Eight Years in Shreds

No less than six boxes of paper shreds sit in our dining room waiting to be recycled. There are bits and pieces of paper sprinkled throughout the house. What we thought would be a fun task is instead quite dull and messy. We still have two boxes of the past to julienne.

Still, it is invigorating. We have emptied the office of extraneous records and receipts. The file drawer no longer groans under the weight of worthless but possibly sensitive material. The office is now back to normal with a closet that is neat and roomy. While Marty was tearfully tossing his beloved electronic dinosaurs, I was busy on other closets. Why do we save gift bags? I have hundreds of them in every shape ever made. Goodbye to all that. I saved a few large ones to store wrapping paper and giveaway clothing. Four closets down, or mostly down, and four to go. The kids will need to be involved with their closets. They can decide what's precious and what's dreck. That leaves the tool closet which actually holds few tools but many other odds and ends I don't recognize. Marty will have to do that one.

The weekend was nice. Marty and I had a delicious home-cooked meal of steak au poivre Saturday night for Valentine's Day. Then we watched the Olympics, which were dull. Sunday we exchanged 20+ year-old Valentine Day cards I unearthed along with old letters and other mementos in my closet. My card to Marty was store-bought in 1986. Marty's was hand-made in 1987. We both wrote poems inside. Very cute, and very green.

Marty returns to NYC today after he finishes his remaining chores. It's going up to 40 degrees today so we'll get out a bit with Turbo. Tomorrow it snows, and I go back to the peaceful life, puttering around the house, bonding with Harry, who's on vacation this week, and doing whatever I want whenever I want to.