On my day of rest, a small pile

I'll admit that I saved this one for Shabbat so that I wouldn't feel obligated to do real work, yet I could stick to my bag, box, shelf, or pile goal. Today's task was a pile of Games magazines that have been accumulating for the past 5 years:


I had been looking for a magazine storage option, but most of the ones I saw cost way too much money. Last weekend, the Wizard and I happened to go into a different office supply store and I found some cardboard magazine files and the cost for a package of 6 was less than ONE of the others I had been seeing.

I applied the "do you want to move this item across the country?" test to the magazine files and they won. So today, I put my pile of magazines into the magazine file boxes and labeled them:


And just to round things out, since I don't have much to say -- here is a picture of Max all nice and clean. The mobile groomer came to the house and cleaned him up!


His white fur is almost blinding when it is clean. But.... it should go without saying that Max's first action upon being let off the leash was to go outside and lie down in the dirt.

Negative Progress?

Today, instead of tackling a box, a bag, a shelf or a pile at my house, I went to my former place of volunteering and cleaned out the rooms where I had things. In order to feel virtuous while neglecting my de-crapification project at home, I listed a bunch of things on Freecycle before I left:


We (I convinced Media Guru and Sports Nut to help by offering to buy them lunch) filled up my big van with cardboard, paper, cans and bottles and took all of that over to the recycling center. I had actually planned to stay and finish packing up the stuff we were going to take home, but just as we took the last of the recycling out to the car, the fire alarm went off. Since I couldn't be in the building anyway, I decided to go to the recycling center.

The recycling place that used to be a few blocks away had disappeared, so we went to the next closest one we could find, dumped all our stuff, bought some yarn at the Joann's that shared the parking lot, and headed back to refill the car.


You can't even see everything that we piled into the car. Trust me, it is WAY more than I gave away on Freecycle today. So, in some sense, I made negative progress today. But ... the game is still afoot.

Progress ... who needs it?

I am applauding myself (and the Wizard) for our foresight in neither investing in 8-tracks NOR in Beta-format video tapes.

This was another three-box day, but since I didn't start until after I put my supper in the oven and I was finished (and had time to send some emails) before supper was done, it should be obvious that these boxes were not very taxing.


More of the same. A bag of pine cones, saved for craft projects; a bunch of file folders to go in the filing cabinet; some kitty toys and treats; modeling clay; a sweater that the Drama Queen left behind; two bags of hair.

Two BAGS of hair? Ahh.... those must be from the time the boys decided to let their hair grow out and then cut it off for Locks of Love. Only problem is ... their hair wasn't really long enough when they got fed up with long hair and had it chopped off. The haircutter didn't have the heart to tell them, so she bagged it up anyway and gave it to me.

Since that didn't take very long, I thought I would go out into the garage and pick another project for tomorrow. Instead, I got sidetracked by these:


Two boxes AND a case full of cassette tapes. Like most people of our generation, the Wizard and I have dutifully upgraded from LPs to cassette tapes (cleverly skipping the 8-track era) to CDs to iPods. But we didn't replace every cassette tape we had with CDs. And, somewhere along the line, we thought it might be nice to have some of these cassette tapes on the iPods. So we acquired a tape-to-PC machine so that we could create digital copies of the cassette tapes.

What we didn't quite realize at the time is that converting the cassette tapes to digital format requires that you listen to the tape -- i.e., it has to be played live, and paused between tracks, and sometimes you even have to fill in the track names and so on. In other words, this is not a completely painless process.

I'm thinking that, on top of the box, bag, shelf, or pile a day, I had also better add a tape conversion a day. Otherwise, when we move past mp3s to whatever comes next, I'll still be sitting around with a big box of cassette tapes. (At least they are not 8-tracks!)

And in the interests of family harmony, we are NOT going to talk about the boxes of VHS tapes that are in the storage locker. Nope, not going to do it. Not tonight, anyway. Even though we all know that the DVDs that replaced the VHS tapes are also on their way out. (At least we never bought a Betamax!)

Feeling Sort-of Kind-of Virtuous

I got moving early this morning because Future Vet is back within phone range and he called Very Early. Since I was up anyway, I picked out a box for the day:


I thought it was going to be primarily magazines, from which I would have to rip off the address for shredding and then recycle the magazine. But no.... it turned out to be yet another box full of stuff the Drama Queen left behind in her most recent move. There were some books and knick-knacks that she will have to sort through, but the majority of this box's contents was unopened mail delivered to an apartment she moved out of 2 years ago.

