It’s time to move. You’re packing up your boxes and sifting through everything trying to decide what is trash and what is treasure. If you’re like me, this is a long process! I can never seem to just pack things. I have to stop on each particular item and ponder what specific memory made it worth keeping. Everything in my life seems to have a story attached to it. One of those, “I remember when…..” kind of things, so you can see why it is so hard for me to throw things away. I feel like tossing the object means tossing the memory along with it. I have recently learned that this is not true. It’s kind of funny how this happened, it was definitely not expected. I was in the local thrift store here in Birmingham. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular but I needed some gift ideas for my son’s upcoming birthday. They had a lot of really great things but nothing seemed catch my eye. I was headed for the door and noticed a yellow box out of the corner of my eye. It was a tint. I knew right away that was it, the perfect toy. I was excited the entire way home but nothing compared to the look of joy on my son’s face when he woke up to a huge green tint in the living room! I was sitting and watching him play, thinking about how happy he was with something that I only spent $5 on. And then Eureka! That’s when it hit me. Children are not hard to please. They don’t need you to spend hundreds of dollars on brand new toys that they’ll just eventually outgrow. This hand-me-down tint was creating such a wonderful day for him and leaving him with memories to hold on to. I began to think of what sort of past the tint must have had; all the children that must have benefited, just like my son, from the fun they had with it. I knew then that it isn’t the objects we keep that make memories special, it is the people we share them with and pass them on to that make them something worth remembering. Now I have no problem packing. I have found some really great ways to get rid of all my old stuff without just tossing it in the trash. The most recent (and most fulfilling) thing I’ve done is begin donating things to Hannah Homes. It is a shelter for pregnant teens and women who have been abused and it is a great way to bring joy to others with the things you don’t want anymore. It really demonstrates the quote that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” This way you are helping someone else while making your pack and move a little bit easier. If you choose a great company like All My Sons Moving & Storage, they will even take your donations and drop them off for you! With the economy so stressed and the holidays just around the corner, it really is a great feeling to know that, with an act as simple as a donation of the unwanted items that inspired your cherished memories, you can help to brighten a child’s life and inspire them to make memories of their own. Isn’t that well worth the effort?