Passing the Baton

We are preparing to finish our basement.  It is exciting to think how we can have more space for the piles of kids that are our own and the ones that seem to come over a lot.  Another happy thought is that maybe, just maybe the arguing in our home will decrease just a little when some individuals have their very own space.  The project organizer, planner and decorator in me enjoys the challenge to figuring out spaces, how to make things work, and how to finish everything off.  And the thought that at least one child can wake up to her own blaring alarm and have two floors in between the noise and those we would prefer to stay asleep at 6am sounds fantastic!  But, there's a space in my heart that holds a little bit of sadness.

For the past three or four years I was Kit Director for Serving With Smiles.  We had all this great, empty space in our basement and the SWS supplies needed a home so viola - space filled!  There were some years when we got a LOT of donations from schools.  I got to coordinate the inventory of it all and see lots of great people as they came to drop stuff off or pick supplies up.  It was great to be around when people from other organizations would come by to pick up finished kits - talk about rubbing shoulders with some great people!  Then monthly I got to organize the assembly of about 100 kits.  Sometimes I'd have teens come over and I would train them on kit prep.  Sometimes families would come over and inventory with me.  Sometimes it was just me counting hundreds of things out, or I'd get Tyler or some of my children to help pull supplies together.  I loved it.  I have gotten to know some of the neatest people through this.  I'm glad that I still get to go to SWS every month, and sooo thankful that I can stay friends with everyone.  BUT, it's time to pass the baton.  I had a very, very difficult time coming to recognize this, but as I have relinquished those duties I have felt a huge burden taken off of me, and I find that I have renewed vigor in taking care of my family.  Maybe my turn will come again, but for now I get to rest.  (Or at least focus on the many, many needs of my own family better).

We've spent the last couple of months slowly moving things out.  I'm sad that I didn't take pictures when our storage was in it's glory.  This is after we had removed 2,000 completed kits and about 1/3 of the supplies from my basement, but I had to document some of it - it was such a huge part of our lives for so long.

 The last of the supplies.

The space that held it all.  Towards the end, there was about 5' in the middle to walk in, but the rest of the space was FULL.  You can already tell my family is taking over - what used to be the SWS sorting table is now Hannah's workspace for her dollhouse.  Pretty soon we hope to have this be a nice, big family room.