I Took Time Out of My Day For This?

If I do nothing else today, I must take the three big boxes of stuff to donate to the vets today. Two are sitting by the basement door, getting in the way every time we go somewhere. The other is taking up a great deal of space in what might one day be a play area for the kids. Ironically, that box is full of toys the kids have long forgotten, at least until they see the box and try to dig through it and tell me how much they love this or that. Yeah, that's why I found it in the yard, under the furniture, on the floor, or broken/dirty. Their rooms are still bursting with toys even after giving away several boxes worth. They aren't getting these ones back. Neither child has asked for anything in those boxes unless looking right at the thing. They won't miss the stuff.

I am being just as brutal on myself. Most of the stuff I don't need gets thrown away though. I don't know how one person can keep so much junk, but I did find that it must be genetic. While visiting my grandma in Nebraska, we went upstairs to find a hair dryer she was giving to me. The woman has many wonderful things, but she also keeps a lot of useless junk. We dug and sifted through countless empty boxes, old Avon catalogues (she used to sell), and millions of sample items. I can only imagine how long it might have taken had she not known where the dryer was stored. It's an awful lot of fun looking through some of the old stuff she has, but I couldn't help but sigh every time I heard the words "this one's empty too." Every time she would close the box again and put it away right where it had been. Now, if those boxes were for something that was collectible, which some of them were, I can understand. But I know many were for items long ago used and gone. The packrat gene seems to weaken with each generation; my mom isn't quite as bad as her mom, and I'm not quite as bad as either of them; but it's still there. My mom was lucky enough to get the organization gene along with the packrat gene, so she's got a leg-up on me there. At least her useless junk is stored well.

The other thing I really want to do today is get our network set up again, so I can transfer all the pictures from my trip over to the main computer. The only other option right now is doing it with floppy disks, and I'm not much in the mood to do it three pictures at a time. I keep wanting to write about some of the things we did and places we visited, but the pieces wouldn't be complete without the pictures, in particular my stuffed animal nightmare. That's a job for this evening when my computer expert is home to help.

I have to run today with my partner before I do that. It's hot and muggy out, so it's not going to be much fun today. I've been slacking though, so I can't skip. In fact, I just talked with my teammate for the race, and he sent the registration in. I'm committed now. I'll be giving him a check for $80 on Wednesday. That makes me more nervous than ever. I hope I can be halfway decent on my bike by then.

It's getting late, and I have been trying to write this all day long. At least I'm getting things done in between, but I haven't been to the donation center yet, and 6:30 is closing in fast.