Dust boogers.

Emily and I worked five hours on Dad's room today. I have a carload of stuff to donate, plus there were many more bags out for trash day. Chris and Miko came over and Miko cleaned all the trash in the yard and Chris mowed. Emily had planned to work at her waitressing job today, but when she learned I was willing to pay $10 an hour for toting, lifting, and following orders she got someone to cover her shift and came with me instead. She knew she'd make more money that way! She did sit and text a couple of times while I was still working, but she did a good job, really. Emily is a VERY good person to have around when it comes to sorting things out. She is not sentimental about THINGS at all. I am, and I fight the packrat urge. I think between us we achieved a good balance of purging, yet respecting Dad's belongings and privacy. When there were items we could not agree on, Miko or Emily would go ask Dad. I want to be very careful of his feelings because his ill health is making him also be very depressed and I don't want to add sadness or anger on top of that. We boxed up all the photos and documents relating to family history. Emily took one small batch to start scanning for record keeping. My dad's cousin Craig wants to go through and get all the ones from that side of the family and scan them and work on identifying all the dates, names, places, etc. He is the Mormon side of the family so it's all very important to him from that viewpoint. When they get that done I'd like to get them all put on discs so we can give them to others in the family who are interested. I found a couple of items I want to make sure Karen and the kids get copies - a card Bobby sent where he wrote a poem - and a couple of letters he wrote, I think when he was in the marines. I should have made sure I brought those home with me, but I didn't. I will make sure to alert Craig and Emily about that.

The pictures I am posting are of a couple of Emily's apartment - I want to illustrate how austere her surroundings are. She has Mom and Dad's wedding picture displayed and refrigerator magnets and that is IT in her front room. In her bedroom she has one set of shelves with books and decorative items, other than that, everything else is completely utilitarian.

The other couple of pictures are Dad's room after. We tried to keep all his modeling stuff in the same place (on those white shelves) and boxed up his map collection and it's all on top of the dresser. I don't know that he will ever get to work on his models again. I don't think he feels well enough, but I wasn't about to be the one to say. "Let's dump it, your modeling life is over." He's actually a genius (I really mean the true use of that word.) in his modeling. He has built some from kits, but he often looked at pictures of airplanes, drew his own scale drawings and plans, bought odd clearance pieces of wood and made amazing airplane frames. He always felt like he couldn't afford the fittings and the coverings to complete the models, however. I wish, oh how I wish, he would have stopped doing so many and fully completed ONE. He always said he wanted to make a model of Amelia Earhart's last plane and donate it to Earhart school. I know he has every bit of talent and skill to have done it, but he never did and now it's too late. I could just cry about that.

Positive thoughts that what Emily and I did feels good emotionally to Mom and Dad and that it helps physically for Dad to have more mobility in at least that little part of the house.