I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about life, and about how close life is to death, and about what is most important to accomplish while I am on this side of death (the living side).

A bit morose, I know. A bit high-minded, I know. Also, it's not very easy to complete these morose and high-minded thoughts when you are in almost constant companionship with a 4 year old (soon-to-be), or helping at his sister's schools, or monitoring various pet situations (as all of my various elderly and bright and sunshiney baby pets get to know each other).

Anyway, I have come up with the following thoughts. I have much more thinking to do, by the way.

1. It's time to get rid of my stuff. There's not nearly enough time in the day, week, month, year, or LIFETIME to use the amount of stuff I have accumulated. Back when I was hopeful and enthusiastic I could see the potential in so much of this stuff - "oh, I could use that someday!" "Oh, wouldn't it be fun to sit down and read this book again someday?" Well, now I'm mostly just picking up and putting away that stuff, along with my dad's stuff, and my mom's stuff, and my kids' stuff from all of the various stages of their short lives. I don't want to be doing that. So now, whenever I encounter something more than twice with distaste, I am going to send it on it's way in the river of life. (give it to someone else)
2. It's time to be more adventurous, once I have gotten rid of my stuff. Yes, it is adventurous to have a mini-zoo, as I do...and yes, I feel like I have no time to be adventurous as I am so involved in this motherhood of mine. However, lately I have been feeling extremely old and washed up...and so I guess I need to switch things up a bit. More on this later.

I have 10 bags/boxes of things to get out on my front porch for the veterans to pick up in the morning...and I'm not done tonight! I'm making good progress today on thought 1 of the night, though.