Sugar, Hoarding, Butterfingers, and ADD

     I have started a new challenge! It isn't to get into shape, eat right, or exercise. Although, that is a constant challenge and goal of mine :/. This challenge is to work on a project for an extended period of time. The project I chose was to organize my home! We moved into our current home a little over 4 years ago and I still have boxes that I moved from the house we lived in for 7 years that may have been unopened since the house we lived in before that one for 14 years. I digress.

     So, I am going through a box or a shelf or a cupboard EVERY day. The other part of my challenge is to write/blog about my journey! I want to explore my feelings. And answer questions about myself, like: Why did I feel it was necessary at the end of every school year to sort my children's used school supplies into bins and then put them on a shelf? Did I really need 1000 partially used pencils? I am afraid I might be a hoarder, an organized hoarder though! But maybe I am not. But maybe I am. Maybe not though. 

     I also might have ADD. Probably not. But maybe. No. But, every time I start to organize something, in the past anyway, I would get sidetracked. But not now. I am staying focused! And I will get this done! 

     So, today I wanted to write about my experiences this week but I couldn't concentrate enough to write about it. Instead, I read through some of my old short stories. Here is an essay I wrote a while back that touches a bit on my sugar hoarding. Included is an excerpt from the infamous Butterfinger Brady Family Christmas Letter circa 1997. Enjoy!

     According to my mother, my sugar hoarding began when I was quite young. She used to find half eaten Snickers bars in my sock drawer, jelly beans under my bed, and months after the holiday, ear-less chocolate Easter bunnies hidden in the back of my closet. “But I want to save it for later,” I would plead with her as I followed her to the garbage can.

      Growing up, I loved the holidays. Each of them came with their own tradition to satisfy the sweet tooth. Halloween was always a favorite. I cried when I was told I was simply too old to go trick-or-treating; but my husband put his foot down when he said “Shelly, enough is enough!”

     I don't always write my newsletters in December, one year I tried a new tactic:

     

     October 1997

     Dear family and friends,

     I was so stressed out by last year's Christmas letter that I decided never to do one again. In it's place we are proud to present the Brady's First Annual Halloween Letter.

     Happy Halloween! 

     It's that warm fuzzy time of year when the children are busy thinking of all that candy, costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and more candy. And I'm busy buying bags of candy to give out to cute little trick-or-treaters, hiding the bags in my closet, eating the entire bags in my closet, buying more, eating more, getting depressed, gaining weight, getting chocolate migraines, major PMS, and enough acne to compete with any adolescent. 

     It's a special time of year at the Brady house. We spend quality time together thinking up new Halloween candy rules. I explain to the children how bad candy really is for their teeth and tummies and this is why mommy helps them eat it, because I love them so much. One year, the children picked out their ten favorite candies and the rest went in a “family jar.” Another year, the children could eat all the candy they wanted as long as they gave mommy all the Butterfingers. “Butterfingers are especially bad,” I told them. Unfortunately, as they got older, they began to wise up to their mother.      
     This was always a good time to have another baby. I just loved to dress up the baby and take her trick-or-treating. People are always cooing and saying, “Oh, how cute, here have an extra treat. Here's one for mom, too.” Are these people nuts? Do they really think I'm giving this candy to my six-month old? But it's all right with me. “We'll take a Butterfinger;” I smile, “they are her favorite.”          
     One Halloween, years ago, when Katrina was just two or three, we trick-or-treated half the night away. My poor little toddler was so tired. “Mommy,” she cried, “my feet hurt. Can we please go home?” “Come on Katrina,” I said, “just four more blocks. Don't cry. You can do it! Now, ring that doorbell, smile, and say 'trick-or-treat'.”

     John asks me why I don't just buy a bag of candy instead of begging from the neighbors and stealing from the children. He has no idea . . . how many bags of candy I have bought. I am a sick woman. I need therapy. Read between the lines, friends. This letter is a desperate cry for help.

      That letter, written many years ago, inspired one friend on my Christmas card list to send me a box of butterfingers, which I promptly hid in my sock drawer.

   

     Well there you go! Blog entry number one! And the project of the week: organizing one bookshelf. I shall now attempt to post a before and after picture!

I did it! I posted a picture! Welcome to the 21st Century Shelly! (FYI - I am talking to myself here.)