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Renee Mathis's avatar

Y'all do love your games! We added a couple to play with the grands this week: Herd Mentality (made for some funny conversation!) and Rat-a-Tat-Cat, great for the 5 year old on up.

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Reagan Dregge's avatar

I've played Herd Mentality. Over the holiday we played another fun one called That Escalated Quickly.

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Bethany Sanders's avatar

Love this!

Emerald Ash Borers took out the ash trees around us, too, a few years ago. Maybe they were the ancestors of the ones attacking your trees--my understanding is that the emerald ash borers continued shifting on West after killing all the ash trees in our area.

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Reagan Dregge's avatar

I didn't know that they moved westward, wow. I meant (then forgot) to take a picture of some of our logs with the bark stripped off revealing the borers' ravenous patterns. Science-y comments are always welcome!

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Loren Warnemuende's avatar

This letter hits with good timing as we just returned from two weeks of sorting through generational treasures of Kraig’s parents and brought home a good stash of them. I’m feeling in the mood to sort and purge The unnecessary—we’ll see how well I do before the urge wanes….

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Reagan Dregge's avatar

Do you have attics or spare ooms to store the boxes, or are you the type to keep them out in the open before your eyes as a reminder?

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Loren Warnemuende's avatar

No attic here that I’d feel okay storing things! But there are many closets, including one in the Spare Oom, and drawers where papers are stashed. And plenty of things in line of sight reminding me I need to figure out what to do with them….

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Jennifer Degani's avatar

I have been trying to help my mom sort her things. My dad is more practical, but my mom is a keeper. She feels emotionally attached to all the things. I am trying to make sense of it on the front side, but we live far away and I only get there once a year if that. I sometimes wonder where all her photo albums will go and all of my scrapbooks… will my children need the Library of Congress to store it all? And what about my books?

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Loren Warnemuende's avatar

I do wonder about my books, Jennifer! Though my kids are pretty interested in them. But the photos! I brought back albums and slides from Kraig’s parents’ home because I’m the only one in the family with the time or desire to sort them! I’m hoping to get most of the keepers scanned so I can share them with the family. Might as well go through my own old ones in the process.

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Jennifer Degani's avatar

Some of our boys are trying to call dibs on Tolkien and Calvin and Hobbes collections now. 🤣

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Jennifer Degani's avatar

One of my grandfathers loved taking pictures and my mother was the only one of the children interested in keeping them. She loved taking photos and I will likely be the one who keeps those… maybe every generation needs a memory keeper and historian. I have given my books some thought, I will keep some on hand until I die and they can then go to interested family members, some I will encourage people to take when I am alive, and I have considered having a homeschool open house where people can take books for free. I hope that many, if not most go to family: children, grandchildren (should we have any), etc, but I would be most interested in them having an appreciative home.

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Loren Warnemuende's avatar

As my kids are aging out of homeschooling, I’m eyeing what’s left of curriculum and books I know we don’t need to keep—I’m going to be able to hand them off to other families!

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Suzanne Tietjen's avatar

This is so good! We have lived in three old house and love them more than others. You do have to be creative though :)

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Reagan Dregge's avatar

Thank you! Creativity can be a slog, a marvel, or a plain old relief depending on the day.

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