The Super Sweep

It's 8p on Super Bowl Sunday and we're watching the Super Bowl in fast forward because we spent the whole day downstairs 'clean sweeping.' Sigh! Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh!

I'm typing this on my new laptop! I can't express how nice it is to be able to sit in the same room as Kevin, talk to Kevin, and still be able to type this out. It's really making me feel like I'm being a better wife. And friend.

I really didn't accomplish much last week, so I won't bore you with any detail-filled sagas.

But ... Kevin and I got into a really productive argument on Friday night. I know it's probably not very popular to say this ... but, I actually like it when Kevin and I argue. Because we always reach a resolution. We may have a brief silent-treatment spell, but it eventually reaches a nice end.

I've talked about how I've been sorting through our belongings, purging what I can, but I always got to a point in the pile or box or bag when I thought, "Hmmm ... Kevin might want to look at this" or "Kevin may like to keep this." But, when I approach him about looking at something, it has been a battle.

Last week, I looked through all my picture albums, pulling out pictures I thought were worthy of keeping. I had my sister reviewing them as well to make sure she didn't want some of them. I kept the albums that had pictures from after I met Kevin for him to review. He glanced through them quickly and said to keep all of them.

Did I hear him correctly? Keep all of them. Why? I put so much effort into determining that I didn't need a picture of the two of us with his mom in New Orleans because I had a picture of us with both of his parents. I made sure I had a picture of the front of our first home, but deemed the picture of the living room un-necessary because I had a picture of us sitting on the couch in our living room. His response was that he'd rather see me keep pictures "because they're memories" than two boxes of scrap booking paper.

Oh, no he didn't!

I had organized my paper (in ROY G. BIV-form to be specific) for the purpose of being able to better utilize it in a hobby that I enjoyed, but was never able to do because it took too long to gather all the needed tools! And he had the nerve to say that I should get rid of the paper in order to store pictures? But, I want to make cards, not sit in the past!

We had quite the discussion about how we needed to continue to purge our basement in order to have room (physically and emotionally) to move into the future. Upstairs, we physically don't have an extra room for a nursery when #2 blesses us with his/her presence. Downstairs, we physically don't have room to do our hobbies like card making and carpentry. In our entire house, we don't have emotional room to embrace our current life and enjoy every day with Lubbock because we're battling 'stuff' ... and everything that goes along with 'stuff'.

My feelings were hurt because I felt Kevin wanted to hold onto the past and didn't acknowledge the benefits of me being able to enjoy my present. Kevin's feelings were hurt because he felt like I was trying to discredit the past in an effort to make today more important than it is. We both realized the truths in each other's stances and were able to work together on Sunday in order to make our house a better reflection of our family.

We threw away several contractor bags full of trash, donated one entire Pathfinder-full of stuff, and deemed a couple of items worthy of passing along to friends/family. It was an extremely rewarding weekend and I feel closer to Kevin for it ... even though it started with an argument.