Saturday

Talk about a good work ethic! The day was not wasted! Ed spent half of it plastering the walls in the farmhouse bedroom (a roof leak had done significant damage to one of them) and I pulled out used items that I had been meaning to toss or sell for a long long time. In the afternoon we painstakingly dusted off and photographed one thing after the next, listing each on Craigslist, just in case someone needs that exact ancient camera or perhaps that particular suitcase or toy or baby carrier.

There are four things you can do with all that you really don't need or use. You can stuff the items in the back of your closet, shelf or basement and forget about them. Or you can throw them away. Or you can give them to Goodwill. Or you can sell them. Too many of us fall back on the first and second. Me, I'm always tempted to fall back on carting it all to Goodwill. But Ed pushes for the last route: list and sell. I can see why. We don't get that much money for these items, but they are, in fact, matched with people who need exactly your stuff, even if there's wear and tear on it.

I suppose I ought to have some satisfaction in offloading useless stuff, but of course, we still have to wait for someone to come, inspect, reject, forget, comeback, cart any and every item away. Too, because the kids still do come to the farmhouse on a daily basis, many toys remain. The place is no haven for the minimalists at heart. That wont happen for a long long time. (No complaints there! I'll take kid clutter, so long as it comes with the grandkids!)

Otherwise, this day was so very normal. The cheepers still suffered when crossing snow drifts...






... breakfast was again very late.





And here's a wonderful little tidbit: sometime between the noon hour and my coffee break, I saw a sliver of sunshine. It did not last, but I swear it was there. And tomorrow there will be more. And that's such a good thing!

Toward evening, when all thoughts of sunshine are behind us and I'm about to reheat a dinner,  Ed, perhaps hoping that I still have some cleaning and clearing energy left, suggests that I go through the papers in my steamer trunk. We'd brought this trunk over to the farmhouse from the storage space and I promised I'd sort and chuck most everything in it.

I agree, thinking this would be easy. Letters, old letters? Discard! Papers, cards? Chuck! Save maybe one or two items, the rest? Dump them.

It is not easy. Hundreds of letters. Of notes. Marriages just starting (mine), marriages falling apart (my parents). Everyone writing everything down. Friends, forty, fifty years younger, writing to the one who went away. I can't read them. It's all too much in the past. At the same time, I can't just throw them all away. Why can't there have been email? SO easy to store, to forget even as you never have to press delete on an era in your life!

In the end, I keep a handful (well, or two or three) and throw away the remainder. Who knows, someday I may want to go back and recall what life was like back then. Now, glancing at my endless notes and notebooks from that period, I just have to shake my head.  So very young and terribly anxious about life! It sort of makes you grateful that those years are behind us.

February is off to an interesting beginning.