Correction...

Ok, apparently my post about cleaning our house may sound a little off. What I meant about purging, and I believe most people would understand, is that I am such a packrat that I keep everything. I keep cards, pictures my nephews draw me, notes people wrote randomly, picture frames, everything! Even digital pictures! I am so scared to erase something that I have an external hard drive and it is slowly getting filled.... So, in order to purge, I have to go through the process of letting go of things. Some may have random sentimental meaning, but their time has come to an end and must find a new owner... You can only hold onto a candle for so long! Yes, Ryan has thrown or given away some things in the past that I didn't want gone, but he does take my wishes to heart. Yet, when he holds something up and asks me who, what, when, where, and why about it, it is good for me! If all I know is "My mom gave it to me", but I have no other memory or emotion attatched to it, I know that it is time to let go! It doesn't mean I love my mom any less. She knows exactly how this process goes! My sister too. All us girls know how hard it is to let go of things, but also know it is important to move on, and to not let our possessions own us, and to not let our house become a stock pile of "stuff". For example, Ryan was cleaning out my jewelry box which is a stock-pile of random memorabelia! I had to let go of movie tickets from "A Dangerous Mind" (have no idea when I watched that in the theatre), and a civil war ticket from 2002. I didn't even get into that game! Why was i keeping that? Because we won? I did keep the real and fake tickets I have from civil war 2000, just to compare. You can totally tell the fake one because it is fading! I also let go of a little angel my mom gave me at some point in time. It was glass and I know she gave me three in a small period of time after she moved away, she gave me three because she had forgotten she had already gotten me one, or two, but it was special that she thought of me! As for the angel, I let it go and hopefully someone that finds it at the Salvation army will look at it and think "I have to get that for so-and-so to let then know I am thinking of them." Another think I let go was a little candle my sister gave me last year (or was it a few years ago?) that said sister on it, but I had used it and it was almost gone. I loved the candle holder, but the candle had been used, so it was time to let go!

Ok, the reason I wanted to clarify this is because someone made someone else feel bed because someone thought that the someone else had forced me to let go of things I didn't want to and that some other people might be offended by my post about letting go of things they had given me. Well, the someone else didn't force me to do anything, they listened to my memories and helped me let go of knick-knacks that were cluttering up our space. It was actually a good learning experience. Everyone should try it sometime. But......don't ever throw away pictures or notes (or magazines from the day your baby was born, or the heart your husband gave you one valentines day that he cut out himself and wrote a poem on it that he found off the internet, or that bible study book from a year ago because you might want to read it again sometime!!!!!).