Ten on Tuesday

1. Noah started spring semester (finally) today. We took him back up to campus on Sunday...then saw him again yesterday when we took him a number of things he'd forgotten at home, lol. It's a good thing we took him his coat, because I'm guessing he needed it today.

2. As promised, I got Nathan to go through all of his clothes/closet...and, yes, he did have more stuff to part with than I did. :) (I had three grocery bags...he had three garbage bags.) While he was sorting his clothes, I emptied out much of the rest of the closet and sorted that (it was mostly, for whatever reason, empty boxes along with some tubs of sentimental clothes and costume stuff). We also got a new dresser to put where the pile of things on the floor used to be (had Noah assemble it for us before he left, lol). So. The closet's not totally done but feels so much better!

3. Speaking of sentimental clothes, I also gathered the collections of those I had around the house in various closets. I currently have piles in my family room. I'm living with them a bit as I decide what to save. I'm pretty sure I can winnow it down to just a box or two and am good with that. I had a number of baby things where I couldn't remember which boy they went with. I pulled out each boy's scrapbooks to look and realized that 1) if I don't remember in the first place, it's obviously not that sentimental and 2) I have a record of sentimental clothes already through all the pictures. So. I'll be letting go of stuff. :) 

4. My boys should thank me. I told them this as I've been going through the house sorting and purging. Honestly, I'm saving them so much work. Imagine if I didn't sort and purge and then this was all still here when I die, lol.

5. Along with my closet, I've also gone through my bathroom, nightstand, shoes, and jewelry. And I have a list of other things I'll be getting to in the next week or two. I'm realizing that the timing of this whole tidying up wave (thanks, Marie Kondo and Netflix) was pretty spot on for me. Normally, I spend January and February planning and obsessing about what changes need to happen in our homeschooling and what curricula I'll use for the coming school year. Knowing that both boys will be in high school full time next fall, I don't have that this year. This is filling the void, lol.

6. I also went through all our important document things and reorganized and made an emergency binder and such. It's overkill, but I feel better. :) (I won't bore you with the level of detail I got into, but it's pretty impressive...if I do say so myself, lol.)

7. In going through the important documents, I also found heaps of old negatives. They're very organized (in sleeves with dates and descriptions) because apparently I had a lot of time on my hands at some point, lol. I'm trying to figure out what to do with them now, though. Scanning them individually is so time consuming (we're talking a stack about 6" high of standard protector sheets (which each holds 7-8 strips of negatives)) and I don't really have adequate equipment to do that at home. But having them scanned professionally is so expensive! Yikes. Any ideas?

8. Does anyone have any experience with printing a blog? I'm realistically realizing that I'm unlikely to go back and scrapbook everything (haven't really scrapbooked since 2010) but have recorded my stories here and would like to print them out in a book or books. I'm wondering if anyone has done this and has tips.

9. Amid my tidying, life continues just fine here. :) Micah's rock climbing classes are going again (after a break for the holidays), Asher's getting in the groove at school and is still happily going to parkour, both boys stay busy with karate and demo team, Micah's still been helping a friend with her black belt training and has started back up with some occasional First Lego League team sessions, homeschooling continues, boot camp still challenges me, I've got most of our tax stuff ready (just waiting on some forms but have our appointment already scheduled with our accountant), and Nathan's busy at work. Good stuff. 

10. Yes, I know these aren't the most exciting posts. I'd apologize, but mostly I'm just trying to record stuff so I can remember later. ;)