The Pay Off

There is a pay off when you do a job that you've been putting off.  Not only do you get rid of the guilt that's been nagging at you (LOL) but you have the satisfaction of knowing you have a tidy room, you won't have to do it again for a long time, and in the process you've found some wonderful memories.

The last part of my clean up project was to go through boxes and envelopes of old pictures. I wanted to sort them by category and throw out duplicates, blurry pictures, and those that I knew would never make it into an album.  I used to feel so guilty about throwing a picture away -- no matter what its quality.  Now, I keep the good ones and toss the rest.  I'm much better about writing dates and information on the back too.  I could kick myself for not being better about this after going through the old pictures last night.  There were many Christmas pictures that I can't identify which year they were taken.  I'm just going to have to guess. 

It was kind of sad to me that I have a huge stack of pictures of Megan, a medium stack of pictures of Nathan and just a small stack of pictures of Andrew.  I am going to have to do a better job of taking my camera when I visit.  I would never want the boys to know that their picture piles are so small compared to Megan's.   It's not because she's older, either.  I have stacks of baby pictures of her and much less of the boys.  I'm also going to talk to Shannon and ask her to check her photos and pass any extras of the boys my way so I can even things out a bit.  With this new baby coming, I'm glad I did this now so I can be more aware and make sure I get a good amount of pictures of HER (LOL).  I'm not announcing anything.  Just wishful thinking.

I had to laugh this morning.  Just when I think I'm finished upstairs, I'm doing some work for Dennis this morning and I hear a loud crash from the sewing room.  Kasey and I rush up stairs to see that the top shelf of the closet has come away from the wall on one side and the contents of that shelf has dumped all over the floor.  Of course, that's where the kids' toys are stored so I had Lincoln Logs, puzzles (still in the boxes, thank goodness), little Matchbox cars, Cabbage Patch dolls, and other toys scattered all over.  I took all the clothes that were hanging on the bottom of that shelf off first because that's why it pulled away from the wall.  I had hung heavy clothing on one end of the rack and it was just too much for the bracket to hold.  Next, I picked up all the toys and sorted them into piles.  Anything plastic went downstairs and into the kitchen for a bath.  The rest stayed upstairs to be put away after Dennis gets the shelf fixed tonight or tomorrow.  I think I heard the Cabbage Patch dolls giggling and whispering, "Thank goodness we don't get a bath."

More soon.                                ô..ô