On track or not on track? That is the question....

I feel like I am falling behind, that I am definitely off the pace I set at the beginning of a box, a bag, a shelf, or a pile a day. But things keep happening that give me new resolve. I won't go into details. Suffice it to say that yesterday one of the people who has been instrumental in my decision to get out of Dodge contributed more fuel to the fire.

Actually, I can't decide if I am doing too much or too little. Maybe I can't keep this up-to-date because I'm doing so much other stuff to help get us out of Dodge. Maybe.

Anyway, last week, the Sports Nut and I went to the dreaded Storage Locker and removed a bunch of boxes:

Most of that particular pile of boxes was either books I wanted to pass along to a homeschooling family I know OR papers left from my years of working with the youth group. I felt that I should go through all these papers and file some in the youth lounge and toss the rest. As I said, that is how I felt. Right now, I'm inclined to recycle the whole batch.

Also these boxes:

These boxes were also from my years with the youth group. Paper, envelopes, office and crafts supplies, and so on. Since I paid for all of that out of my family's budget, I decided to cart it all home instead of leaving it behind. I haven't quite decided what to do with all of it yet, though I expect there are some worthy organizations in Dodge who could put some of this to good use.

And one further box:

This was the box I decided was my Mission for the Day last Tuesday. And here is what was inside:


Cool! More art supplies, including lots and lots of fabric paints. And more Sharpies! (I really like Sharpies.) And, inexplicably, this:


A 1-gig memory card for my camera. And just in time -- later than same day, the card that was currently in the camera decided that it was too full for more pictures. (This de-crapification process is hard on memory cards.) Like so much else that has been uncovered during this process, I have no idea how the memory card managed to get dumped into a box instead of put someplace where it could be found and used.

I did a quick sort on some of the other boxes we carted in. Like I said, lots of youth group papers that need to be shredded or recycled (or possibly filed by the youth group):

And lots of books and other things that I can pass along to my friend who is homeschooling her children:

As usual, there was a bunch of stuff that could be Freecycled:

Though, I have to admit -- that tea kettle did not make it to the Freecycling round. That was one that the Drama Queen had had in her apartment and decided not to move because she never used it. In the meantime, our very loud, very red tea kettle fell apart and I managed to lose a crucial piece, perhaps down the drain. This black and very quiet tea kettle is in temporary use in our kitchen, even though it doesn't match and it's too quiet to hear unless you are standing right next to the stove.

The Sports Nut and I tried to sort papers together, but it was kind of counterproductive. I would be going through my pile and making decisions and the Sports Nut would be going through his pile and asking me to make decisions.

We didn't get very far before we decided that sorting through papers was an activity best handled by one person. That person could either be the one who had stuck all the papers in the box in the first place and (presumably) knew what to do with them -- i.e., me -- or it could be the one who had no idea what any of the papers were or whether they were worth keeping -- i.e., the Sports Nut.

In the end, I shoved all the papers back into the box and found something else for the Sports Nut to sort through. I gave him full power over this bag of who-knows-what:

I have no idea what he decided to do with the contents. I don't need to know. All is well.

In other boxes, I found all kinds of treasures, like the Memory game I made for my religious school class:

And these wonderful story-telling tapes by Jim Weiss that my kids listened to for endless hours when they were younger:

And a whole box of homeschooling magazines that I never managed to read before we moved here to Dodge, so I foolishly carted them across the country thinking that I would have the time or inclination to read them here. And look -- here they are, mostly still unread (by me):

And a complete collection of the homeschooling newsletter that I personally edited and published and mailed (with a little help from my kids ... and friends) for five years:

Those, at least, I read.

And a small, but crucial, pile of stuff I wasn't sure whether we should keep or toss that I put aside for the Wizard to look through:

Fortunately for our de-crapification process, he ruled that none of these were needed, so they either went into the recycling bag or the Freecycling box. And, by the time, I am actually writing this, both the recycling and the Freecyling are already gone.

The next step in the process was to cleverly invite my friend with the young children over for lunch and whatever. I persuaded them to take the Drama Queen's extra cat tree for the use of their cats. I gave it to her boys, and they managed to take it apart, even:

And then, while she wasn't paying too much attention, I snuck two whole boxes of books and tapes into the back of her car:

I haven't been counting. Maybe I am actually on track with the box, etc. a day business.

In other news, I haven't made much progress on the cassette tapes recently. This pile probably isn't going to grow until after the Wizard and I come back from a little jaunt to one of the cities we might move to after we leave Dodge:

And I haven't managed to felt the cat bed I knitted for the Sport Nut's cats. Every time I go grab it to toss in the washing machine, I am thwarted: