A Great Gift

Queen T offered to help with the garage.

Obviously, there was a need.  

The holidays exploded out of the closet and never returned.  

It was a sad, sorry state of affairs, one that I would gladly have tackled alone if my body had allowed me to bend and lift and hoist.  My un-perforated self would have enjoyed the challenge.  Today's achy tendons and ligaments and joints and muscles were extremely glad to have someone else do the heavy lifting.... actually, all the lifting.  

 

I pulled out a sitting-on-the-sidelines folding chair, from which I wrapped and boxed Fall and Halloween and Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and some Christmas stuff.  We weren't ready to take down the nutcrackers and the soft toys and pillows, but we emptied the boxes which will take them.  

We gave away winter clothes and baby clothes and threw out everything with a stain or a tear.  She was ruthless.  I was aghast but glad...... once I got over the initial OH NO NOT THAT!!

In mid-stream, it looked like this.   

When we quit, I was able to pull The UV into its usual space. It's surrounded by empty boxes and boxes to be shredded/donated/recycled - inside and out.  I have to find a recycling drop off center; our weekly pickup was this morning and the bin is already full.  There's a trip to Bookmans in my immediate future, to see how many of the books I used in graduate school might have value.  I'm also bringing my sewing machine (which I can, but have not, use(d) in over a decade) and all the vinyl records which have been in boxes for even longer than that.   I have space on the shelves and I know where everything she agreed I could keep can be found.  That is wonderful.

But the best part is this:

TBG found his old (very old) baseball card collection.

There are family stories and there are valuations but mostly, there is love on my couch and I can't stop smiling.