Turning Lemons Into Lemonade

 

 

This is the week of the Johnson County Fair. Fair season for me though started last Thursday. All the County Fair items were due in by Saturday July 18th at 11am. For me, that meant I started on my food items on Thursday. Some years I've started earlier. This year I changed my strategy some.

There are 12 different baking Classes at the fair. Each Class is subdivided into items - for example the Cookie Class is subdivided into brownies, drop cookies, chocolate chip cookies, etc. Each item will place a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner. All the 1st place winners then compete for Class Champion. The 12 Class Champions then compete for a Reserve Grand Champion and a Grand Champion.

In years past, I have brought upwards of 20 baked goods to the Fair. Crazy, huh? This year I decided to try and bring one good item for each Class, the item that I thought would be capable of being Class Champion. OK, there were a couple Classes where I just couldn't decide on one item but I was close... I ended up entering a total of 12 items across 9 different Classes.

One of the Classes that ended up with 2 items was Candy. I had a Apple Cider Caramel recipe that had been sitting in my recipe box for over a year and I was dying to try it out so that was going to be my Caramel item in the Candy Class.

The State Fair next month has a Maple Syrup Contest - basically, you cook or bake something with maple syrup in it. I am entered in this and I thought I'd practice my State Fair recipe at the County Fair. My plan was to enter Maple Walnut Fudge so I decided I would do a practice run and enter it as my Other Candy item in the Candy Class.

So...
Thursday rolls around and it's like 90 degrees with 90% humidity.

The Apple Cider Caramels use boiled cider. I usually order my boiled cider from King Arthur Flour. I wasn't organized enough this year to order it ahead of time so I had to make my own.

Making your own boiled cider is simple; just a bit time consuming. Take a half gallon of fresh apple cider and boil it down to 1 cup.

I make my boiled cider. I think it heats my kitchen up another 10 degrees...

The caramels have to sit in the pan they are poured in for 12-18 hours at room temperature after they are made. I only have one square pan and I need it for both the caramels and the fudge...

So, plan is to make the fudge first, lift it out of the pan as soon as it sets up, then make the caramels.

I make the fudge according to directions, cool it to 110 degrees, add walnuts, then start stirring... and stirring... and stirring. Fudge is tricky because you have to stir it until it starts to candy but if you're too slow in pouring it into your pan it will set up right in your saucepan. I could feel the fudge start to thicken so I poured it. If fudge is going to candy it will do so in a matter of minutes.

Ten minutes later... fudge is still "oozy." Crap. You can re-melt fudge and try to get it to candy again as long as there is nothing already mixed in. I already had walnuts in it so re-melting was not an option. Think, think... what to do?

The whole mess was actually the consistency of caramel. With this type of candy you cook it to a certain temperature to get fudge; cook it a little hotter and you get caramel and even hotter, you get toffee. It's all about how you heat your sugar. I figured I cooked it too long and made caramel instead of fudge. That's just fine except that I already had an item for my Caramel entry and you can't enter two things under the same item number.

What to do? I could remake it. Each batch contains, among other things, a cup of maple syrup. Maple syrup is expensive. I'm cheap. And I'm hot... and I don't have a lot of time -
- Side note: my younger daughter is at a dance intensive in Carmel, at least hour away from my house. She is dancing from 9 am to 4 pm everyday. That means we leave the house at 7:30 am and I return at 10 am. I'm "free" until 3 pm when I have to leave and pick her up, then fight rush hour traffic on the Interstate to get back home.

Anyhoos, I had 5 hours of food prep time on Thursday and I'd spent half of it already making boiled cider and cooking fudge that wouldn't candy. I threw the whole disaster into the refrigerator and thought some more.

Got it! If it was turning into maple walnut caramel instead of fudge, I can still enter it in the Other Candy category as long as I don't call it a caramel. I decided to use it as a caramel filling in a piece of candy like you get in a chocolate box and call them Maple Walnut Drops.

I melted a bag of white candy melts. I then started scooping the oozy mess into balls and threw them in the freezer to get hard so I had some chance in Hades of handling them. You have to turn in 6 candies for each entry. I made about 10 balls, covered them in white candy melts, then decided I was done with this project. Ten gives me enough for me to pick six that look similar and "good."

I left the rest of the oozing mess out on the counter on a sheet pan and moved on to making the caramels. I'll clean that whole mess up later.

Short while later... I look at the oozy mess on the sheet pan and the edges are lightening in color... it's losing it's shiny surface sheen... and it's solidifying into fudge...about 3 hours late.

