Household Journal -- Transitions

I haven't been spending much time decluttering recently, as you may have noticed. First we all got sick, last week -- then the weather got warm, and it just feels so good after so much cold weather that I feel more like walking and riding the exercise bike than digging through closets. Since desire to exercise is extremely rare for me, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of the motivation.

Plus, we are winding up school. Sean had his last day at the public high school last Thursday. The virtual charter kids, Kieron and Paddy, still have two weeks to go, but it seems looser nowadays. Paddy is finished with everything but art and music. Kieron won't complete all his courses, but he has been trying to make progress at least.

Speaking of homeschool, last week I did go through two big boxes of Liam's old high school stuff. I saved the compositions and that sort of thing but got rid of the math and Latin papers, etc. Since he graduated from college last spring I figured there wasn't much point in keeping his homeschool Class of 2005 records as a proof of our educational efforts anymore. I took some pictures just to remember how those high school years "looked" in terms of papers:





Sigh -- he was such a conscientious high schooler. That year of 2002 pictured in the above schedule was the year I was pregnant with Paddy and having to check into the hospital once a week for IVIg treatments, and during the same time Aidan was turning yellow and not thriving and no one could figure out why (they never did, but it eventually resolved after batteries of tests etc). So basically, Liam did high school mostly solo. Memories!

I also got another bag's worth out of throwing things away in the garage, mostly old National Geographics.

And one more bag by getting rid of some more jeans and shirts, a couple of my husbands' but mostly mine. Last week I was reading advice about maintaining a weight loss and several articles advised getting rid of your "fat" clothes. I have jeans in about 3 different sizes -- so today, now that I'm within 4 pounds of my goal weight, I felt ready to get rid of everything that was too big or still too small. It's a bit of a commitment, sure, but remember when I complained about having 13 pairs of jeans? Now I'm down to 7 pairs. So this kills two birds with one stone and will hopefully help me towards a more permanent behavior change.