Gratitude

There is something about the end of the summer and the tinge of the autumn that makes me reflective. After a nice drop off and pick up from the hour of school...remembering to get more paint for the bathroom but forgetting the primer...getting shortbread for all and latte for me at La Brioche...then a quick bike ride and walk to the duck bridge before Sophia's nap...I found myself in what we affectionately call "The Study". This is the room that right about now--or soon--I fear will be innundated with sluggish confused w-a-s-p-s (if I spell it, maybe they won't come this year). It is a room with warped painted white wood panelling and the most ugly ceiling that is not quite in one piece (give me popcorn ceiling over this any day). I suspect there is nothing between the wood panelling and the outside of the house, either. In any case, this is a "graveyard room" in that it has no purpose other than storage of forgotten items and items we can't find a place for yet with inquisitive young children, one of them thinking she can climb to the top of anything (I found her on top of the diaper table the other day and that has been added to the Graveyard).

I was going through the filing cabinet, which is in this room, trying to find the user's manual for the diaper table (which is really a co-sleeper) so I can either sell it at the consignment store or donate it to the La Leche League sale (where we sell baby stuff very cheap and all the money goes to the local group, which is a non-profit volunteer organization). I didn't find it--I know it's here somewhere because we save all the user's manuals, even for the toaster---but I found other treasures.

First of all, I found the Christmas piano music that I have been looking for for at least four years (this is a clue that we need to take some sort of organization classes, I know). I nearly wept. I found a journal with black paper that I'd written in gel marker how the ideal rooms would look in our house (I made it for Doug, I've only used about 6 pages out of approximately 50...I have a few journals like this). I found another journal where I had been writing 5 things every night that I am grateful for. I started sometime in 2000 and the last time I wrote in it was when I was pregnant with Fiona. I completely forgot about it---I stopped writing in it just before we moved to our purple--then white--house, I think. I found some Astrology notes given to us by a friend (yeah, that went right into the recycle bin, but I have fond memories of the friend). I found old botany notes. I found a compliation CD from my sister Alexandra that I had totally forgotten about and now it's going on the computer.

I also just realized I have saved in the Graveyard Closet a cool sand toy for Fiona from my sister Maggie. Fiona is exactly at the right age for this now, so I will go find it since Sophia is sleeping. Sophia would just eat it. She has a taste for sand. Especially colored sand.