Pantry Purge

Today I went to Costco & when I got home, I had to fit 24 rolls of paper towels into my disorganized pantry. I grimaced, remembering that I had stuffed glitter, paint tubes, brushes, glue, Popsicle sticks & googly eyes into the back corner because there was a more pressing daily goal that day. So, right then I dove into the pantry. I switched a few shelves around. I got the shop vac out & sucked up oatmeal flakes, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, cereal bits, craft residue, dog hair, spiders dead & alive. 
Each tid bit of trash took me back for an instant (except the spiders, I just felt brave when I dealt with them) - the handful of cereal I snacked on while standing in the pantry gazing up at the boxes of Joe Joe's deciding how many vanilla or candy cane cookies I would take out, the homemade chocolate chip cookies I baked with Zoe, the mini s'mores I made with Nate in the toaster oven, the oatmeal I make for my kids most mornings. I was engrossed & teary eyed.  Then there were the art projects & supplies spanning 4 shelves.  It was time to purge. I have a box for their art but it's filling up & I can't save everything. So, I tossed adorable drawings & old clay sculptures.  I had to let them go, it was so hard, I cherished the memory that went with that silly little "thing" & if I didn't see it, I feared I'd lose the memory & feelings of warmth that went with it.... I needed music. 

Creed's new song, "Rain," got me singing loudly.  I slowly relinquished trying to solve a mystery that I'm part of & remembered to just honor all the minutes, hours, days, weeks, years in life as they occur; this was another cluster of minutes that I would label "pantry purge" for reference.   

I decided to make extra room on the cookie shelf by finishing a box of Joe Joe's.