Wow, that's a lot of stuff...

Anyone who walked into our house right now would think we were moving.  There is stuff everywhere.  We spent all weekend pulling everything out of the attic and beginning the process of sorting through it all.  What a job!

There's stuff all down the stairs, piles across the living room floor, heaps filling my bedroom, and stacks in each of the kids' rooms.  Boy, did we open a can of worms!  While the work is tedious, it's also been fun rediscovering things we haven't seen in a long time.

I found an old knitting book my grandma gave to my mom and me back in 1987.  It was published in 1971!  Tucked inside the jacket, I found the note she sent along with the book and a sheet of bird stamps she thought I might like.  It's funny, I don't remember collecting bird stamps, but apparently I did!  It was a sweet find that I am very happy to now have at my fingertips since I can't stop knitting these days.

The kids discovered a box full of Garbage Pail Kids cards from Steve's childhood.  Those things are so friggen gross, but the kids loved them.  They spent at least two hours looking through and sorting them all, laughing hysterically the whole time.  Listening to them made me chuckle!

Next, they found Steve's old comic books and Mad Magazines.  Even more hours of entertainment!

I also got to dig out and sort through my entire fabric stash.  Our house is rather funny, and while it has a couple of big rooms, those rooms make up most of the house and there aren't a lot of individual little spaces.  Simply put, there are four of us living in a two bedroom house creatively.  Anyway... this has made it so that I don't really have any space to use as a crafting or office area.  My dresser serves as my office and bins in the attic serve as sewing/crafting storage.  Needless to say, this does not lend well to productivity.  But I'm working on it!  Pulling everything out of the attic was a great first step!  It was so fun!  I have so much great fabric that I have collected over the years that I totally forgot about.  I can't wait to start getting productive with it!

Among the exciting, happy finds, there were a few sad ones as well.  As some of you know, one thing I really enjoy is making costumes.  I have made a few really fun ones over the years, my favorite being a dragon I made for Cedar when he was about 3 years old.  It got many years of good use before going into a box in the attic awaiting a new friend.  Unfortunately, mice found it first.  A box of beautiful fabrics that I brought home from my time in Kenya had the same fate.  Most of the fabric was salvageable, but a couple were goners.  Oh well... good lessons in letting go.

Jellyfish - one of the costumes that survived the attic!

And letting go we are!  It feels so good to be getting stuff out of this house!  I love purging.  Just let it go and get it gone....

The weekend's motivation sponsored by Elysian Jasmine IPA and The Clifford Ball - WARNING: impromptu dance parties may ensue.