The tree has been boxed up for a week now. It finally made it out to the shed yesterday. Now I just have to put the remaining Christmas cards away and move the ornament boxes back into the storage room upstairs. These are the ornaments I don't want to put back up next year. They will all go to the donation box except for the old-fashioned girl angel. My friend has said she wants it. The pink trumpets came in a bag of lovely glass icicle ornaments I bought at a Christmas fair this year — I don't like them at all.

Tags: ornaments, Christmas, January 2010

I have a stack of these Home Chat magazines from the 30s. I'm ready to get rid of them. My mom wanted to take them all, but she really doesn't need more stuff either. We compromised — she took two with her when she left and I can do as I wish with the remaining issues. She remarked on the advertisements in the magazines. Many products and companies are still around today. The two she took have my favourite covers.

Tags: magazines, antique, January 2010

Back at it. My mother is here for a few days. We are working on cleaning out the laundry/freezer/treadmill/storage room. Three pairs of shoes on their way out. The black pair is what my husband called his "rat pair." Whenever we had to clean out the old garden shed of rats nests and traps and turds or had to crawl around the crawl space in crawl space gunk, he'd wear those shoes. He purchased a new pair of trainers this fall, so now he can replace these ones with the next rattiest pair. The sandals he doesn't wear any more. The black flats I'm giving to my mother. Had a long break from blogging. Much more to come from the laundry room I hope. It's 10pm and she's still in there with bleach and a toothbrush. I'm going back to help.

Tags: shoes, January 2010