100th birthday by reading his books. I read some of his books that day, and have the pin to prove it. This pin actually kind of reminds me more of the day that he died, September 24, 1991. I was in 4th grade, and I remember feeling really sad as the principal read Yertle the Turtle over the PA system. He was quite the man, Dr. Seuss.

14. I Love Reading pin: I can't remember for sure, but I'm almost positive I picked this button up when I worked in the book department at Media Play. Ah, the days of working at Media Play! I swear, that was one of my favorite jobs. I mean, all day I got to live among books and recommend favorites to customers. It was heaven.

15. Lambert's Cafe Certified Roll Catcher pin: During the summer of 2002, I visited my roommate Julie at her home in Mississippi. While I was there, she took me and our friend, Beth (who flew to MS with me), to Gulf Shores, Alabama, which is just up the road from Foley, AL, which is where Lambert's Cafe is. If you're ever in the neighborhood, you should check this place out. Seriously. They cram you into a cafeteria-style room, serve you deep-fried Southern food, and chuck rolls at you from across the room. If you want one, you hold up your hand to catch it and hope for the best. Sitting there, you always run the risk of getting beaned in the head with a hot roll, and there are rolls littering the floors. It's quite the experience. Anyhow, I caught my rolls, and have the pin to prove it.

And there you have it: my life story as told by my pencil case.