We haven’t made it up the mountain yet this week. With the holidays coming and the donation site we’ve been using getting ready to close, we haven’t had the chance. OK, that and the December chill that makes my bones ache in the cold, along with the snow that makes finding anything more complicated.

Most of what we’ve been working on is cleaning out my mother’s storage unit. We have a self-imposed deadline of the end of the month to get it done. In addition to some of my parent’s stuff, we also added a bunch of boxes we stowed when we put new floors and some fresh paint in our living room a few years ago.

As we look through boxes, stuff gets sorted into one of three piles: Keep it to use later; donate it to ARC or Habitat for Humanity; or trash it. This system has been working well. So far, it’s been about 40% keep, 45% donate, and 15% trash. We still have a few more car-loads to sort through, then we can jettison that expense.

Our lives are slowly finding a new normal. We try not to let our thoughts linger on what was lost as we find replacements that will never be the same. The little treasures we find as we sort through storage bring happiness at not losing everything. Even though our world was turned upside-down, we’ll continue to look ahead, each day bringing joy along with sorrow.