Sifting through Memories

As part of project Get Rid of the Clutter, I cleaned out the shed this weekend. I had forgotten how many playthings were in there from the girls' younger days: sand toys from the boat shaped sand box, the Barbie® jeep they and their friends drove around the cul-de-sac while playing tunes on a battery operated radio, a myriad of water guns that no longer work, and tiny bicycles that have long since been outgrown. So many memories and so many treasures.

I was able to part with most things, but couldn't quite let go of these:

The twin shovels the girls used to help Paddy clear the snow. That usually lasted five minutes before they wanted to come in for hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of the fireplace.

The bird house the Lil' Diva made on a school field trip and the training wheels off her bicycle when she finally felt brave enough to ride on her own.

As I tucked away the remaining gardening tools in a cleaner shed, those memories brought a tear to my eye. Those days will never come again. But with God's grace, new adventures and fond memories are in the making. 

Mailbox Monday - January 29

Mailbox Monday is a meme started by Marcia of To Be Continued. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It now has a permanent home at the Mailbox Monday blog.

Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists.

Welcome to the last Monday in January. This month was a time of setting goals and business plans, achieving a goal, and making decisions. As I mentioned yesterday, we are in the process of clearing things out around here so we can move my mother-in-law in with us. So, there are a lot of good things going on right now.

I only found one book in my mailbox last week--actually 25 copies of the same book.

Amos is targeted by the town bully because he is so small. When word reaches Amos of his friend David’s battle with Goliath, he thinks back to what David told him about putting his faith in God’s protection. Perhaps the same God can help Amos face his bully, too.

I'm excited to say that all of these books are already sold, so I'll be ordering another batch soon. If you're interested in reviewing this one, please contact me at ccmal(at)charter(dot)net. I have a PDF available now or you can wait for the second batch of printed ones to arrive.

Thanks. I hope you have a blessed week.

Project De-Clutter Begins

Most of us have it. You know what it looks like. Somewhere in the house there is a closet or a cabinet or a drawer that is filled with all the stuff you don't feel like dealing with or think you might use one day. For some us, many of the closets, cabinets and drawers in the house are filled with things like that. For us, it's even our basement.

This year Project De-Clutter is my focus. While it is not on this year's goals list, it should be. By next quarter I'll add it. We are moving my mother-in-law in with us, so things need to get donated or tossed out. I'm in the process of moving my office downstairs. Maybe I had a premonition that this was going to happen when I began packing up my books last year and labeling all the boxes by genre.

Just like any big project, Project De-Clutter will be broken down into many steps. Today, the Lil' Diva and I started throwing trash and broken toys away in the bonus room above the garage. Then later on, I figured I needed to whack back my cooking magazine collection.

In that pile on the bottom left is years worth of various cooking magazines. I can count on one hand the number of times I've opened one of them for a recipe. Tonight, I went through every one and pulled out the few recipes I might actually make, so that I can scan them onto my PC later. Then I recycled the rest of each magazine. Here's what I ended up with...

Room for actual cookbooks. Wow! How did that happen.

This cabinet is still a work in progress. I'll go through all the cookbooks to see if there are any I can donate. Most of them are in a set, so probably not. After that, I'll go through the rest of the items in the cabinet and see if I can't trim it back some more. 

Next week's goal for the bonus room is to get most of the floor picked up. Not sure if I can do it with my work schedule, but I'll give it a shot. 

Are you tackling any large home projects right now? How are they going?