Where did the summer go!

I'm always grateful my turn to blog is on  a Friday because that gives me time if I don't get to it on Friday to do it on Saturday or Sunday. But my last post was in June! What happened to July and August!

Actually, we had a glorious family reunion in July in Yellowstone Park so that wiped out two weeks - since it takes a two days to get there and two days to return and we got to see both of my Idaho sisters as well as hubby's reunion. We drove through the Park which was our old stomping grounds - we lived so close growing up that a couple of times a month in the summer our family would drive through just on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon between Sunday School in the morning and Sacrament meeting in the evening. Saw lots of wildlife - elk, deer, bison - and our kids saw some bears and a wolf! Count a week to get ready to go and a week to get caught up from being gone and that solves the problem of the disappearing days in July.

Probably my favorite part of the reunion was sitting in a large circle on lawn chairs drawing from a jar a question about some memory of  family life on the farm or of grandparents or parents now deceased. So fun to remember those we loved so much.

In August we met our good friends and former mission president and his wife, the Beckstrands.  We served with them on our mission in Armenia. Can't believe it has been 14 years since we've returned! Every year we meet in Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival and also go to St. George to a performance at Tuacahn at their incredible red stone amphitheater. This year's presentation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame was amazing! They are wonderful friends and we enjoyed sharing memories of our struggles and triumphs in helping set up the Church in Armenia.

Times sharing memories with family and friends are treasures.

Now I'm literally going through many memories. We're replacing our carpets throughout the house with ceramic tile. That entails removing everything from each room. We have lived in this house for 31 years. I do family history. I have one entire corner devoted to family history files on bookcases and in plastic containers. I have years worth of research from writing books. I have thousands of photographs from that research and of family. There are old manuscripts - the first three or four drafts of Emeralds and Espionage which prove how I finally learned to write a book instead of just tell a story.

What do I do with all of that! How do I part with those old things that will not mean anything at all to those who will have to sort through them when I die? I just found my bandelow from when I was first in Young Women's - and the scrapbook I kept of the work I did to earn each merit badge - the precursor to today's Personal Progress. We spent some fun time yesterday with a daughter and granddaughters looking over my projects. What do I do with that! No one will want it when I die.

But I cannot move it back into this room when the tile is finished and I put my study back together. I cannot put off the inevitable. Everything has to be sorted and disposed of or saved to its proper place. I have one week to accomplish the impossible! Guess I'd better get back to my sorting.