I made the caramels, poured them in the square pan then left for Carmel.

After dinner I made my cakes. I am entering the Chocolate Espresso Stout Cake that I entered in the State Fair last year. Plan was to make the cakes on Thursday then ice them on Friday. Cakes were made without incident.

Now back to the failed fudge. My new creation looked pretty good...

Were the centers solid or caramel? I bit into one. Solid.

OK then. Maple Walnut Drops it is. My entry into the Other Candy category.

I didn't have the heart to throw out the rest of the now hardened mess so I cut it into pieces and brought it to my co-workers at work on Saturday. Surprisingly, they ate it all... but I'm convinced people at the hospital will eat anything.

Sunday I went to the Fair after work to see how I had done.

 

 

Winning the Candy Class with this creation was a total surprise. I don't think I could re-create it if I had to! Needless to say, I am also making a different item for the Maple Syrup Contest at the State Fair.

 

Tune in tomorrow if you want to hear how my Friday went.

Week 1 - Roller Coasters, Late Nights, Beer and Bacon

Well, it's was Week 1 of Monumental training and I ended up spending it like a twenty-something, which I'm NOT...

Sunday - 0 miles
Spent the morning buying food for King's Island and then went to work til midnight.

Monday - 0 miles
Took my daughter and 5 of her friends to King's Island for the day for her 16th birthday. All of us rode rides all day long. First thing I did was get on the Racer, the wooden roller coaster that had been a favorite of mine as a child...yah, as a child. I quickly discovered that I no longer have the back and neck of a 12 year old. I thought my teeth were going to get shook out of my head and I had a headache by the time it was over. But, did this stop me? Nooooo. We had Fast Pass bracelets for the day. We were going to ride rides all day. Thankfully, the newer metal roller coasters weren't quite as rattlely. In the afternoon, the girls went to the water park and played in the wave pool while the boys continued to ride rides. I took it upon myself to hurl myself down every waterslide I could find because I'm like that. Waterpark closed at 8 pm and all of us rode more roller coasters until the park closed at 10 pm. The kids all fell asleep before I got out of the parking lot. I had to drive 2 and a half hours home. I could hardly stay awake. Finally got to bed after 1 am.

Tuesday - 5 miles
Ohhh... I was sore from riding roller coasters. Sucks getting old!

Wednesday - 30 minutes of swimming + 5 miles
I hadn't been in the pool for over a week and I'm still thinking about doing a Sprint Tri next month. The swim is 300 meters. I can still only go 50 meters before I have to stop. It took me 15 minutes to complete 300 meters. Ugh. After that I did my run. SO much easier to run!

Thursday - 0 miles
Had to work the morning shift which means getting up at 4:30 am and as you all know by now, I am NOT a morning person! I was too tired after I got off work to do anything.

Friday - 6 miles
Had to work that same morning shift again but decided I would do the Midnight 5K in Seymour that night as my speed work for the week. I was so tired after work that I had to lay down for a couple hours and almost decided not to go since I wasn't even registered for it yet. However, I'm suppose to be marathon training and I'd only run 10 miles total for the week so I felt I had to go get some miles in.

Once I got to the race, it turned into a perfect night to run. Clear and temps in the mid-60's. I did a 2 mile warm up and got done right before the start. My goal was to see if I could run under 25:00. So...

Mile 1 - 7:32
Mile 2 - 8:11
Mile 3 - 8:19
last 0.1 - 0:35.7

Official time - 24:37.7 (7:55 pace)

Mile 3 read long for me so I probably ran 3 faster and the last 0.1 slower. Anyhoos, what's interesting was that I looked up last year's race post tonight and discovered I had run pretty much the exact same time last year at this race and I had had the same goal last year! I ended up finishing second in my age group this year. Did a 1 mile cool down and finally got back to my in-laws house in Columbus at 2 am to pass out.

Saturday - 0 miles
Frankly, I should have run but was too tired to run in the afternoon. That evening, my friend Hope and I went to the Beer and Bacon Classic.

Yup, all the craft beer and bacon related food you can eat between 7 pm and 10 pm.

This was my favorite bacon item - a beer flavored marshmallow that was toasted over an open flame then rolled in bacon, chocolate bits, and cookie crumbs. Pop it in your mouth in one bite. Heaven on a stick! Yes, this is why I'm in the "run to eat club!"

