Day 2

I stayed up till after 1:00 this morning trying to get started on the house. Slept pretty good. Woke up around 6:30 and did a little work before I fixed a smoothie for breakfast. Vance went and played golf. Nobody is going to stand in the way of his golf game. Vance, Michelle and Fox came over around 9:00. Vance left with Fox and Michelle realized he had left his cell phone, so we decided to go shopping before we started decluttering and see if we couldn't find Vance at Best Buy. Couldn't find him, but we went to Office Max and got bankers boxes. They had a good sale - $14.99 for 10, but if you bought twenty, you got 10 more free. It ended up being $1.00 per box. That's a pretty good deal. Next, we went to Target and got new canisters (square ones so there is no wasted space around them), a new toaster oven (because I burned up our old one), some more organizers (plastic shoe boxes, etc.), some cleaning supplies. Went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and found a spool organizer to hang my jewelry on. Came home and got busy.

We started in the living room. We have the built-in bookcases that were just filled with books, videos, knick-knacks.... I found myself putting most of it in the Goodwill boxes. We ended up carrying off 10 boxes to Goodwill; some pretty good stuff, too. I found out it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be to get rid of stuff. I've never been able to do this before. I always wanted to hang onto my stuff. Michelle was surprised that I didn't argue over getting rid of things. I know I've had a lot of people praying for me, and it shows. I was calm about the whole process. I had stressed for days before, but it really wasn't all that bad. Vance took my old computer and an external harddrive and put it in his car to take home. He's going to download everything and clean up the computer so I can give it to Trent and Hope to play games on. He cleaned up my computer while he was here and Fox was napping.

Tabitha and Kim didn't get to come, but I understood. Tabitha needed some family time. She, Chad and the kids never get to be alone. They always have family or friends over all the time. Kim had to take care of her granddaughters so Carrianne could work. We didn't even call Fran because she can't lift anything and I'll need her for the decorating after we get all the stuff out that needs to be gotten out. She can tell us where to put the furniture. I knew if we called her she would want to help and she'd probably just hurt herself. I sure don't want that to happen. So, it was just Michelle and me. I'm just so thankful to her for doing this with me. She says she's been wanting to do it for a long time (and she has, but I wasn't ready). Kim said she would come over Monday afternoon and help and Tabitha wants to come next Saturday and get the craft room done. Sounds great to me. I knew we wouldn't be able to get it all done in one day. Michelle is going to come over in the morning and put the kitchen together while Vance and Fox go to church with me.

Vance came home around 3:00 from golfing and you could tell he was tired. We had four boxes of his stuff for him to go through. I think he went through one box before he gave out. He wouldn't go to eat with us, so Vance, Michelle, Fox and I went to Captain D's and ate. It was nice just to sit down for a little while. Michelle and I only took little bitty breaks and not very many of them. We worked hard all day. They dropped me off and went to put Fox to bed. Vance fell asleep in his recliner, so that ended working in the living room. I moved to the kitchen and started emptying out cabinets. Put a lot of dishes in boxes to take to Goodwill. I think I filled up 3 more boxes. I washed out the old round canisters and they will also go to Goodwill. Set up the toaster oven and the new canisters. I'll let Michelle put everything where she wants to in the morning. It's almost midnight and I'm exhausted. Think I'll take my bath and go climb into bed.

Goodnight and God bless................
Thank you Michelle for all your hard work. And thank you Tabitha and Kim for the work you will be doing. And Fran for the decorating to come. I've got such great people behind me.