I'm not even going to explain why this didn't just become DQ's job. I know she won't handle this stuff herself, so I did it. I ripped open envelopes, recycled parts and shredded others. (No, this does not mean the bag of to-be-shredded stuff is empty yet, but I am working on it.) It's amazing how many credit card offers a typical college student can generate over the space of a month or so.

The end disposition of this box's contents -- a little trash, a lot of recycling, a moderate amount of shred, and a box of DQ's books and odds-and-ends that she will have to make decisions about. We won't talk (much) about the plastic bag that held a mildewy towel.

Back to the garage to look at the hole left by the last two day's activities:


I put some things up on the shelf, threw some things away, and then I noticed this:


That probably wasn't a good enough view. Let me zoom in so you can see the cause of my current horror:


K'nex pieces. On the floor! That box standing on its end is OPEN and pieces are spilling out. This is obviously a task for Another Day.

So I went online and listed a bunch of things on Freecycle. Here's the pile of today's offerings:


Now I can take the rest of the day off with a clear conscience!

What Was I Thinking?

So, those 4 large Rubbermaid bins that I thought were full of bed linens? Not exactly. One did contain bed linens, which I had washed and folded and put in there sometime in November. They were from Future Vet's room and since he's gone until May, that's how I decided to keep the cat hair (and hairballs) off his bed linens. Two of the other boxes contained clothes that Future Vet left behind. I had also washed and folded and put those away not too terribly long ago. My memory is obviously not what it used to be.

I moved those 3 bins out of the garage and into Future Vet's bedroom, so I guess that counts as clearing out the garage. Sort of.

The fourth bin had only one thing in it -- a large pot that I bought to cook meat for the dogs in. I'll probably keep that around until we move, just in case one of the dogs gets really sick again and needs special food.

The upshot of the preceding activity was that I really didn't feel as if I had done anything today in terms of getting rid of a box, a bag, a shelf or a pile. So I gritted my teeth and decided to tackle THIS box:


That box is full of receipts. All kinds of receipts -- grocery stores, vet bills, online purchases, garden and house purchases, car expenses, you name it. There are also bank statements and credit card statements (all paid) in that box.

At one time in my life, I was obsessive about keeping track of where every penny went. I double-checked receipts against credit card statements and kept them together. I filed bills relating to the cars, to medical and insurance expenses, to the animals. That time probably ended about 3 years ago, but the saving of receipts obviously didn't end.

The Wizard and I had a series of conferences on what needed to be kept and what should be shredded. The answer was: very little needs to be kept; everything else needs to be shredded. Good thing we have a heavy-duty shredder.


I started going through the box, putting things like bank statements, credit card bills, some animal records, and a few other things we were saving into one pile and putting everything else into a "to be shredded" pile.

After 30 minutes of this activity:

And after one hour:


Gee, that sure doesn't look like much progress, does it? I was looking at each receipt to make sure that it wasn't something I needed to save, but my glances were pretty perfunctory. And still the progress was slow.

After an hour and a half:


Two bags full of shredded receipts and that box STILL looks full. Something very odd is going on here.

Two hours into this activity, the shredder objected:


And the box still didn't look appreciably emptier:


Since the shredder obviously needed a nice, long rest, I started just kept piling up the receipts to shred instead of shredding them a little at a time. After another half hour or so, however, I realized that the dogs were clamoring to be fed and that I also needed a nice, long rest.

After two and a half hours of sorting, this is what my box looks like:


At least it now looks as if some progress was made! Media Guru has me watching "Fringe" on Tuesday nights, so I think I'll continue going through the receipts as I watch.

Worst comes to worst, I'll finish tomorrow.

Some time later....

I sorted through receipts while watching "Fringe". Then I convinced the Media Guru to watch the episode of "Battlestar Galactica" that he had DVRed. At the end of all that TV viewing, I could finally see the bottom of the box:


I figured "what the hey", might as well finish it off. So I did.


Of course, all that sorting plus the overheated shredder led to a large amount of papers waiting to be shredded. Tomorrow.



And there are still some papers to be filed, or winnowed out a little further. And where better to put those papers than in a handy empty box?


