Cluttered

I have been feeling overwhelmed by the clutter in my house. It is a constant battle. The basement is a disaster. I have been reading this book on cleaning up clutter...written by one of the guys on Clean Sweep on TLC. I read it right before bed and it affected my dreams. All night long, I cleaned and organized my basement. Not the best way to spend my sleep time.

It is really interesting though. The book has some of the reasons we keep things around and some of them really resonate with me.

First, "I might need it some day." I come by this one honestly. My dad always keeps stuff he might need on hand. Like if I went to him and said, "Do you have some cardboard, baling twine, and fertilizer?" he would have everything I needed to make some MacGuyveresque contraption. So, I keep boxes on hand (so if I have to ship something at Xmas, I will have a box), but then I realized one day that I had WAY too many boxes. Or if one of the kids' coloring books comes with crayons, I add those crayons to our already large stockpile of crayons. Because you can never have too many crayons? And being unprepared is one of my worst nightmares.

Also, "But it is worth a lot of money." This is another big one for me. We keep things around because we paid money for them and it seems a shame to waste that money. This applies to so many things in our basement. But mainly, childrens' clothes... Sitting on a goldmine of childrens' clothes. Good stuff, too. It is so hard for me to think about just throwing away piles of money. But things are only worth what people want to give you for them. I have tried a couple of things with the clothes. Consignment shops, but oh man do they make me mad. Another rant for another day. Ebay...I ended up paying more for the shipping than I made on the sale. I have given them to friends.

Then there is the emotional attachment to things. This is probably my biggest crutch...for the things that may seem the most worthless. I read tons of journal-based novels as a young girl, and fancied that someone would someday want to publish my journals. So I wrote journals after journals for years. I kept boxes of notes passed during middle school. The further the distance from that time period, the more obvious it is that rollerblade box in my closet is full of paper...not memories. There was a time when I thought those were the best days of my life and I wanted to hold on to them forever. And they were fun times...and maybe I am afraid that if I throw that box away those funny times that made me laugh until I cried will just cease to exist. Already, Aimee or Jamie (my BFFs from grade/middle/high school) will remind me of something and I won't have any recollection of that moment. And how could that happen to me?! I have the best memory... And all those ratty pieces of paper that are folded into special shapes are my back up hard drive of those days. But who I am kidding?! No one will ever even consider my box full of paper as memories when I die. Delilah and Evan will open it up and see piles of paper so old the pencil and pen writing can't even be read on it and see it for what it is...trash. And quite honestly, I would die if they ever read my journals...so it would be good if I was already dead...because that would be awful. (note to self: research ways to shred entire journals.)

These are the things swirling through my head last night as I tried to sleep. I want a way to clean up some of that clutter for we have space for this life. I am also wanting to help Evan to learn some good habits when it comes to limiting yourself and getting rid of things we don't need. We haven't done a good job so far... you can tell by the bins overflowing with trains ("But they are worth a lot of money!") and books. And I have hard time making him get rid of something that he used to love so much....but maybe we can learn together.

Just for you, Jen ;)

This morning, I took the kids to school, and we were jamming to Lady Gaga's Born This Way. The hook goes: "I'm beautiful in my way, Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way"

Evan pipes up from the back seat, "God makes no mistakes?"

I said, "That's right. The song means that no matter what color you are, or what you look like, you are perfect in your own way because God made you that way." I was sort of impressed with myself, being able to impart my child with such wonderful wisdom.

"Yeah, God made my Batman game, too."

*sigh*

Heh.

Tonight, Evan was tormenting his sister as usual.

I told him, "God doesn't like for you to push your sister."

He says, "God doesn't even know me."

Two Whole Years

Well, my girl is now two years old. She had her birthday yesterday. She enjoyed getting toys and was so excited. Today at her two year appointment she measured in at 33.5 inches and 23 lbs. So she is still a little one, but getting bigger. She entertained the doctor by cleaning the office with a wipe.

Then and Now

Lest you think she doesn't understand

After the second report of "aggressiveness" at daycare in as many days, I was trying to figure out how to talk to an almost two-year-old about it. While I was getting her ready for bed, I said, "Who are your friends at school?" She named some of the kids in her class. Then I said, "You have to be nice to your friends." And she said, "Kick!" and made a kicking motion with her foot. Mm hmm.

In addition to my dear girl, we also heard the unintentional comedic stylings of Evan tonight. While he was setting the table, he said, "Delilah, are you ready to get forked?" We spend a lot of time laughing (at) with them.

Also...Maukie the virtual cat.

I was looking for widgets...and I found Maukie. Sort of bizarre and great. We had a cat named Maki (probably pronounced the same as "Maukie") and he was black and white just like this cat. So he stays for a little bit. :)

Sorry. So Sorry

Yeah, so...um, blogging has really fallen by the wayside. It has been 6 months since I blogged. Many reasons for it. There were some personal things going on that I couldn't make public...and since almost everything in my life is public I couldn't say anything. LOL.

Also, work has been INSANE. Insane. insane. There was a report issued recently that has gotten big attention. Our section was a part of the huge report, but it has gotten much attention. And will continue to. We are just trying to stay on top of all the changes. Plus, I write so much at work, that it is hard for me to write anymore than I already do. But I really do like to blog. I like to read back at what I wrote...it is like reading a really funny friend ;)

Another reason is facebook. Blame it on the 'book. I feel like most people keep up with me pretty well there. Do you really want more stories of my boring little life?

James and I have been doing well. We have a lot of fun together on the weekends. We try to get the kids out to do fun stuff. Like Delilah's first movie last weekend. She made it through the first hour of Rango. Then she and I left James and Evan to finish it up.

Sunday, we went with our good friends to the Melting Pot. Double date with no babies. It was tons of fun and made me wish our vacation with them were coming sooner (Disney Cruise 2013!).

The kids are doing great! Delilah will be 2 Thursday. TWO years old. I cannot believe this. She has tons of sass and talks my ear off. Evan will be 5 at the end of the month. This I also have trouble believing. He loves playing his Lego Batman game. That is pretty much all he talks about right now. A gamer at age 5. Don't know where he would have picked that up. ;)

Pictures to make up for my absence.