As you know from last week’s blog, I was in Texas helping my friend Sharon unpack hundreds of boxes from a recent move. You might be interested to know (or perhaps not) that I didn’t develop a Texan drawl. That’s because Sharon ensconced me in her home for 6 days so I never got the chance to develop a proper Southern twang.

Floor to ceiling throughout 3400 square feet

Now don’t get me wrong. Sharon didn’t exactly crack the whip. But close. Very, very close. Let’s just say she reminded me of Lady Tremaine (Cinderella’s wicked stepmom) but without poofy hair.

Sharon with her “To Do” list

Now is the part where I confess my working vacation was more fun than I’d like to admit. Turns out I enjoy the process of putting things in their “proper place,” although you’d question that if you looked inside my garage. Luckily Sharon didn’t. Therefore, she was left with the mistaken assumption I’m always anally organized.

Is this the garage of an organized person? I think not

I look at an empty house as a blank canvas that we paint with our personal treasures until it becomes home. And boy did we paint. We unpacked endless boxes filled with items wrapped in paper cocoons, all protecting precious memories. For 6 days it was like Christmas morning as we discovered what was hidden inside each box.

Best of all, I got to spend time with my buddy Sharon, whom I’ve known most of my life. But it wasn’t all work and no play. We did manage to escape for breakfast and dinner with friends, then back to the grindstone. It doesn’t get much better than that. (Well, it sorta does, but don’t tell Sharon.)

In our MUCH younger days

Today my hands are drier than Melba Toast. My back feels like I lifted hundreds of boxes. Oh wait, I did...but I gotta say we had a blast. And funny enough, I do feel sorta rested.

I can say in all honesty I’ve never met anyone with more stuff than Sharon. We sorted through 40 years of stuff. Trust me when I say that’s a LOT of stuff. Seriously, not even Kate Gosselin of ‘Kate Plus 8’ could possibly have as many photo albums as my friend. Then there’s the thousands of photos not in frames. Whew.

Probably has half the photos Sharon does with only 2 kids

You know how some people have foot fetishes? Well, Sharon has a frame fetish. I lost count at 111. Seriously. But believe me, there were LOTS more.

I remember back in the 90s when she insisted on buying just about every Beanie Baby made because, “They’re going to be collector items someday.” Twenty-five years later she has hundreds of Beanie Babies and no collectors; however, they’re quite soft to sit on.

Submerged in a tub of Beanie Babies (with Cindy, Corinne and Sharon)

We took one whole day to decorate her craft room, proudly exiting it that evening with not one inch of space left in the closet and two dressers filled with her numerous projects. (She’s currently working on 12.) The next day we found 3 more boxes filled with crafts. Ugh.

To demonstrate how long it’s been since Sharon’s purged anything, she owns something called a VHS tape rewinder. Yep, you read that correctly. And yep, she kept it.

Memo to Sharon: We are now in the 21st century

My friend is a shopper, but as I discovered, not much of a purger. And I hate to admit it but we did manage to sneak in more shopping. I bought so much stuff I had to borrow a huge suitcase to get it all home.

I blame Lady Tremaine.

What I departed with (red case) and what I returned with