A few years back, a little Japanese woman with OCD wrote an unlikely best seller about organizing your sock drawer. Her mantra was “things should spark joy” and, if they don’t, we should purge those unhappy objects from our home for an uncluttered space. 

For the past two weeks, Steve and I have been decluttering our garage and basement. In fact, as I’m typing this, Jonah is bang-bang-banging in the basement and bringing down an ugly drop ceiling, so I can install new lighting and reorganize the space. I need room for my book business. Ian needs a workbench to rebuild computers. And Steve wants a worktable for growing seedlings. We need room for our new lives, so we must purge our old lives — bins of baby books, forgotten musical instruments, and grandma’s tea cups. 

While I have some heavy things on my plate right now — a sad article, the exhausting search for a good school for Ian, the uncertainty of how I’ll keep him busy this summer — more things are making me happy. Because this newsletter has covered so many heavy topics for months, I thought I would simply talk about all the things that are sparking joy in my life right now.

Read more at my newsletter, Apt. 11D