Dead Tired

So completely worn out. Slept about three hours last night, and had to be at school at unbelievable hour of 9:00 to pitch Animated Algebra to math students planning on taking Algebra in the Fall. Drove to Mom's afterwards, and ran several errands with her, including a foot-aching trip to Target. After dinner at her home I went upstairs and continued throwing away my much-loved Easy-Bake collection.

I threw out twelve trash bags of stuff. That's six trips up and down the stairs, punctuated with sweat-filled sessions in my former un-air-conditioned bedroom, struggling with what to keep and what to throw out. Handling boxes the rats had eaten holes in, coming into too much contact with rat turds, unwilling to wipe the sweat off my forehead because I didn't want my face touching my hands. Then there's all the stuff I salvaged -- thirteen small plastic crates and four ovens. Another five or six trips up and down the stairs. My legs are killing me.

I think I've scrubbed all the skin off my hands, and I still feel dirty. I can't use ANY of this stuff until I've washed it all thoroughly, with anti-bacterial soap and scalding hot water. I'm not keeping all of it -- I don't want to find a place to put it all!! -- but I was doing triage. Grab and go, sort later at my convenience in air-conditioned comfort.

Really should have just trashed all of it, but I couldn't make myself do it. And even though I make the mess sound really extensive, the bulk of my collection was safe in Rubbermaid plastic bins. Most of it is just fine. I still threw away most of what the bins held, after opening the packages and taking out anything interesting and non-food. I could have kept all that stuff, but I needed to consolidate so I could have a slim hope of fitting everything into my house.

Some things, like the original 1965 mix sets, the Care Bears set and the Strawberry Shortcake oven and bake sets, are worth a good deal of money. My students can sell those on eBay in the Fall. Others, like the Queasy Bake oven and the Disney Princess ovens, are just too cool to throw out. I couldn't bring myself to toss a single bake pan or measuring cup or decorating accessory. Little things like that are what make up the bulk of the remaining collection.

So what am I going to do with all this crap?

Clean it. Of course.

And then I'm going back on a strict diet, and working out. If I've lost twenty pounds by my birthday in late November I'm going to invite my nieces and nephews over for an Easy-Bake party. We're going to make concoction after concoction, and eat ourselves silly. Chocolate cakes, vanilla cakes, cakes with marshmallows, whatever we can think of. We'll raid my Easy-Bake cookbook collection, and we'll even watch Dinner with Doris (an Easy-Bake VHS tape). We'll decorate everything with mounds of colored icing, and pour on a ton of candy sprinkles. We'll even make ice-cream cakes, because I kept my Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Cake Maker.

Everyone says rewarding a successful diet with food is a bad idea. I don't care. I want to play with my ovens, and with the kids. If I'm not going to use the ovens I might as well throw them out. And I've already proven I can't do that, so I might as well get a little benefit (and a little fun!) out of the collection. Out of what's left of the collection.