10-11-12 that's a cool date

I like it.

Today was the day the front closet was finally cleaned.

It's been years, but it's also easy to keep stuffing more and more in there and continue to ignore.  As the closet was emptied out, it was pretty dang amazing how much was in there.

The trunk of my car is full of stuff for Goodwill.   How did we end up with so many coats?  Coats nobody wears?  Gone.   Huge, hideous, dirty umbrella? Trash.

Broken metal detector? Gone.

110 year old GPS?   Bye-bye, now.

Still in the closet though are a row of five letter jackets.  I keep intending to have them dry cleaned and returned to their owners, but no.  There they still are in the front closet.   One has a '98 on the sleeve.  Another '99, all with the original, vintage dirt in the sleeves, no doubt. They're navy blue so who can tell?

Anyway, more and more sports team pictures came tumbling out of the closet where I'd thrown them up high year after year when new ones appeared.

And cards, lots of cards for every occasion from all sorts of people.   This slowed me down, reading cards.

And artwork, baby art.    These are some of Maria's--a whole bin of her paintings and drawings was exhumed.    As usual, like sweet babies everywhere, these are the main themes:

Here deep in the bin, under all the paintings in tempera on newsprint, the stickers and stars, was this old preschool picture. That's Maria in the middle in the red shirt, as uncomfortable being photographed then as she often is now.

We are who we are, eh?

Maria, I hope we will always be in a pink background together jumping rope with you high in the air. 

love you forever, Mom