All About Angie

Growing Up (Still and Again)

September 19, 2009 on 5:42 pm | In Family |

The beginning of school brings a change of seasons in this rollercoaster called life.  My life, in particular.  After almost 10 solid years of being home with small children (All!  Day!  Long!), suddenly, I am all alone*.

It sounds as if I’m sad and weepy or wishing for more babies (Let me be clear–THIS CONTAINS NO TRUTH WHATSOEVER), but I think it’s normal to grieve for the end of one season and at the same time, look expectantly for what’s to come in this new season.  In any case, I’ve taken a break from blogging (you might have noticed) and I’m trying to figure out what’s next for me.

Ok, so that’s the deal with me.

Now, having said all that, this is part of what I’ve done the last 4 weeks…

Exhibit A, the top shelf of my pantry. (I forgot to take a picture of the whole thing and thus, had cleared out all the other shelves by the time I picked up the camera)  This is a very accurate representation of the whole:

Yeah, kinda scary, huh?  I opened the door to get out the cereal for breakfast one morning and was almost killed by a falling bottle of murderous vanilla extract.  That did it.  My first week of aloneness, I took it upon my person to organize this monstrosity of renegade food products.

I emptied and cleaned the shelves.  I discarded LOTS of icky food.  Apparently, we lived like pigs.  Anyway, Exhibit B:

And to the left there, Exhibit C (or the food that goes back into the pantry–not the trash sack):

JUST.  LIKE.  PIGS.

A few trips to The Container Store and many back-and-knee-breaking hours (days) later, I give you Exhibit D:

And thus, I am done.  Well, it actually stayed that way for about 12 hours (which is about 11 hours and 40 minutes longer than it usually lasts).  I won’t even expose you to the present condition, for fear I will set blogging–in particular, this blog–back 100 years (wink).  Truthfully, I went to the grocery store that afternoon and came home with groceries I didn’t know what to do with.

I guess I will continue to figure out what’s next for me.  I’m beginning to think it will never end, this “figuring out” stuff.  And that’s fine with me.

*Well, sort of.  Mark is still here working.  But he doesn’t usually come out of his little cave until dinnertime.