Toss, Give Away, or Keep

I took my time packing up my office.  Just like on that Hoarders TV show, I put stuff into 1 of 3 piles: toss, give away, or keep.

I had a lot of stuff.  I'd been working full-time since 1980. 

That's 37 years.

Of stuff.

Of course, most of the stuff was work related.  Books.  Reports.  Project files.  Toss, toss, toss.

But I also uncovered treasure.  Reminding me of my life outside of work.  Like this letter:

How funny that the same little girl who was terrified of the Easter Bunny became a U.S. Marine.

Then there's this, from a visit Kimmy made to my office with her stuffed bear, Amelia.  We may or may not have been playing with the copy machine that day.

Okay.  We were playing.  We did not get got carried away.

I had to shut my door to compose myself when I came upon the drawing 3-year old Kimmy made after I experienced a painful pregnancy loss.  Talk about a stairway to heaven.

 

  Linda had some awesome artwork,too.

I got a chuckle out the the fact that 2 1/2 year old Kimmy was not quite there in terms of looking for a lost shoe instead of crying.

When I uncovered that letter to the Easter Bunny I texted a photo of it to Linda.  Her response was immediate.

"That's not my handwriting."

It made me laugh.  How could she deny it?   But then I took another look at it and realized that it wasn't her handwriting.  I forwarded the photo to Kimmy who admitted that it did, in fact, look like her handwriting. 

Apparently Linda dictated the now infamous Easter Bunny letter to her big sister.

Keep.