Giving Back

 Today was my annual trip to Walmart to fill a shopping cart with toys for a reasonable price.  They do it with yearly sales this time of year on a wide variety of toys and sports equipment.  I shop carefully to try to include as many age groups as possible.  I always include at least one Elmo stuffed toy in memory of Eric, who was a big Elmo fan.  I only fill one cart  to keep within my budget and space in my car.  I always include at least 6 Soccer balls in a variety of sizes and colors, soccer is very popular here in Tucson.

Not surprisingly at all, no one wants to get behind me in the checkout line.  It takes a while to put a whole basket of toys on the conveyor belt. I am getting more efficient at packing the shopping cart. The cashiers always ask how big is my family?  Then I explain that I never removed the yearly budget line for toys.  I figured that since my kids are out of the house I might as well use that money for toys, anyway to help the kids in Pima County have a better holiday season.  

So after I check out and load my car up.  I head to the nearest Fire Station to drop off the toys.  This year it took 3 firefighters one trip to empty the entire back of my car.  I thanked them for collecting the toys to help the kids and they thanked me for bringing the toys and sporting equipment.  

All the helpers were doing a good job today.  Please consider being a helper this year for your favorite charity project.   Because of the economy, I personally feel the need will be greater this year.  This is my personal guesstimate since I don’t have any empirical data to back this up. I certainly hope I am wrong, but I don’t think so.

Halloween Recap

 We had a good Halloween day.  We did just in time decorating.  The Halloween decorations were out for less than 12 hours before they were put away for next year.  We only had 3 bags of candy leftover, so John agreed to take them to work to leave by the coffee pot.  I also found out that kids don’t like marshmallows for Halloween candy treats.  They still loved the pencils, pens, animal erasers, bubbles and assorted Halloween toys.  We had about 40 kids this year. 

I have enough pens, pencils and assorted Halloween toys for next year.  All I need to do is buy more candy.  Hopefully next year we will be back to normal for Halloween.  I really like handing out the candy and treats.  I have had enough of this no contact Halloween stuff.  This was my Halloween set up for tonight.  I kept putting out more candy and bags.  

Trying to Find Balance

I told myself to take a day off from cleaning out the garage, instead I only worked 2 hours in the zenning project. I am sure the good folks at my local Goodwill store will think that I am a silly mom. This batch will be mostly Hot Wheel Cars that Eric can no longer safely play with and even more McDonald's Happy Meal Toys. I think they lost some of their appeal to Eric when he could no longer see them. I also think that Teri will agree with John, "it's time to pass the toys on to other kids, so that they can have toys to play with". John already has plans for the space in the garage.

The hard part for me in letting go of some of Eric's old favorite toys is that he has lost so much ground over the years that he can no longer make the toys "work right". "Play time" is mostly hugging his favorite stuffed animals with John and I making up stories about what the friends are doing. Or even watching Sesame Street with Elmo.

I am finding it hard to make a balance between getting the garage finished before it hits the 100's in Tucson and spending enough time resting. As much as I would like to get the whole garage cleaned by this weekend, I know that much of a push will not be good for my arthritis. My body has not yet fully recovered from the yarn reorganization when I pushed it too hard this weekend to get the next project done. I have been fighting with a body that just wants to sit and sleep today.

The funny thing about this whole cleaning process, is that when I started zenning the house after reading "Zenning Your House in 5 Minutes a Day" I had a hard time just working for 5 minutes to throw things out. Now I only stop when exhaustion hits. This varies from day to day depending on my body. For the most part I can part with stuff without anxiety. I have learned which stuff to keep and which I just don't need anymore. I also learned that it is too time consuming to have a garage sale. Goodwill is the lazy woman's garage sale with a lot less work and no clean up afterward. With the added bonus of the people that Goodwill helps.

I wish I could say that it is bedtime at 11:00 pm, but I started Eric's meds late so I still have a while to stay awake. I am sure that this will not help my arthritis flare up either.