The upshot of all this work was that I did indeed get through a box today. And I learned that it is faster to go through a box of papers if you do not shred as you go. On the other hand, there is still a lot of shredding to do. Tomorrow.

Monday, Washday

Monday has become my laundry and errands day, and today was no exception. Plus I had a meeting this evening. So.... I didn't really do a box, a bag, a shelf or a pile today. I did move a bunch of empty boxes out of the back hall. And it was Trash Day, so I threw out and recycled all kinds of things. That should count for something.

Here's what I plan to tackle tomorrow:


If I recall correctly, those bins hold some linens -- bed sheets, blankets, etc. Though I notice that one seems to have some of Sports Nuts' school kitchen things piled on top, so who knows?

Stay tuned....

Sometimes one pile just leads to another

It's Sunday! Apart from helping the Wizard set up something for the religious school this morning, I have the day free!

If I have free time, then it must be used to deal with a bag, a box, a shelf or a pile. I decided on this pile, even though the pile consists of three boxes:



The discerning reader will immediately see the problem. On top of my pile of boxes is a pile of games and puzzles. Thus to the game shelf:



And, as naturally as breathing, also to the place where puzzles are currently being stored:



Hmmm.... this will never do. So, before I could get to my pile of three boxes, I had to deal with the games and puzzles.

If you are obsessive about looking at these pictures, you may note that some items previously up on that shelf with the puzzles are now on the shelf below. And may infer that other items are on other shelves. True, all true. However, I did put a few things into the Freecycle box -- like a package of cork tiles and a Max-sized (i.e., really really big) E-collar.

With all that out of the way, I finally got to the pile of three boxes. This pile is actually a kind of cheat, chosen to maximize my Sunday free time. I already knew the contents of the boxes and I knew exactly where those contents were going, so this wasn't as big a task as it looked.

Several months ago, I got rid of two 2-drawer filing cabinets for reasons that were more than sufficient at the time. Neither one really worked. And one was empty. Last weekend, the Wizard and I went out with the Sports Nut and bought a brand-new commercial filing cabinet. (Now that we no longer have young kids banging into everything, we are finally getting things that will stand up to active young children. Go figure.)

The two plastic boxes at the bottom of the pile held actual file folders full of files that came directly out of the departed file cabinet.


The files have been successfully relocated. Of course, at some point in the future I will have to go through them and get rid of STUFF. But that wasn't today's task.

The cardboard carton on top of the pile also had STUFF from the old filing cabinet, but it wasn't in file folders:

Normally, I would have just chucked the GED books (there are actually 3 of them there) into a Freecycle box. But the Media Guru and the Sports Nut thought that maybe they would consider taking the GED. It's not that they didn't finish high school; it's just that because they were homeschooled, they always have to explain. If they have a GED, they can just mark off that box and everyone is happy.

Most of the rest of the papers were some local newsletters and papers that we have decided not to hang on to. After all, if we are determined to get out of Dodge, do we really need to hang on to reminders about the reasons we are leaving? So all I had to do there was rip off address information so it would be shredded, and then dump the rest into a recycle bag.

Why I Don't Do Yard Sales

Someone pointed out that, in addition to the four methods of getting rid of usable STUFF that I listed a few days ago, there is also the option of having a yard sale. Yes, they do have yard sales here in Dodge. No, I have no intention of ever having one myself.

Why?

First of all, you've got to go through all the STUFF, just as I am doing anyway.

Second, unlike Freecycle, where you can give things away "as is", you have to clean items and make minor repairs.

Then you have to have a place to store the STUFF until you are ready for your yard sale.

Fourth, you have to publicize your yard sale through advertisements in local papers, signs, etc.

Fifth, you have to make yourself available for an extended period of time while other people discover your yard sale signs and make it over to your house.

Sixth, you have to deal with the people who want to haggle over pennies and nickles. And the people who show up early or late, and so on.

Finally, after you have closed your yard sale, chances are that you are still left with a lot of STUFF that has to be disposed of. So, apart from a few dollars, what have you really gained?

When is a pile not a pile?

I don't actually know the answer to that question, of course. And whatever answer there may be probably isn't as clever as the answer to "when is a door not a door?".

Today I created a pile instead of getting rid of one. Here's the pile I created:


This pile was created from two other piles composed of cardboard boxes that I pulled in from the garage. (Taking all of these empty boxes out of the garage does not, by the way, make the garage any less crowded.) Here are my two original piles:



The big box at the bottom of the pile on the left in the top picture is full of small boxes. There are no easy tasks when I get rid of STUFF.