We didn't even make it to 10 pm. We were so full of food and beer (well, me beer; Hope was my designated driver) we had to roll ourselves to the car shortly after 9 pm and I was passed out asleep by 11.

So that's the Week 1 summary. 16 miles total. Lots of playing and not a whole lot of running.

Square One... Sparkler Sprint

Last week was back to square one. Time to start thinking about training for something again. I finally wanted to race again.

Admittedly, I had a pretty full first half of the year. Three full marathons in 98 days. I never planned it that way, it just happened. Then, the 500 Festival Mini on May 2nd, seven days after the last full. I'm one to chase times but not numbers. I ran the Mini because I was registered. The original plan had been to try to run a half PR either at Derby, the 500 Festival, or the Seymour Half on May 16th but since I didn't BQ in Napa I had to run the full at Derby. After that my legs were toast. I jogged through the 500 Festival Half purely on residual marathon training feeling like it was not the brightest thing to do then decided that I really didn't care to collect any more meaningless finishes. I pulled out of the Seymour Half as well as the Indiana Timing Memorial Weekend Triple (5K, 4 mile trail, and 1 mile) - all races I had pre-registered for - and decided not to register for anything else until I wanted to race again.

I think watching Western States was what did it. I finally wanted to get back into a training cycle. Then I perused my calendar... and then my work calendar. Not a lot of choices at this point. I settled on Monumental. It is roughly 18 weeks away.

So last week was square one again. The week before the first week of training. Time to start running more consistently again. I watched the finish of Western States online then went out for a run on Sunday, taking the rolling hills by my house. I was still thinking about Western States last year when I realized I was already at the 2 mile mark. I guess I was so deep in thought that I don't even remember how I got to where I was, but there I was already at the 2 mile mark. I got to 3, then turned around and went back home for 6 miles for the day.

Monday I was suppose to take my older daughter and her friends to King's Island for her 16th birthday but it was pouring rain so we decided to postpone the trip. The kids watched movies at our house all day and I went for a 7 mile run.

Tuesday was the same. I just started running and ended up doing 7 because it just seemed like a good number.

Wednesday was a 12 hour work day and decided it was a rest day since I was already up to 20 miles for the week which is the most mileage I've done in a week since the Derby Marathon in April.

Thursday I saw my chiropractor. I hadn't seen him in over a year. He spent a full hour with me and it was wonderful. I ran another 7 miles after that.

I couldn't decide what to run on Friday. 7 miles a day seemed to be a good number for me but I didn't want to go crazy my first week back either. Plus, I decided last minute to do a road race on Saturday as a kind of a time trial to see what kind of shape I was in and I had to go to work so I ran 3 miles instead.

Saturday the alarm went off and I didn't want to get out of bed. I thought about blowing off the race and just running by myself at a reasonable hour. However, I had to go to work again by 2:30 pm so I knew if I didn't get out of bed NOW, I'd probably not get a run in, so I climbed out of bed and went to my race.

It was the 4th of July Sparkler Sprint. I haven't done a 5K since April 4th so I really had no idea how this was going to pan out. I decided I'd be happy with anything that started with 25.

So... get there and find out the course had to be rerouted due to flooding and it's a bit short. Then, stupid Garmin won't track my distance. It's the same problem I had in Charleston. The watch says I have a satellite but when I start running it will only track the time so I essentially am wearing an expensive stopwatch. I discovered this on my warm up. I had planned on a 2 mile warm up, race, then 1 mile cool down to get 6 miles total for the day. Since the stupid watch wouldn't track distance I decided to just go out on the course and run 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back.

Now it's race time... I get to the 1 mile mark. Watch is reading 7:06. No flippin' way! The course markers have to be short too. 2 mile time is 15:06. Finish time - 22:56. The course was only 2.85 miles. I ended up running an 8:03 pace which translates to a 25:00 5K so I guess I should be happy I'm not terribly out of shape.

Nora Jo, me, and Jane

So 36 miles for my warm up week. Now I just need a training plan.

I Have a New Hero

It's hard to believe it's been a year. A year ago today I was out on the Western States trail pacing my friend John to his first 100 mile finish line. This year I stayed home. Last year I missed my oldest daughter's birthday to be at Western States. This year is her 16th birthday. I needed to be with my family.

John ran again this year so I relegated myself to following the race online and getting text updates from his friends. As I watched the webcast though, I missed it all. I'd like to go out there again to work the race. It's an experience unlike any other...

An experience unlike any other...

