Findings

I've hit the point in the summer where the overwhelming desire to organize things takes over. Today's mission: sort through the mountains of paperwork scattered about the basement.

Here are a few of the things I found as I went through the piles:

• My daughter's Chinese passport. (She was SO tiny!)

• Car insurance coverage information and service appointment details for two cars I no longer own.

• The instructions showing how to put together the crib I set out at the end of the driveway with a FREE sign on it - yesterday.

• The itemized vet bills from my dog's treatment, death, and cremation last fall. :-(

• Our 1040's from 1998. (How long are you supposed to keep those?)

• A recipe for potato salad, written in my grandma's handwriting.

• Pay stubs from 2002. (I so don't want to be a pack rat, but I fear sometimes that I am becoming one. Maybe it's more about my laziness than a need to horde, though. Like that's healthier, right?)

• The receipt from that denim skirt I ordered from Land's End last summer. The one that never fit me and that I still have in its plastic bag in my closet. Can I return it after a whole year? Is there a statute of limitations on such things?

• An unused iTunes gift card I got for Christmas.