On Empty Milk Crates and Happy Thoughts

Spent some time cleaning/ organizing today. Here's the end result:

That's a bag of papers to be burned and 3 empty milk crates. "Why do we care about empty milk crates?"  you ask (I feel a better question would be, "Why I am I spending my weekend reading a blog about someone else cleaning their room?" but you're already here, so I'll humor you); because those crates used to be packed with teacher books, files folders filled with lesson plans, and binders on a variety of topics- all now decluttered and neatly organized and tucked away- just waiting for my next move. And, because each was filled past the top and therefore unstackable, there's now approximately 3 more square feet of floor/ horizontal surface space in my room.

The files all went into one of my two filing cabinets, the one from the fleeting days of my independent living, not the one I'd asked for and received for my 13th birthday (are you really surprised?). One look at the cabinets original contents and it was clear that this is where I put stuff that was "to be filed" instead of actually just filing it. It was draw full of random papers- mostly bills and various statements- all stacked or just jammed in without rhyme or reason. Among them, pay stubs from earlier jobs, specifically, jobs where I didn't THINK I was making that much money, but now, of course, I make even less. But, we know what happens when we dwell on these things, so, I chose to focus on some happier scraps of paper.

Clockwise, from the upper left:

• Papers from some of my favorite students at the ALL School
• A playbill for Xanadu
• A name tag from my brother's wedding
• An invitation to my friend Loren's wedding
• A postcard from Nick when he visited Japan
• A valentine from Nick that reads, "iguana love you forever" on the inside
• A graduation program from when my "little" Iva, from Big Brothers/ Big Sisters finished high school
• A short letter from my friend Renee

I also happened across this flower in all my organizing:

My high school boyfriend Mike (introduced here and more recently referenced here) was/ is something of an origami guru. While I kept most of the things he made me, shockingly I did not have one specific spot where I collected them all. They are, therefore, spread all around my room. I come across his one of his pieces every few weeks. It's like a delightful, unplanned Easter Egg hunt.