Shortly after the race ended one of his friends texted me a link to a finish line video. Western States posts all the racers finish line videos on their Facebook page. It was the finish line video of Gunhild Swanson. Last person to finish the race in 29:59:54 - 6 seconds under the 30 hour cut off. Gunhild Swanson is 70 years old. Today I saw her post-race interview.

She's my new hero. What she did at the end of her race is beyond amazing. If you read my post from last year's race, you can see that we struggled with that 30 hour cut off time for almost the entire race. When we reached Robie Point at mile 98.9, we had 62 minutes to go the 1.3 miles to the finish line but it was never a sure thing until we reached the track at Placer High School. John finished with 33 minutes to spare and I was having a heart attack the whole time. I was so emotionally spent at the finish that I had to leave before they blew the final horn at 30 hours. I had heard that sometimes there are runners still on the track at 30 hours that miss the cut off. I didn't think I could handle seeing that after our own team racing the clock the whole race.

Now, THIS WOMAN, takes a wrong turn late in the race - so she ends up running more than 100.2 miles - then gets to Robie Point with 17 minutes to get to the finish line! She finally gets on the track with just over 90 seconds left. You enter the track just after the second turn so it's about another 300 meters to the finish line. She had to run that at a 7:00 pace to make it! I remember at the end of the Derby Marathon this year I was running as hard as I could to finish... and it took me 2:27 to run my last 0.2 miles. This woman is not only 24 years older than me, she also had another 74 miles on her legs and runs it in 90 seconds.

Yes, I want to be Gunhild Swanson when I grow up.

Tomorrow

It's been a month of tomorrows...

Tomorrow I will...
- eat better
- get a good run in and record it
- schedule all my overdue doctors appointments
- do my PT and strength exercises
- catch up on my email
- blog... because it's suppose to keep me accountable
- etc., etc. ....you get the picture

I've always been a procrastinator. The queen of cram. Always trying to stay just one step ahead of whatever I'm running from or towards.

Everyone told me to enjoy qualifying for Boston. No need to tell me twice. I've wallowed in it... stayed up late, slacked off on getting workouts in, eaten bad food. The scary thing is, I like it. Every day I don't do something, it gets easier and easier NOT to do it. I guess that's the fear that keeps me going because I LIKE to be able to, oh, fit into my clothes and run 10 miles without thinking about it.

So I've decided that today is my tomorrow.

I had oatmeal for breakfast. It gets boring eating oatmeal for breakfast (I add blueberries and pecans to mine) but I've found that I always feel better later in the day when I've had my oatmeal (instead of cookies.)

I saw my girl-parts doctor yesterday for my yearly checkup. It's the only doctor I manage to see on any yearly basis, mainly because I can't get my baby-away pills unless I go see her. I got weighed. I held my breath. I sighed with relief when I was still under 130 lbs (128 to be exact). I'm healthy. I was told my resting heart rate was "low" and my blood pressure was 102/70. Yea. Then it was pointed out to me that I hadn't had my "yearly" mammogram since, oh, 2012...

I scheduled a mammogram today.

I scheduled an eye doctor's appointment. I haven't seen my eye doctor since 2006 when he did my eye surgery. He knows I'm a doctor so he told he to come back "when I thought I needed to see him." He sees my husband every year. I decided I needed to see him this year. I have to renew my driver's license and I, umm, can't read drive thru menus anymore so maybe I should go see him.

I scheduled an appointment with my chiropractor. Stupid left leg pain still won't go away, even when I'm not running.

I should do my PT exercises. I promise I'll do them tonight!

I ate a relatively healthy lunch... baby greens salad with roasted beets and goat cheese, watermelon chunks, and an Einstein's asiago cheese bagel. OK, bagel wasn't the healthiest but I'm trying.

I took my daughter to dance class then hit the Monon for 6 miles...

So backtracking, I have done a little running. Three days ago it was 5 miles an hour after eating Taco Bell. Not the brightest idea of my life. Yesterday it was another 5 miles after having a "fun" meal at The Cheesecake Factory with my kids. "Fun" meaning appetizers and desserts, my two favorite courses. Yup. Felt like death. Today should have been better... but it was 1:30 in the afternoon and 80+ degrees. I got a side stitch after an 11 minute plus mile. I walked a tenth of a mile until it was gone and started running again. The stitch came back. Groan. I just kept slogging along for two more 11 minute plus miles. The stitch finally went away after the third mile. Then my hamstrings ached. So, another ugly run but I guess an ugly run is better than no run at all. I kept thinking that running in the heat is good for you because it builds blood volume or capillaries or something like that... I'll look it up when I cool off.

