What's the Buzz?

Ok, you have all heard me talk about my never-ending “company” and how great it is to open your home to visitors; well, maybe I talk too much. I recently welcomed my adult daughter home, along with her significant other, as they just moved back east from California. We are overwhelmed with joy to have her back, after she had been away for several years. Hmmm, but when two adults leave an apartment they are bound to have some “baggage”, and not just the psychological kind. I’m talking STUFF. Here we are trying to reduce what we bring in to our house and pare down all the “stuff” we have accumulated over the years. It’s unbelievable how much a family can acquire.

Lucky me, we’re having new siding put on our house and so I get to take advantage of the big dumpster in our driveway. Everyday I fill it with lots of stuff. I guess I’m getting a little paranoid because I watched that new show on TV called “Hoarders” – man, those people can’t throw anything out. So I’m all about getting rid of anything not tied down! As we are cleaning out our basement it is amazing the things you find in boxes, that you put away so long ago, and you thought for sure you couldn’t live without it. Why on earth did we save so many grammar school papers of my kids? Why would I want all their spelling tests, math homework and history papers, etc? I decided to keep only the ones with perfect scores (ok, so I didn’t keep many). It was fun to read some notes that my daughter doodled on the side of her notebooks. “I have a crush on, can’t name him”. The best - she often wrote “my little brother is a pest”. I’m happy to report that they are very close now and terrific friends, so I’m going to toss those notes.

Once you get on a roll it can be very time consuming because you start looking at everything and then remembering what I used this for, or where we were when we flew those kites. Time has gone by so fast. All these memories come flooding back. But don’t get me wrong, I actually can toss things out in a blink of an eye. My husband, on the other hand, wants to look at everything and insists on keeping boxes and boxes of all those electronic cables, because he may need them one day. Of course I say sure honey and then, whoops, out go the cables. Yesterday I got told to back off from the clean-up, as I was going too fast and throwing too much out. Well, that’s one way of getting out of a chore!