no adoption news whatsoever so its true confession time

yes sometimes even we of Smith soup have confessions to make. Last winter after we'd pulled all the kids' summer clothes and too-small winter clothes out of the closets and dresser drawers, separated out the new rags, sorted the share-it and send-it-to Salvation Army stuff and bagged it up, we stacked the bags in the laundry room to await transport to their destinations. ALSO in the laundry room, in 3 bags were my mom's summer clothes which I had gotten from her closet at the nursing home, and tagged in big red letters with "MOM'S SUMMER CLOTHES" . Um, you can see where this is going, right? Its not an episode of "House" or an Agatha Christie mystery novel.........Charlie went out to the laundry room and grabbed the bags left after we'd shared the bags of things we'd identified and matched people and needs over. Since it was winter, I didn't give that errand a second thought...UNTIL............several weeks ago when it started to get warm and my mom asked me to get her clothes out. I went RIGHT TO THE corner where I'd placed the bags, and there was 1 bag marked "MOM'S SUMMER CLOTHES" but not the 3 I had left there. Oye ve and oh NO!! I searched all the suit cases in case a brain fade had occured and some portion of my memory of the corner spot was erroneous. I had not made a memory error. You have to understand. My mom LOVES clothes; she always has. Clothes Shopping was as much a hobby for her as sewing, even since her stroke its her favorite activity, and she had a LOT of clothes, mostly really nice, "name brand" clothes,a lot of them clothes with memories attached to them: "Joan gave me this for my birthday" "This is from Calebs' wedding," "Hannah's wedding," "I bought this from so and so store." OK, there were some things she honestly didn't remember having or losing, and last summer she was adamant that I'd lost some blouses although she told me she could not remember if they were blue, or pink, or yellow, but she KNEW she was missing some shirts. This year I gave her back a blouse that she swore she'd never seen before, and it was most definitely one she'd brought with her from Georgia, but I digress.
NOW we have to tell her that not only are her summer things not ready to bring to the nursing home, they are probably being worn by some other senior citizen in Stillwater who thought they got some awesome deals on Alfred Dunner and Sag Harbor clothes, and she has no summer pants, jackets, t-shirts, capris...............
Charlie told her Sunday. HE had taken the clothes out and she takes things better from him anyhow; she listens to him when he talks and she remembers what he says.
It didn't go as badly as it could have.
I had already gone about buying some immediate replacements, but there was still much work to be done. This afternoon Hannah, Mady, and I went downtown to the resale shops for baby things and Gramma things. No great baby boy finds. We did pretty good in the Gramma department though, I think!!!! I found 5 pair of capris/ slacks in a variety of colors and styles and a 2 piece church suit with easy -on slacks and a really pretty jacket in her favorite shade of turquiose...all for $11! There were truly no shirts that she'd wear or that were "her" so I spent almost that much again at good ole Walmart on some shirts. Its no where near what we gave a way, but it was a good start! We three genreations of girls took our finds over to the nursing home and visited for a while. I think she liked what we got, I HOPE she liked what I got. Money is not something growing on the trees around here, and replacing her wardrobe was NOT on our agenda for the year.
The funny part came when I was explaining to the sales clerk why we were out shopping. She laughed and told us that a LOT of people come in to the store and tell that same story: " I didn't mean to bring THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" So my confession is that we gave away my mother's spring clothes , along with a lot of little kid clothing. Didn't read the labels on the bags and gave them away! So, next time someone says to me , "Oh Linda I don't know how you DO it!!" I am going to tell them that my piling/filing system led to a clothing melt down, and how I "do it" is sometimes, just not very well...............
BUT we did find Naomi's changing table all dismantled and wrapped up in black trash bags in the garage and I thought I HAD given that away, so losses and finds kind of struck a balance!
When one has no attic or storage space, the huge back section of the laundry room has to serve as "bag attic", and THAT is a Salvation Army windfall waiting to happen. Hopefully its the last of its kind for a very long while!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!