Runner's high but inundated with pics

I’ve been jogging pretty consistently for almost a month. I haven’t upped my distance much in that time but I’ve shaved about 3 minutes off my mile time. Tonight, I am feeling my first runner’s high. Wow. It’s been years since I’ve felt that. I’d like to become more familiar with it.

I’ve also been out of school for this last month and have been doing major cleaning and decluttering. The kids are wondering who I am and what I’ve done with their real mom who just reads textbooks all the time. Closets, bookshelves, the pantry, file cabinet, the laundry, and dresser drawers have all been shaved down and straightened. I think it’s partly a reflection of healing on my part. I feel true joy and can’t put my finger on exactly why. But I think that means it’s not contingent on anything external so it can’t be easily taken away from me.

I have hundreds of pictures only about half of which are in photo albums. Do you think it’s necessary to keep every one of them? A lot of them are pre-digital and not that great. I’m thinking of winnowing them down and keeping the best ones because if there are too many, it becomes overwhelming for any of us (my kids) to look at them. We already have 10 binders worth of photos in albums. Do we really want/need 20 or 30? And now that we have scanners, printers, and digital scrapbooks/photo albums, is it necessary to keep zillions of wallet size and smaller photos from all the kids photo shoots and school pics? I don’t want to go overboard with the decluttering but it is SO nice to have empty closet and cupboard space.

Nathan is up to 117 lbs. Last October before heart surgery, he weighed 89 lbs. We went swimming today and he is so much stronger. I expected to see changes but still, I am amazed at what I see and words cannot express how thankful I am for the technology that allowed him to be “normal”. Babies born with TAPVR 35 years ago usually died. Nathan should have died and the fact that he didn’t is a miracle. Even when he was born, the surgery wasn’t as refined, and therefore, successful as it is today.

I am very blessed.