Now all I have to do is load the cardboard into the car and drive over to the recycling collection bins. I really do miss curbside pickup.

Another Day, Another Pile ... or Two

I spent most of the day Freecycling STUFF that I had pulled out over the past week. Freecycle is an interesting phenom. Let's say that you have this STUFF that is perfectly usable, yet of no use to you personally. What can you do with this STUFF? Let us count the ways....

1. You can put it in a box or a bag, on a shelf, or in a pile ... because -- who knows? -- it might come in handy some day. I have LOTS and LOTS of STUFF that fits into this category, which is why I am now doing a box, a bag, a shelf, or a pile a day.
   
2. You can throw it away. (Eeeuuuwww ... wasteful!)
3. You can give it to someone you know. Assuming you know someone who could use it. This does happen to me occasionally. Just the other day, I uncovered a Grow Light. Why I bought it is beyond me, because plants shrivel up and die when I approach. BUT... I have a friend with a proverbial green thumb, who now has a Grow Light.
4. You can give it to someone you don't know. Traditionally, this sort of thing has been done through organizations such as Good Will. Or leaving it on the sidewalk with a sign that says "FREE".

Freecycle is just a refinement of approach number 4. You join a local email list and offer items you want to give away. People who want those items email you and ask for them. And then -- this is my favorite part -- they come to your house and haul your unwanted STUFF away. Here is today's STUFF that I don't want but other people do want, all ready and waiting for someone else to take it away.


Believe me, that was a monumental pile before it all got sorted out. And in addition to all of that, someone is coming by to pick up all of this, which is mostly toiletries that are going to a homeless shelter. (The Wal-mart bags aren't mine, by the way. Some of the impoverished students who occasionally live with me have been known to shop there, but I pretty much avoid the place.)


So I am already feeling virtuous. One enormous pile of STUFF and at least two boxes. I'm way ahead of my goal for the day.

But wait! There's more.... After a lucious but lonely supper (Media Guru has class on Thursday nights and the Wizard has a meeting tonight, so dinner was every person for him- or herself), I finally got to the dog treat shelf in the garage.

Here's the before view:





And here's the after view:


Now I realize that this doesn't look like a big change. On the other hand, I threw out a lot of trash from empty bags and containers. I consolidated the various other piles of dog treats and toys that were hanging out in the garage. And ... I have finally figured out that I don't need to buy any more dog treats for a while.

Besides the STUFF....

I realize that there are a few areas I plan to work on, besides just getting rid of (or putting away) the STUFF.

Health

Though I am not the heaviest I have ever been in my life, I still want to get back in control of my eating and my weight. Way back in 1990, I joined Weight Watchers with a good friend. I lost about 70 pounds. But then my father was diagnosed with the disease that would eventually kill him -- pancreatic cancer -- and for the five years of his illness, my primary coping mechanism was to eat.

Then in 2001, we got a dog -- Yuki, seen here guarding a pile of papers.


Yuki needed exercise, so I started walking her. Then she needed a friend, so we adopted Max. Max is not only a BIG dog, he needed LOTS of exercise. Before I knew it I was taking two fairly long walks with the dogs every day.

And I changed the way I ate. For 20 years, I had been an ovo-lacto vegetarian and I gained weight every year, except for the year or so that I was doing Weight Watchers. I ate healthy stuff; I just ate a LOT of it. In brief, I started eating meat again, among other changes. Over the next year I lost 50 pounds and I kept it off for nearly 4 years. During those 4 years, I lost my mother and I moved across the country.

But while I was helping care for my 105-year-old grandmother in the final months of her life, I lost control again. There were reasons, which I won't go into right now. And I slipped into a depression that I am only beginning to come out of now, three years after her death.

Books

The books are out of control. They are taking over the house, the garage, the storage locker.....

Crafts

I need to be doing something creative, and now that I'm not rearing children, I am returning to hand-work. Sewing, piecing quilts, knitting, crocheting, needlepoint....

Music

I love to sing, but have not found a choral group in this town that I want to sing with. The piano is gone. I am taking cello lessons (Future Vet made me do it!). I need more.

Writing

Is is sad that this blog is my writing exercise right now? I need to get a Real Life!

