When Katie moved back in , we decided that she needed a permanent bedroom. No more sleeping on the sofa sleeper in the family room – some nonsense about needing privacy. She decided to use the room in the basement that had actually been my bedroom years ago. The one major problem was it had been used for storage, mostly Katie’s and her sister Jackie’s things. It was also being used by my dad as his office. Yes, an 82 year old man, who only writes maybe three checks a month , has to have an office. This would not be an easy move and it took days to plan the event, moving my dad into the room next door.

Most people don’t understand that to have a properly functioning office, the desk must be placed in just the right area and always within reach of the filing cabinet. Yes, there is a filing cabinet with records dating back to the turn of the century. And most of all the proper placing of the light fixture. It took a while, and amazingly we did end up donating many items to Good Will. This reduces our chances of being on Hoarders at any time in the near future. Now everything is in its place, Katie has her bedroom and my dad has his office. And for the next two months we will be going through the filing cabinet and getting rid of old records. I better make sure we have a back up shredder just in case the current one dies of exhaustion.