Spring Break?

This week is spring break for our school. I remember the times when spring break was a time to go out and do something fun. However, this week was not devoted to such wild and crazy times. This week, I had to clean Halfie's room. You see, my mom recently remodeled her house. As a result, she needed to get rid of all of the "kid's" stuff from her house. Therefore, a large number of boxes filled with stuffed animals, childhood memorabilia, and school work (to name a few things) came to my house in San Jose. Being the skillful procrastinator that I am, I stored all of these boxes in the closet in what would now become Halfie's room. When I ran out of room in the closet, I neatly stacked them beside the bed.

Well, Halfie is going to need that space soon. Since this was a long break that I would have prior to the summer, this was the time to CLEAN IT UP! You see, the heat and I don't like each other. Furthermore, I will be all the more pregnant when my summer vacation begins. Therefore, if I wanted to be able to complete this task without being in complete misery, it needed to be done now.

That brings us to this week. I began the process a couple of weeks ago, actually by purchasing a couple of containers to sort the myraid of childhood papers into. I began this process, the previous weekend, but I didn't get too far. This week, I went through all of the boxes that I had stored my childhood memorabilia in. (Yes, I am ending sentences in prepositions, but any of you out there who are anal enough to notice need to really consider loosening up a bit! I am not going to be perfect here, and I will not waste time switching my sentences to "in which to store my memorabilia" and "into which my papers were sorted" because that just doesn't sound natural. This is a casual setting, so all you grammar nazis out there can just back off!) My Lord, I never realized all the stupid things that I kept! Why I thought that certain things were important is beyond me! I had so much piddly junk in those boxes -- little toys I won at the fair, every single shred of school work (not just the stuff you would want to see), stupid notes that had been passed during school, REALLY bad drawings of bizarre creatures (April, you may remember some of these), and, of course, ANYTHING related to Ethan and I's relationship. I have every card letter, note, ticket stub, and even flower that I had ever received somehow preserved in those boxes! I was truly a crazy person! Oh, and I not only kept every card I ever received from Ethan, I have every card I have ever received PERIOD! I must have over 500 cards. The sad thing; I just can't seem to get rid of them. Ethan wants to kill me, I'm sure! Yes, I will get rid of all the little toys and many of my school work papers (especially the weekly exams I kept -- what was I thinking!), but I just can't get rid of the cards and such. That said, I still reduced the boxes down by over half, but I am sure that Ethan would be pleased if there were a highly localized fire that happened to consume all of it. Though, I know he does not understand my hoarding of these things, I will say that he has been truly kind about it! He has not said a word. I think he is just happy to be getting rid of half of it, and I am sure he thinks he can talk me out of the other half later!

Anyway, I spent two and a half days really going through everything and reorganizing it. My plan is to put all of these things into a scrapbook to preserve them in a more compact setting. Ethan did have a really good idea to digitize some of the papers and such that I want to keep, so I will probably do that because it will keep him off my back about how much I want to keep. (Sorry babe, but that's the truth.) We did have some time to look at some of my more colorful things. Let's just say that by third grade I was really bored of school, and I was about as ornery as could be. My teachers had required us to fill out these "All About Me" books every year. You know the ones; they ask silly questions like what is your favorite everything and how do you feel about all these things. Let me just say, I have never been a touchy feely sort of person. I also am not the type of person to have favorites. I'm too spastic for that. If you ask my on Monday my favorite color, it might be purple. If you ask me on Tuesday, it might be green. You just never know. Getting to the point, there were several times in my third grade "All About Me" book in which I had to do the pages over. You see, I was very honest. I had a lot of responses like, "I don't have one" for questions of what is your favorite or "Every Day" for what is your best day. Well, apparently the truth was not what Miss Kidroske wanted. She wanted good answers, which I just didn't have. Therefore, I had to redo the pages with "appropriate" responses. I am sure she thought I would appreciate it later, but I got the last laugh because I love the first pages better. They actually sound like me! Plus, you could tell that I was just pandering to her wishes in the redone pages because all of my answers had to do with either God, Jesus, Praying, Worshipping God, or being a missionary. Now, I have a mind like a steel trap (actually my mind is more like a sieve with this pregnancy thing going on, but more about that later). The point, I know that those were not my true answers. I gave those answers to make my teacher happy...and she ate it up! Oh, by the end of my book, it looked like I was a the preacher's daughter because I had learned the trick to not having to do the pages again!

With one small exception...I must have been really mad on the day that I had to redo the feelings page. My first page was my typical "every day" and "never" response page. The second page, I really got creative. When do I feel sad, "when my mom plays with my sister and my dad plays with my brother, but no one plays with me". When do I feel mad, "When my sister bites me and my brother hurts me." LIES, LIES, LIES! (Told you I wouldn't be a good missionary!) None of this was true, except for the part about Kristen biting, that was true! She was vicious. Anyway, the point is I only filled in these answers because I was mad that Miss Kidroske made me do it again. I clearly remember thinking that I would "give her something to think about". Well, it must have worked because I noticed that on my next report card there were comments about my mood being "better" than it had been. Needless to say, I didn't have to do another one of the books again. THANK THE LORD!

Anyway, I got the entire room cleaned out. Wednesday, I headed to Modesto to celebrate the end of tax season with the family. We went out to dinner and had a great time chatting. Everyone was very relieved to have the whole tax season complete. Of course, now it is time for extensions! Oh well, the bulk of it is out of the way.

Today we are going to relax. Who knows what the day may bring!

Regarding Halfie, everything is going smoothly. I have noticed that my mind is starting to go a bit. I will be listening to Ethan say something to me, and I will have to stop him and say, "What did you just say?" OR, I will start telling him something, and I will just trail off and never finish. He is understanding and never gives me grief about it, but I am sure that will change! Ethan can't pass up all of these great opportunities to razz me!

Well, it is time to sign off. We are going to go over and meet Kristen. Appaently the girls had some new pictures taken, and we are going to pick some out today! Until later...