Ten on Tuesday: Fire! Fire!

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10 Things I'd Save in a Fire
So I probably would only check to see that my kids and wife are safely out of the house and just say "screw it" to the rest of everything in the house. Even though some things can't be replaced (one-of-a-kind photos from the 1920s, for example), they're just not worth the risk. In the spirit of the meme, however, here are the noncritical things I would try to save:

1. The old photos. My photo albums from when I was a kid.
   
2. The other old photos. These boxes are kept in a different place from the first group and are really really old photos of my wife's extended family.
3. My writing. I have several old stories I wrote on a typewriter twenty years ago that have not moved into the electronic age. Some are even worth keeping.
   
4. My wallet.
   
5. My journals. Mostly for a few entries such as my trips to Japan and Germany and England. The rest is utterly useless.
6. My anti-Alzheimer's box, which contains random things that seem utterly useless but which tend to spark memories.
7. The kids' school boxes, which contain the artwork we didn't throw out from preschool up to today.
8. Our address book.
9. Um, the cats. Maybe. Probably.
   
10. Our "important documents" box. Deed, insurance policies, savings bonds, etc. This is last because it's actually in a fire-safe box, though it might not be locked.

This is a good time to think about preparedness and to make sure that emergency kits are up to date and that you have all the important documents and phone numbers stored off site in a safe location such as a safe deposit box. Also not a bad idea to back up photos and such to an online service, particularly one whose servers are in a completely different part of the country.