Cleaning out that closet is hard

Things I found in that closet:

- 10 years of teacher planning books. Why did I keep those?

- Christmas mailing lists going back to 1969 (when we were married). Everyone sure moved often. Many old friends are no longer around. Some names I can't even place?

- Letters to (and from) the Vice President and to legislative representatives concerning the 1981 air traffic control strike; the 2003 foray into the Middle East; the nomination of a supreme court justice (Clarence Thomas); a letter my dad wrote in the 1950's to a legislative representative on things important to him (guess I kept up the tradition).

- Notation of cute things my kids said: pudmuddle (for mudpuddle); flippin' (jogging); In response to my question "Who made this mess?" - the 3 year old's response was: "Probably not me. It was probably David." (blaming it, as usual, on her brother); a tornado was a "big tomato"; yestertime was the term for anytime before today....

- Report cards of my children; test results for my children; notes from my children's teachers; notes from my students to me.

- Magazines from September 1981, following the firing of the PATCO air traffic controllers.

- Calendar books starting with 1980. Wow, we were very busy with work, kids, scouts, school, family, church, and many, many other activities. I wonder if I'd do it that way again?

- My parent's 1949 income tax return. He made less than $2,000 a year as a prison guard at a state prison in Kentucky.

- Military records for my dad and for my husband.

- Paperwork for the purchase of various homes and cars. Long ago, long gone. Out they go.

- a History notebook put together by my daughter in middle school. It showed various battles and coincidentally it shows the Battle of Saratoga which is what she's working on, this very week, to prepare a sample lesson plan for a possible fall teaching job...... (the circle of life?)

- a receipt for the deposit at the electric company in Incirlik Turkey in 1973. Finding things like that in my ancestor's papers would give me a clue as to where they'd been and what they'd been doing, but I don't think I want to keep all that stuff around, taking up space, and MY kids having to get rid of it later. A dilemma.

- a bunch of stuff with important numbers that will need to be shredded (darn!) before it can be tossed.

Now it's on to the next shelf where I need to figure out which computers I'm still using and which books and CD's I need to keep to support those computers.... sigh. Oh well, at least I haven't hit the playroom yet - that will be several weeks of work I'm afraid.

Oh, I did start a forum for our genealogy "Let's Discuss It" group. Right now, anyone can join. The address is here: http://letsdiscussit.phpbb3now.com/ We'll see how this works out. We were looking for a quick way to ask questions and post interesting things for the group during the month. Right now we only get together once a month (except for 2 months in the summer) and only I email them or give a handout at the meeting. This will let everyone stay in touch with everyone. I hope it's used.

Later.