So it's a start. I've blogged today. I haven't signed up for any more races the rest of the year. I'm not sure what I want to do yet racing-wise.

I DO want to...
- get down to 120 lbs
- do more strength and core training
- and stay accountable!

Serendipity

Serendipity noun. the occurrence or development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

Call it what you will...
I was suppose to be in court the last two weeks; the culmination of a court case that had dragged on for 7 years. Twice already, in other years, I had been told to clear my calendar to go to court only to have the case continued (in legal speak I guess it's called a continuance). Each time I had to clear my calendar, move my work days to the rest of the month and cancel anything else on the schedule. Last year it happened in August... totally screwed with my State Fair plans, only to be told... psych, never mind, we're not going to court until next year. So this is next year and the case was finally to go this month. Two weeks cleared on my schedule (hello weekends at work!)

Then comes the email. The kind with lots of exclamation points and capital letters saying READ ME NOW!! After 7 years, all parties involved came to an eleventh hour settlement. After 7 years there would be no court case. I can go burn that huge box of countless depositions sitting in my office. It was over.

So now I had two whole weeks with nothing on my weekday schedule. The kids are still in school. I decided to learn to swim.

No one ever taught me how to swim. Growing up, my friends either went to the Riviera Club or the Knights of Columbus to swim in the summertime but my family didn't belong to either so we rarely went to a pool. I spent several years in my teens as a Girl Scout camp aide so I started splashing around in the pool there and accomplished something between a dog paddle and a crawl that kept me afloat and allowed me to go the width of the pool which was the requirement to go off the diving board.

Later, after I finished my Emergency Medicine residency, I decided I wanted to get my scuba certification. I had already dove many times with my husband but just hadn't had time to get the official certification. I could do everything on the check off list except swim 400 meters. I spent countless days by myself in the therapy pool at Kalamazoo Valley Orthopedics practicing my "swimming" before signing up for the certification class. Finally, when my class started - in January - I found that I was the only one in class. I guess not many people want to get scuba certified in January in Michigan. Anyway, it was a 6 week class. My instructor asked me the first night what I could do...ummm, about everything. He then threw me in the pool and went down the check off sheet. Finally it's time for the swim. I went maybe 100 meters then told him I couldn't do it. I was too out of breath. I didn't know how to breathe. He yelled back that it didn't matter how I covered 400 meters just as long as I did it. I backstroked it. He passed me. We were done in one night (except I had to go back and do my open water dives in March). I was done with swimming for awhile after that.

It's always been in the back of my head though... I want to know how to really swim. There was always some excuse. I used to be blind as a bat so I wore contacts. As a self taught swimmer I didn't put my head under water. Get goggles idiot. OK, now I have goggles but I had right shoulder issues. I dislocated it in 1998; after that it started getting so loose that it would dislocate about once a month. Any movement where I opened my chest or, sometimes, if I even reached for something, my shoulder would dislocate. Luckily, it was so loose that I could pop it back in but it really discouraged me from trying to swim.

2010. I got my shoulder surgically fixed. I was going to swim now... but first I had 6 months of physical therapy so the shoulder could move.Then, it was always next month, next summer, next year... until NOW.

I had two "free" weeks. I was going  to really swim. I got a YMCA membership and committed to private swim lessons. I got a really nice college student named Hannah to teach me.

Dying whale. That was what I felt like on day one. I imagine I looked and sounded like one too. I want to be like all the other lap swimmers - swimming effortless, quietly gliding through the water lap after lap. Instead, there I was, thrashing around loudly gasping for air with every breath and clinging to the edge of the pool hyperventilating after every 25 meter lap.

I got introduced to a kickboard. I was told to inhale with my mouth and blow out my nose. Day three, I got introduced to a pull buoy - a little foam block to stick between your legs so you can concentrate on your breathing and your arms. Pull buoys made a world of difference. For once I could concentrate on my breathing and not worry about kicking my legs wildly to stay afloat. I stopped hyperventilating.

There's so much I've learned in two weeks. So much to think about when you swim! Breathe to the side, look over behind your shoulder, keep your head and ear in the water, reach with your arms, keep your fingers together. Now head in the water, really put your head down. Two strokes with your arms, kick with your legs... little kicks, flap at the ankles and break the water, keep your knees together, butt up at the surface, little kicks, little kicks... remember to slowly exhale. Head down, head down. Brush your arm down through the water so your thumb touches your leg. Now turn your head to the other side to breathe... keep your ear in the water!

