The Great Purge and Other News

Greetings from the bottom of the Stress Pool!

Before I begin, there is some business from Google that says I must warn you there might be cookies running this blog. Disclaimer: I did not make them, nor did I eat them. You've been warned.

School has been out for two weeks now, and my To-Do list for June has been seriously ignored, mostly by me. We did clean up the back porch and set out the chairs; I did buy and plant day lilies on the back hillside, much to the delight of the resident rabbit! (the weed garden has nicely taken over the rest of the area). But, that's not all that's growing...

DH and I are going to be first-time grandparents this December! Big Brother and DiDi are expecting their first child. There will be a gender-reveal party sometime later this summer. We did gender reveal - we just told people if we knew. Things are so different now! Congrats to the happy couple, and yes, we are excited, and glad to report it has not made me feel older. Warning: I'm going to be one cool Nana! In other news, our family is also growing. Morticia and the Doctor have made it official! We are looking at a little wedding in the future, so our little family also continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

Now, for the Great Purge, from which I am taking a small break. There is a small area in the basement which has been known to my family for years as "The Workroom". There are shelves, an old kitchen table (by old, I mean retro, like from the 50s!), and an odd assortment of junk. This is where I did all my drawing and painting while taking classes to obtain an Art Certification. Many a midnight candle was burned during that time.
The problem comes in that the spiders also like that room. Why wouldn't they? It's small, not much light (enough for when my eyes were younger. Not so much now.) So, DH said, "Why don't you just make the whole family room your studio?"
Wow. This is really what I've wanted for years!
So, I have begun The Purge, which is quite bitter-sweet. Ten years ago, when Eggbert left us for the Hereafter, part of me died along with him. Yes, many things happened in that time - graduations from high school, college; job changes; retirement (DH - not me for quite a while!). And, in those ten years, I've nicely squirreled all of those memories in that room, eventually spilling out into the unused family room. So, the goal by the end of June is to clear it all out and begin making art again.
 A couple boxes, some garbage bags, and we're good to go. Easy, right?
Not so much.
Every paper, letter, program, sympathy card (yes, I have only just begun to get rid of them), brings up a forgotten memory, or the face of a person not thought of in what seems an entire lifetime ago. It has been hard (not to mention dusty!). But, since the day is dark and rainy, and it's left-overs for dinner, today is the day. I just needed to take small break, a bit of time to collect my thoughts, sort of a stocking-up on the ammunition needed to finish the job. I think I'm ready to go again.
I also wanted to have the first draft of a current story done by the end of this week, but there is still time - after all, it's only  June 27th!

So, as I say goodbye for now, stop on by, dip your foot in the pool, and share your favorite memory!