Two steps forward, and one step back. That about summarizes each day. Last week I got all the odds and ends off the kitchen island. It felt great to finally have that space exactly as I wanted it. Then, we got a couch, and rearranged the living room. Odds and ends that had been placed on a table that was no longer in the living room, suddenly found themselves on the kitchen island. And so it goes. Each day, I focus on one room and get stuff just the way I want it. But another room is holding the leftovers. When I work on that room, where do the odds and ends go? On the island. It seems like a never ending process.
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| By Noon Each Day |
We are hitting the final stretch.
Truthfully, I can't complain about how it is going. We are making progress. In fact, I think we are almost there! But then I look at the kitchen island and I think, "two steps
forward and
one step
back!"
In the beginning, unpacking is rather daunting, but moves fairly smoothly. 200+ boxes are stacked throughout the house, waiting, intimidating me, challenging me to pick one! I start in the kitchen. Most of the stuff I unpack finds a home. A few things are relegated to "the pile". "The Pile" holds stuff I'm not sure of. Will it find a home, or will it be set aside for a yard sale?
Two weeks later, my reality is different.
"The Pile" would like to have a room all to itself. It is no longer a few boxes, but many boxes. Half of it is definite yard sale stuff. The other half is hoping I will find a home for it. An old friend called my stuff "chotzkes". Larry calls it.... no, we won't go there. But even I admit most of my stuff is trinkets connected with memories.
I am not in this alone, though! Oh no. Larry has his share of stuff. He just has an oversized two-car garage to pack it into, while I have a loft the size of a postage stamp with a small closet.
Then there is OUR closet. That's a whole other story. We've gone from
two walk-in closets to one. It's a bit bigger than the ones we each had, but it's not as big as our two. And it is full. One thing we have in common is our collection of shirts. We both collect shirts.
Larry's collection is shirts he can wear to work. He has enough starched shirts hanging in clear, plastic laundry bags, to last him a month. I'm not exaggerating. It was not unusual for him to have two weeks worth of shirts at the cleaners and another two weeks worth packed in a suitcase as he traveled. And his closet was never empty!
On the other hand, I was an elementary school teacher. My collection is T-shirts. I have shirts from all 4 schools I worked at, in several colors, and many with my name on them. Then there are all the 'event' shirts I would want for school activities: Every season, holiday, Patriotic, even theme shirts for social studies units like Native Americans. Don't forget the shirts I need for the Corvette Club, or Nascar Race. And of course my Buccaneer and Steeler shirts. I can't possibly give up my Mike Alstott or Ronde Barber jersey!
Yes, we are both guilty.
And then there are the photos.
Ah yes. The photos. First of all, my dad was an amateur photographer who developed all of his own pictures. While I never learned how to do that from him, I did learn to take a lot of pictures. When he passed on, my sisters and I divided up all of his photo albums, which of course I still have, along with all of my own photos.
Most of all, I learned to love photographs in my house. There are boxes of framed photographs all waiting for a new place to perch. It's not going to happen. And so the hard process begins.
Organizing specialists say the first task is to separate trash from treasure. Granted, in these boxes of photos from over 70 years ago, there is plenty of trash. But there are a lot of treasures in there too. Do I hear Snapfish calling?
Some organizers recommend taking a picture of the object that holds the memory and then giving the object away. As I look at the boxes and bins of pictures I have stacked against the wall, that sounds like it's own type of oxymoron. And I think I'd be a moron to do it!
All of this is just a way of saying that when my kids show up
this week (YIKES!) they will find one side of our wrap around porch lined with boxes of stuff for them to grab before it goes the way of all things once desired but no longer needed. And that will be one giant step forward for this person who believes that while history lives in the object, not just in the photo of the memory, sometimes history has to take its natural place in the world. That is, it
is history! So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!
And the never ending process? I think we ended it! We are UNPACKED!!! In just 23 days!
(Hmm, I wonder if that is a record? It is for me. If Guinness had been here they could have either documented it or at least handed me a cold Guinness as a reward. I think we'll go get a couple and toast ourselves! We did it!)
