Pencils, Bookmarks and Moving

I recently mentioned that one of my girlfriends had gone to Pennsylvania to start cleaning out her parent's home. She spent a week there and didn't make much progress. One of her comments was that her father had all kinds of collections of things, particularly pencils. I laughed when she told me this because my father also had some hoarding issues going on. His "collections" included pencils as well. When I was clearing out his home two years ago, I came upon a bag filled with paper bookmarks. There had to be well over 500 of them! I just laughed and laughed at the discovery in that damp, dim basement. I ended up taking the bag, first of all because I found the collection hysterical. But also because I am always in need of bookmarks and now I have a lifelong supply at the ready. There are designs for every season and every holiday so I can coordinate my bookmarks to the type of book I'm reading or the weather!

I was reminded of all of this when I attended my father's care plan meeting at his assisted living facility last week. The staff leading the meeting remarked that my father seems to have an obsession about pencils and has a rapidly growing collection in his room. Apparently, whenever anyone needs a pencil they go to my father because he is sure to have one. This all made me think that who we are deep within is always there, despite where we live. I suppose this observation has given me a small measure of comfort in that even though we are soon leaving our home, our personalities, values and our funny little quirks are going with us. We won't be losing ourselves just because our address is changing. The really important aspects of our lives will be safe and sound.

Today I am grateful:

1. For the opportunity to talk to some fellow cashiers at work to get to know them better and share similar feelings/experiences.
2. That my job affords me the luxury of being able to purchase a take out meal on the weekends for the boys to enjoy when there isn't a lot of time for me to cook.
3. For the chicken wing dinner I was able to get for us (a huge change of pace for us - we seldom have wings/fries/coleslaw).
4. That the house has remained cool despite the heat wave outside.
5. That the music track at work is playing a lot of 70s and Disco favorites of mine.