Leyning Torah

I leyn (chant) from the Torah at my synagogue frequently. VERY frequently. So I need time to study. But more about that later.

Okay, now to today's STUFF

I did not get around to the dog treat shelf. I'm not sure why, exactly. Cleaning the house, doing laundry, going to the bank, missing my cello lesson, buying new towels for Sports Nut and Media Guru to replace the bath towels that mysteriously disappeared, watching the new TV show "Lie to Me" (that was fun, btw)?

But I did recycle that pile of papers that Yuki is guarding in the picture above. They were almost all lesson plans and hand-outs from my days teaching religious school. And I listed a boat-load of STUFF on Freecycle. I'm sorting through the requests for this STUFF now. Maybe tomorrow, I'll take a picture of all the STUFF sitting by the door ready for someone else to haul it awy.

Inauguration Day is a holiday, right?

Since I more-or-less employ myself, that's a moot question. However, I did get some un-STUFFing done today even though I watched Inauguration coverage for several hours.

Remember those 2 or 3 boxes that I handed to the Drama Queen when last we checked in? Well, she took a cursory glance at them and declared that she didn't want anything in the boxes. Which gave me the dubious pleasure of going through them myself. (We may have to rename the Drama Queen, though. Yesterday she figured out how to change her major from Theater to Economics.)

Most of the STUFF in the DQ's boxes was toiletries and make-up, so I have contacted someone I know who works at a homeless shelter. She will probably pick up all this stuff -- toothpaste, bars of soap, hand lotion, make-up, pantyhose, etc. -- and take it to the shelter. Some of the other stuff had to be disposed of (expired medications, for example), and some I am going to offer on Freecycle.

So I multi-tasked this morning. While I watched the Inauguration coverage, I also sorted through STUFF and wrote offers for Freecycle. All things considered, I enjoyed the Inauguration coverage much more. I even got to watch it twice -- my Media Guru had classes this morning, so he recorded the news coverage. It was kind of nice to listen to President Obama's speech twice.

And I still got around to today's promised shelf. Here's the BEFORE view:


And another view:

Oh, wow! That is actually TWO shelves! And since I had already taken the pictures, I felt obligated to do both shelves. Here's the AFTER view:


Again, some STUFF was tossed and some was put where it belonged and some will be offered on Freecycle. On that top shelf are light bulbs and candles. Also some matches. But it all kind of goes together, at least in my mind. On the second shelf is one container of batteries and one of this-to-that things -- tape, glue, nails, etc. Hmmm.... maybe that flashlight belongs on the top shelf with the other light-making STUFF. The cardboard box has some animal-related items that I will probably give to one of the animal rescue groups in town. Not yet, though, I'm sure that there is more of the same somewhere in this pile:


But that's a task for another day. Tomorrow I am going to tackle the shelf that holds all the dog treats. And continue looking for the boxes of files that are somewhere in that pile pictured above.

Oh! Before I forget ... remember how I had this DVD remote and I had no idea where the DVD player had gone? Today I found the DVD player! It was hiding upstairs in the office, along with a large pile of STUFF including not one, but two, defunct laptop computers.

A box, a bag, a shelf, or a pile

That's my goal -- to go through a box, a bag, a shelf, or a pile every day, allowing time off for Shabbat and holidays, and general cussedness. I even made a little song of it, to the tune of "Money Makes the World Go 'Round" from Cabaret:

A box, a bag, a shelf, or a pile
Though it may stretch as high as a mile....

That's as far as I have gotten. Maybe more will come to me as I go along.

So right above this is a picture of today's box. It is actually sort of left over from yesterday, but since today is a holiday of sorts, I'm going with it. And here are the contents all spread out:

What is all that STUFF? Besides being the "good" STUFF left after going through a couple of bags and boxes of things taken off the shelves near my computer, that is. The papers, recycling (14 used ink jet cartridges!) and trash have already been dealt with. So here we have:

• a small framed print bought at the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans, taken down from the wall when we put in the new pantry cabinets
  
• a roll of white duct tape
• a strap from an unknown bag
• a leather drawstring purse with Israeli coins
• a hand-held Tetris game, still in the package
• an assortment of CDs with family pictures, promotional videos, music, and what-all.
• an empty case that could hold CDs or DVDs
• a back scratcher
• a small red box that once held a piece of jewelry that one of my sisters made for me
• pet pockets -- little pockets that go on dog collars to hold their tags, along with the tags that should be in the pockets and on the dogs; only two, though, which leaves one dog pocket-less until I can order one for him
  
