inventory

First of all, April - where's a picture of the headboard? The nightstand looks great!

Mindy - yes, rearranging and organizing your spice rack is a worthy post. Very creative of you to use a cereal box and scrapbook paper! Even more creative than using scrap wood and a power saw, if you ask me.

And speaking of organization, I've been having some related entertainment at this end of the pipeline. When my parents came to Mississippi for Jenna's baby blessing, they brought all of my stuff that had been sitting in their storage room for the past 7 years. (For the first time in 6 years of marriage, all of our stuff is in our own house instead of scattered about the country in various storage rooms.) I thought it was mostly books, and it was ... if you count 4 large boxes of just scrapbooks and photo albums. There were a bunch of knick-knacks like my travel souvenirs (my boomerang from Australia, for example) and a number of things that I'd forgotten about, as well as my collection of picture frames and carousel horses. I need more shelves before I can even unpack a lot of it, so I'm back to boxes stashed in corners. *sigh* I hate having our bedroom as a landfill, but most things have to get stashed there so Summer and Marnie stay out of it.

I also had:

~ a 2-inch binder full of just wedding announcements. That's it. I don't even remember a lot of these people. I'll pull out a few of them, like if I introduced the couple and/or was in the wedding. But the rest are getting dumped.
~3 or 4 t-shirts with signatures all over them. Again, don't remember anyone specific. Those will be painting shirts for Summer and Marnie now, until they're completely thrashed and then they'll get tossed.
~ beat-up ribbons and silk flowers from corsages from ... somebody's weddings. And maybe senior prom? I think? Gone. I have pictures.
~ the little black velvet boxes that Adam's and my wedding rings came in. Really?

What on earth was I thinking with saving some of this stuff? At least I didn't still have a 6-inch stack of newspaper clippings of the 1991-92 Portland Trail Blazers. I did find that in my stash when I got home from my mission. I went through it, remembered games that Eric and I spent screaming at the TV, laughed, and threw it all away.

Moral of the story - I'm still a packrat but I'm definitely learning to purge.