Treasure

The boys have been spending 15 minutes a couple times a week this summer working in their rooms. They make a 'give away' pile, a 'put away' pile and a 'throw away' pile - and then move those items where they go - trash, Goodwill bin or put away. Little by little, their rooms are shaping up. Floors are visible. Desks and bookshelves are looking slightly tidier. We have culled a lot of stuff out of those rooms the past few weeks. When I pass by their rooms on my way to that side of the house, I sort of do a double take walking by 'cuz they are becoming the rooms of 'young men', not kids. The full size beds with their 'grown up' bed sets - beige and blacks with stripes. Pretty 'manly'. Still can't get used to it. The 15 minute 'limit' is critical - it's enough time to make some progress but not too much time that they end up discouraged and give up.

J. and I have been also doing this in various rooms in the house. Have 'found' things that are memory filled - treasures that I didn't realize I was missing. This morning, I found a card J. made me for Mother's Day awhile back - it said 'to my woman, my woman, my wife' on the cover. And then it said 'oh sure, if Dan Fogelberg had said it, you'd be in tears'. Still makes me laugh - it's just so 'J'.

I also found a lot of pics of the kids in their younger years....when we first moved here. Found a picture on the front page of the Tracy Press from November, 2002 - we'd lived here 10 months and B. was already considered an 'advance' chess player and was shown at school helping other kids learn how to play chess. Moved it into the 'memory boxes' in my closet.

Of course, we've also found a fair amount of 'miscellaneous stuff' and we should (in theory) have a huge garage sale and try to recover some of our costs. What will most likely happen is it will all sit in the garage for a few months until one day, we get incredibly fed up and haul it all to various charities. Garage sales are good in theory but execution is a tad more challenging for us. But we're going to try. Hopefully.