Memorial Day

I have today off. It's been nice the way I've come back from the wedding and honeymoon, because last week I worked only 2 1/2 days (because of jury duty) and this week I'll work 4. It's like I'm easing gently back into the work schedule.

Here's a few more pictures from the wedding and honeymoon. Amy gave us the "official" wedding pictures this weekend, so I'll be going through them and posting some of them this week, but here are the "unofficial" ones taken by friends and family.




And pictures we took on the honeymoon. Our ship was the NCL Dawn, and it was HUGE.



We spent last week cleaning, arguing over where to put various pieces of furniture and throwing away all sorts of things. Matt and I have very different ideas about what merits keeping and what should be thrown away. I tend to keep things, in case I or someone I know might need them in the future. Sometimes this is a good thing, and I can come up with useful things pretty handily, but a lot of the time it just means I have too much stuff. I'm sure if I went to a psychologist and they analyzed me, they would say that I keep things out of a need for security, to be sure that I am not ever found wanting or unable to provide for myself. What if there comes a time when I need a particular thing... say... D batteries which I currently only use in the air pump for the air mattress? What if I need D batteries at some point in the future for some other thing, and I cannot afford D batteries? So what if I don't have a particular storage place for those batteries? Shouldn't I keep them against the future the way a squirrel hoards acorns?

Matt doesn't see things this way. The way he sees things, if there isn't a use for that thing right now, or a particular place to store that thing, then why are we keeping it? So he will throw things away that I never would. Like old towels which are stringy and stained and worn out. He came into the room I was in last week and held out three such towels and said he was going to the throw them away. "Well, we could rip them up and use them for rags," I said, even though I have plenty of cleaning rags already. This is how we think differently. I think, "Don't throw things away until you're sure you don't and won't ever need them." While Matt thinks, "Don't keep things unless you're sure you have a use for them right now."

So while he's working today, I'm going to try to make myself go through my closet and my desk drawers and sort everything into "keep" "toss" and "give away" piles. Hopefully I'll make some room and get rid of things I haven't used in years. Wish me luck!