Holey crap do we have alot of stuff!!

One of the many side effects of moving is the discovery of exactly how much crap you've accumulated. The longer you've lived in the previous location is usually in direct correlation of the amount of said crap. I, for example, lived in my last place for 7 years and 4 months so using my formula, I should have 7 x the amount of crap I had when I lived for a year in the place before that. Sadly I don't have 7 x the crap...I have about 14x the crap! I think the discrepancy is due to the Hubbs joining me a year into the 7 years and a wedding which included the usual wondrous collection of wedding gifts.

I read somewhere that when you've been in a place along time its usual to stay comfortable and not change much in the way of your lifestyle. Moving however throws you whole life into turmoil so its much easier to make changes. I've discovered that to be true in 3-D and technicolor! We currently have 7 large boxes crowding our dining room overflowing with treasures we no longer wish to own and certainly don't want to move again. They are the soon to be garage sale items. Now this is after last year's purge of 4 truck bed loads of 'treasures' to our church thrift store. I suppose I could be embarrassed at the shear amount of stuff...but I'm not. I don't think I'm alone in this affliction of 'too muchitis'. Just a stroll around Bed Bath & Beyond and seeing what sort of do-dads are in peoples carts begs the question "where are you gonna put all that crap?" *Side note, don't actually ask people that out loud. They don't find it helpful and you'll be asked to leave the store.

Anyway, I did find a rather surprising effect of going through all my things and that was a impromptu skip down memory lane. Saturday evening I found a box that contained photos and memorabilia I had collected during my formative days, ie: kindergarten thru high school. (Spoiler alert, many of these items will be available on Facebook soon!) Photos taken with my first camera, a gray and pink Click disk, do they still make the film for those? Birthday, 1st communion and get well cards, large 8x10 photos of posed military ball and prom dates...which funny enough I had the same 2 dates for most of them! I was constantly caught between laughing at our hair and clothes and tears of the sweet memories. The Hubb's was a good sport during this 2 hour period. I'm sure he was bored at the "oh look at this one" or "here's another pic of an ex boyfriend".

So your asking yourself what's my point or better why did I read her ramblings? I think its this, go find your memories or better yet discover what your memories are. This journey is painful, fun, surprising and enlightening. My mom always tells me that I haven't changed much and am still the 3 year old who needs a nap at 3 o'clock. Usually that irritates me but now I see how right she is. Through friends I've kept in contact with for 20+ years as well as the reconnects thanks to Facebook, I see how my friends are still the same. Maybe a few hairs less and a few lbs more but the humor, the passions, the personalities are still the same and for that I say Thank you God for the people in my life!