Cleanup

A houseful of stuff was reduced to seven boxes to be saved--boxes of photos and other memorabilia that my parents had collected over their lifetimes. They fell into my hands late last August after my brother gleaned them from my father's house.

I stacked them in my bedroom, promising to get to them when we returned from vacation. Then morning sickness visited with its companion, fatigue, and so the boxes remained in several stacks, out in the open so that I wouldn't forget about them.

Today was the day. I opened each box and found photos, yearbooks, greeting cards, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, postcards, letters and books.

I removed photos from their frames, and freed others from their "magnetic" albums. Most everything else got tossed or donated. Now I have stacks upon stacks of photos that someday I expect to sort through and scan...someday when I have 4,582 hours to spare.

Seven boxes became two. These will get packed away until some far away day after the baby arrives; after we've settled into a new house.

It was bittersweet to see beloved people from my past--people I won't see again in this lifetime.