Archeology

 No, not digging for mummies in Egypt.  Not looking for gold in Peru.  No pottery shards and arrowheads in the desert.  

I was in my sewing room closet.  This is a storage area for all my crafting, plus other stuff.  Every few years, it gets so disorganized that I have to go in and tidy it up.  That generally means pulling everything out and dusting it and putting it back again.  This time, I didn't really sort through fabric.  I've done that and have space to store what survived.  It just needed re-stacking.  

I had several boxes of memory stuff; pictures, things from high school, momentos, acknowledgements, stuff like that.  I got a little bogged down in the photos and probably spent more time there than I should have, but I was in the mood and gave myself some time to reflect.  Saturday was my Mom's birthday and while it wasn't my intent to be nostalgic, it worked out that way.  I had a medium sized moving box full of framed photos.  I have no sentimental attachment to the frames, so I pulled out all the pictures and boxed up the frames for donating.  And, I sorted pictures into large groupings.  Family, vacations, events, people.  There was an envelope of pics of old beaus that was fun.  I enjoyed laughing at myself for the lengths I was willing to go to try to make some of those relationships work.  And, of course, there were a couple I couldn't get away from fast enough.  I'm not sure if there was a camera I owned that took dark pictures or if they've darkened with age, but there were a lot of photos I couldn't tell what was going on.  Those went to the trash.  Blurry, dark, duplicates, unflattering pictures, people I didn't know, all of that went into the trash.  All the rest got grouped and boxed for me to go through again later.  There's one box of family photos, including some that are really old.  I'd like to get them labeled with the people's names while I can still remember some of them.  Some of the names I've already forgotten and others I never knew.  

I found these and wanted to post them.  These are pictures from a Christmas in the 80's.  At some point, my Mom decided she wanted to host Christmas, so instead of everyone going to my Grandmother's house like they had forever, they came to our house.  When I tell people that the men ate before the women in a very old tradition, they look at me like I'm crazy.  How sexist.  But, it was so practical.  The women got everything ready and they fed the men and the children.  They also washed all the dishes and put them away and they made some things fresh for their table so they weren't just getting leftovers.  Then, while the men visited and the kids played outside, the women had a very relaxed and peaceful lunch.  By the time I was an adult, my Dad and a couple of my uncles and me and some cousins were doing the dishes while the women ate so they could enjoy their afternoon more.    

This was the way.

And, I remember it being some of the best food I ever ate.  

Anyway, I only took out about 2/3 of what was in the closet and it covered every bit of available space in two rooms.  They looked like this.  The open spaces are where I was sitting to go through it.  It's all cleaned up now except a couple boxes that need to be moved and a couple things that I just wasn't up to dealing with that went back in the closet on the floor.  They're small things that I won't have trouble putting away later, but I wanted to sort through before I put them away.  

There were hundreds of greeting cards and I kept thinking who are these people that sent me all these cards.  I would have liked to get distracted by sorting through them, but I never would have finished if I'd tried.  The pictures were enough.  There was also a stack of letters that I'd like to go through as well and a lot of very bleak poetry that I wrote when I was young and trying to figure out what my heart felt and for whom.  Not sure I ever want to go through that and considered tossing it, but it survived, for this go-round anyway.  

I did something a little different this time.  Usually, I empty it from left to right and then put it back in an organized way.  But I end up with things at the end that have no place and get separated from the things they belong with.  This time, I emptied by category; knitting, quilting, paper, memories and went through everything in that category before putting it back in.  I ended up with similar things together, so all the knitting is in one place and all the sewing in another and all the shirt making in another.  

The closet ended up looking like this.  It's still full, but at least I can walk in and find things again.  

Couple pictures of flowers.  This is the turk's cap.  The red flowers draw hummingbirds.  There's a clump near the house and one further away.  Sometimes, I see the leaves shimmering...just a little movement and a flutter.  If I watch long enough, I'll see the little hummingbird in there trying to hit every flower.  

And, a little cinco de mayo rose.  I love that these are pink and orange and red and yellow, all at the same time even though the camera only caught the red this time.  

I've had to put the shade cloth up in half the greenhouse.  After we had trees cut, the sun is too much in there in the afternoons.  The plants that were suffering in too much sun are starting to perk up.  It makes a huge difference and there's plenty of morning sun that comes in on the other side.  

I'm interviewing today for the first time in at least 20 years.  I used to be a really good interviewer with a high success rate (people I interviewed and recommended did well and stayed long).  Over the next two weeks, I'll be helping interview 7 people for a job in my job group.  It's exciting to be part of the future of my job, even though I hope to be out of it by time these people have made names for themselves.  

Trump.  Enough said.  The emperor truly is so out of touch that he may as well be naked.

Everybody have a great week!  Find something you enjoy and make it accessible again so you can enjoy it.  Maybe smile at a nice memory.  See if you can find a way to enjoy what life has to offer.  

Lane