Boxes of Memories

As some of you know, I spent a couple days last week at my parents’ house cleaning out my old room. Don’t ask me why I still hadn’t done it. I knew that once Elinore is born, the chances of getting through all of it will get much slimmer. My sister now has a full-time job in Naperville, so she wanted to be able to use my room as an office, and my mom has moved her sewing machine in there and needs a bit more space.

It is always so strange finding old things - the rush of memories, the silly notes, the old sports mementoes. I was amazed at some of the things I had saved. A napkin from the restaurant I went to on a date, a particularly good fortune from a fortune cookie, dried corsages from numerous dances. It seems so silly, and yet I can remember thinking those things were so important.

There’s a high school girl I know right now whose two year relationship has just ended. Needless to say she’s really upset, and struggling to deal with it. She speaks as though it is the end of her world and her entire future life has been thrown into the unknown, and for her it has. I remember feeling like that…whether it was the cute boy I passed in the hallway, the next gymnastics meet, or the next test looming over me. It always felt like my entire fate rested on each of those things, and now it all seems so silly. Why didn’t someone tell me that I was being so dramatic?? Of course, maybe someone did, and I just couldn’t hear them…or laugh at myself. And when did it all fizzle? I’m sure there are still things that hit me today with the full force of the world, but they are much fewer and farther between. And of course, Kevin won’t hesitate to make me laugh at my ridiculousness.

In other news, Labor Day weekend was great. The weather couldn’t have been better! Kevin and I worked hard, and have finally finished (aside from having the floor carpeted) the spare bedroom that has taken us all summer. We used a yellow we had left-over from our room, and since neither of us are real fans of yellow (as in painted rooms), we had intended to sponge paint another shade of yellow overtop for a bit of “spice”. Once the room was entirely painted, Kevin and I were amazed at how much we really like the color. It is so warm and rich! We were hesitant to sponge, but decided to try a small section of wall anyway. Well, today I painted over what we had sponged because we just decided we like the plain golden yellow much more!

So, sometime this week we’ll start Elinore’s room! The good thing is that we have lots of motivation to finish this one!

Love to you all, and glad to see that everyone is posting!!