I think I've made progress. 30 minutes of swimming totally wipes me out though. Next week it's back to work, the kids have their last week of school, and I'm suppose to get some swims in on my own. After that, Hannah's going to have me for two more lessons and then it will be up to me to continue.

So what's the minimum swim distance for a sprint triathlon? Gotta have goals ya know!

Finding Joy... Clutter and Closure

It started the first day of first grade. I remember coming home and showing my parents the worksheets I had done at school. Then I threw them in the trash can. My dad immediately said, "No, no, you can't throw those away. You need to keep them for review." ...and so it started. I became an organized packrat, filing away everything for further review, keeping things in case I'd need or want them again...

I think lots of runners get the taper crazies. That restlessness you get when you're sitting around waiting for your big race and cutting down the mileage. I never really got restless until I cut the miles for Napa; then, I think I got more anxious then restless. In any case, I got a touch of the taper crazies...and then it kinda stuck because I didn't BQ and decided to train all over again.

In the weeks preceding Napa I found some "other interests" - I stumbled across Darla DeMorrow's website at HeartWork Organizing. I think I was looking for some kind of inner peace. One thing led to another and I was on this website and then I heard about this book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" by Marie Kondo. I bought it on a whim, then read it cover to cover.

WHAT I GOT OUT OF IT...
It's all the clutter in our lives that hold us down. We hang onto our past so much it's hard to make room for the future. Sometimes we're drowning in so much stuff, physically and literally, that it feels like a daily struggle just to our heads above water. It's hard to find peace when we're surrounded by chaos.

Kondo's book pointed out that once you physically declutter, you can see what's really important and you have time to do the things you WANT to do because you're not constantly wasting your time picking up and maintaining what's not important. Her book is different that the traditional here's-how-to-keep-your-house-clean types of books because she wants you to do a drastic clean up ONCE and be done. Don't organize and store but get RID of all that doesn't matter. There's a lot of emotional baggage in a lot of physical things. When you declutter you clear your mind too and along with clearance comes peace.

The reality is, I don't have time to do a massive all at once house cleaning. However, I had another restless 8 weeks after Napa training for the Derby Marathon and I still felt crazy... and so I decluttered. I wanted the tidiness that Kondo talked about.

So here's my progress... I got rid of 10 years of dance competition costumes. Thousands of dollars of costumes (no joke). My older daughter stopped dancing two years ago and has no intention of doing it again. My younger daughter still dances but no longer competes. I still have the photos and the programs. Hanging, I had over a whole closet of costumes that my kids would never wear again. At this point in my life it's too much trouble to try and resell them (each costume was about $100). I donated them all back to my former studio. Hopefully someone can reuse a competition costume. Dance competition chapter closed.

 

 

I got rid of everything I had left over from my kids' Girl Scout days. I used to be a troop leader. My older daughter was in scouting from kindergarten to 6th grade. All the kids lost interest and didn't have time after 6th grade so we disbanded. Being the leader, I was left with all the troop supplies. You accumulate a lot of supplies in 7 years. Tons and tons of craft items. Handbooks. Extra insignia. I love crafts too so I had quite the extra stash of stuff myself. Everything that I had no current use for, I decided to donate. I posted a message on our Girl Scout Service Unit's group message board (since I never got taken off the leader list) and I had 4 responses in 10 minutes. The woman that answered first (in 2 minutes!) got it all. I ended up filling the entire back of my SUV with 3 large boxes and 4 grocery bags of stuff. It was good to see it go. Girl Scout chapter closed.

Kondo actually lists an order of how to get rid of things. Personal clothing is first. This I had no problem with. I've really never been a clothing person anyway. I did learn that if you folded and stacked your clothes vertically in your drawers stuff wouldn't get "lost" at the bottom of the clothing stack and you could see everything all at once. Lovely idea... and truth was, all the stuff that was lost at the bottom was stuff I never wore. Bye bye...

 

Last on Kondo's list is memorabilia. This is where I'm at now. The point to decluttering though is that you are left with what is really important. You discover what you really love to do. Me, I'm catching up on my scrapbooking these days. I actually got all my Spring Break photos scapbooked last week!

Next up will be working on some UFOs (Unfinished Objects) - to finish or trash will be the question. Kondo's advice is to ask yourself "Does this bring joy?"

Get rid of the things that don't bring joy. Off to find more joy!