Just Keep Swimming

In excited anticipation of a visit by our son this weekend, and we hope our daughter-in-law who unfortunately had to have a wisdom tooth pulled yesterday, plus the fabulous granddog, we went to the mattress store and after much lying on different possibilities, ended up buying the same as we have in our bedroom. Could have done that online.

It was delivered Tuesday, and I have been working on the guest room ever since, trying to corral the stuff in there. I searched my brain for a better word than stuff, but that's what it is, just stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff that I can't seem to let go of without touching each dang piece and reflecting. Good grief. And that's what I seem to be feeling today. Grief. Loss of my former life. Loss of my youth. Loss of my children's youth.

In the abstract, it seems to easy. Just keep what we want and pitch the rest. Here's the reality: I found two little blue plastic boxes that originally held baby wipes. My youngest is 25, so I've had these boxes for years. One has jars of glitter, the other held fabric paint before I discovered all of it was dried up and threw it away. I put the glitter in the plastic drawer set where I'm storing craft supplies. Now I have 2 old boxes that, frankly, annoyed me when I used them because it was impossible to figure which side opened to the point I wrote "front" in magic marker on the side that opened.

Spare Hardware For Bed 

Straight to recycling? No, first I had to wash them and consider what I could store in them now. While they dried, I continued putting away stuff in the guest bedroom. I came across the extra hardware for the bed. Really considerate of the company to include these screws and washers. Grant suggested we pitch them and buy any at the hardware store if we ever needed any. Pitch? Keep? Pitch? Keep?

My father had jars of nails, screws, washers, etc. in the utility room. If you needed something for a project, you went to the utility room and found what you needed. I don't know how these got to their respective jars. Surely someone had to buy some sometime. But I never did. When I had my house, I saved extra parts that were left over from jobs. Eventually I had such a good collection, I could just go to the garage and look through the jars for whatever I needed, or something close enough.

The habit dies hard. Unbeknownst to Grant, I have a jar started here are the apartment. I'd put the extra bed hardware in it, but it is cleverly packaged and wouldn't fit. Maybe I'll tape it to the back of the bed, ready for the next move.

After contemplating the two little blue boxes a little more, I've come to my senses and let them go. They are just stuff.