• open packets of tissues and cough drops and some hand lotion, probably taken from my tallit bag when it suffered an unfortunate encounter with a can of tuna and needed to be cleaned
• a small Mag-lite flashlight; an even smaller Mag-lite flashlight still in the package, and a take-apart key chain, also still in the package
• a pile of assorted notebooks and pads and Post-It notes
• 2 AA batteries
• remote control for a CD player (which I cannot find) and another remote for a DVD player (which I also cannot locate); misplacing the DVD player is more of a puzzle than misplacing the CD player, which probably died and went to the trash
• a very small brush for cleaning out nectar ports in a hummingbird feeder
• a lint roller
• a little bag that was originally a badge holder for a convention I attended two years ago, but which now also holds name tags from a bunch of other conventions I have attended
• a pink highlighter pen
• a little blue tag that describes the Wizard's car, which was probably attached to the keys when we bought the car about 8 years ago
• a red plastic chile pepper light cover (should have made that a Mystery Object and see if anyone could guess what it was)
  
• a Lego piece dug up in the back yard by one of the dogs sometime over the past year or so
• a bunch of envelopes for recycling used ink cartridges and having some money go to Petsmart Charities in the process
• a receipt for some mylar book jackets bought off the internet a few months ago
• a card sent by one of my sisters with 3 photographs that I keep meaning to scan so that I can use them with my screen saver photo show
• some twister ties (don't know why these weren't trash yesterday, but I'm going for brutal honesty)
• an Everlasting Treat dog ball without any treats in it
• 2 red desk baskets with a blue bag in them; the blue bag holds 4 small presents that I bought last year to give to the graduating seniors in my youth group, but none of them showed up for an end-of-year event (except Future Vet, and he doesn't count because he lives with me ... or he did at that time)

There's also an orange-and-white cat in the background, but I am pretty sure that the Sports Nut would be really unhappy if I did something with one of his cats.

I started on this box early this morning. Most of these things got put away, a few got thrown away, and a very few (like those orphaned remote controls) were put into a box of "Things That Are Looking For Other Things" because, you know, as soon as I threw them away and the garbage truck rolled out of sight, the corresponding Thing would turn up.

The Drama Queen has shown up to do her laundry (mom's house is still cheaper than a laundro-mat). So far I've made her go through a pile of STUFF that she left behind. She thinks she's done, but.... there are three more boxes of her STUFF out in the garage and I'm going to go get them right now and make her sort through them.

Rolling Stones Gather No Moss

I guess we aren't rolling stones, in that case. It may not be moss that we have gathered in the 5-1/2 years we have spent in this house, but we sure have accumulated a lot of STUFF. Sure, some of it is from the DDOLs (dearly departed old ladies -- my mother, my mother-in-law, and my grandmother), and some of it is DOY (detritus of youth -- the leftovers from a herd of homeschooled young people who have, mostly, moved on), but a lot of it is just poor planning.

When we moved here in 2003, we kind of thought that this was IT, that we would stay here until we retired, or died, or .... well, I'm not sure that there are many other choices that fit. However, over the past year or so, the Wizard and I have both decided that we want to move on. Or back to whence we came. Or maybe ... well, I'll save the other option for now. At any rate, we weren't too concerned about keeping the STUFF under control because we weren't planning to move again.

But now that we will be leaving this place, we find that this house is full of STUFF. All five bedrooms are full of STUFF. The office/bonus room is full of STUFF, the living room, dining room, family room, and kitchen are full of STUFF. The garage is full of STUFF, the two storage sheds in the yard are full of STUFF, and the large storage locker around the corner is also full of STUFF.

So, this is going to be about getting rid of the STUFF, about figuring out where we go from here, and the joy of the journey.

Cast of characters:
ME -- reader, writer, knitter, cook, singer, educator, and animal caretaker
The Wizard -- the guy in the office upstairs (except when he's on the road)
Drama Queen -- one and only daughter
Sports Nut -- oldest son
Media Guru -- middle son
Future Vet -- youngest son
Max, Yuki, and Hershey -- the doggies
Sweetpea, Junior, Shadow, the L.S.B., Ashey, Toshie, Dybbuk, Canti, and Malka -- the kitties