Craft Hoarding & Mother Love

There are 7 weeks and one day remaining until Joshua is due to leave my womb and enter the outside world, and I am on a mission to organize and clean every space in our home before then.

I am currently working (again) on the craft closet. One day I will bite the bullet and turn the whole guest room into a craft room that happens to have a queen size bed in it, but until that day comes, I am limiting my storage area to the guest room closet. Be warned: this next picture is ugly and there is no after photo with which to soothe your eyes.

And this was after I had removed half of the junk in there.

My nesting urge is particularly keen and has allowed me to face the ugly truth: I am a craft supply hoarder. Using all of those years of clinical and therapist training classes, I have discovered the source of my craft hoarding problems: I think that if I can find an unexpected use for an item, I have to buy/recycle/accept the item and store it indefinitely in case one day I need it.

Like the ugly $2 chafing dish purchased from Sam's Club two years ago, since I saw it and immediately thought I could tie small scraps of fabric all over it and use it to store colorful baby blankets on William's bedroom shelf without concealing them. I need help.

While sorting through the horrible mess that once was the craft closet, I came across some letters that my mother wrote to me when I lived in England in grad school. I sat down to read them one last time before throwing them away and realized that they are gems and I'm just going to have to find a place to keep them.

My mother is hilarious; I can't say it enough. She is also a God-loving and wise wise wise woman who has never ONCE in my entire life given me bad advice. If I am as loving and spirit-filled as she is when I am her age, I will consider it a success. She is the reason I understand the importance of studying the Bible and growing close to God. She has shown me first hand that the Bible and its words are life-giving, but you can only share those life-giving words with your children if you have learned them for yourself. But here's a glimpse at her humor, which had Don and me cracking up last night:

"Are you warm? clean? praying? eating well? I'd watch the beef over there. Experts say that mad cow bacteria can live dormant for 20 years and then suddenly come into full swing. Do you know if this is true? Imagine! For lunch one day it's a small, slightly pink in the middle Big Mac, and then one day when you least expect it, BAM - you're all swollen, green, and dead!"

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!