Rainy weather forces squirrels into the attic; if you listen, you can hear them on the floorboards in the morning. And so I've joined them.
Digging out boxes and bags of accumulation and relocating it to the dining room for sorting.
It's like Christmas and Birthday and Moving wrapped into one.

Why in the world do I keep this stuff?
I vow I will only keep what we will use. Now and not later.
And then, I wax poetic over baby shoes, stick figures scrawled on paper scraps,
and old greeting cards.

The Orange sweater my grandmother knitted for me...
It's scratchy mohair and 3/4 sleeved--so Gramma knitted cabled orange cuffs and cleverly covered the orange buttons to attach the sleeve extensions.
I start remembering my country Gramma, how much I loved being with her, how she must have thought about me while she crafted this sweater and so on and so forth.

And then it occurs to me that if I had made the sweater and it ended up in a box in my granddaughter's dusty attic, I'd rather it see the light of day and be wrapped around a tough skin somewhere on somebody who LOVES to wear brilliant orange.

Now that's settled.
Until I realize that no one will care about my Gramma and that she made this sweater over 40 years ago--like I do. And that's the way it goes, box after box.

Ebay is a great invention. Someone somewhere on the planet is selling something every minute of every hour! You can't stump ebay. The trio of southern belle austrian crafted castile soaps--still wrapped and in the original box--there's a match on ebay. Someone's selling a Brio loom--just like the one I pulled out of the attic--and it's bid up to $150! I email this person in Sweden just to make sure it's a child size loom, and bingo! the little bit of weaving Jesse left on it looks like cold hard cash.

Suddenly everything looks green! I check out auctions for Chatty Cathy, Mr. Peanut, Pollyanna, and the Ginny doll still in its original box. 3 pairs of Ginny-sized shoes going for $46! The box alone will bring in big bucks!

Then there's Brenda. Who in the world would want Brenda, but me?
My intown grandmother sat her in a child-sized chair, waiting for my visit. Brenda went everywhere with me after that. With a bit of my whining, she was squirreled away in the trunk crevice of an packed to the hilt '59 Chevy convertible as it sailed across the plains and crept through Death Valley on its merry way to DisneyLand.
Even if I could stand to take her picture and post it on ebay, who would possibly want Brenda now, wrapped in paper, in her elderly falling apart condition? What would be her starting price? How low will I go?
Now I hate myself.

I get the first load out the door and over to Salvation Army before I can change my mind. It starts to rain again, and I think about my forelorn treasures, stacked on the SA back dock, exposed to the weather. I wonder if I should speed back over and cover it all up with a tarp? Then I glance around the dining room, wall to wall decisions yet to be made.

Nuts--all of it!