My 5th grader, Christian, had a writing assignment for his class recently called My Hero.

He was to write a letter to his hero explaining why they attained hero status. Here is my son’s assignment:

Dear Mom and Dad,

You are my heroes because you have the courage and strength to stand up to me and take care of me. You also work hard to feed me and buy video games and clothes every day. When I watch you I think about what I have waiting for me in the future. You make in impact on my life because I wouldn’t know half the stuff I know right now. That is why you are my heroes.

—-

While we don’t buy him clothes every day, and he didn’t exactly explain some of his thought thoroughly, it was a terrific surprise to know his parents are his heroes. He could have easily picked some sports figure, actor, musician, cartoon character/superhero. He didn’t, he chose his parents.

So Christian, I want you to know I’m very proud of you. We may not always get along, but that’s how it goes between parents and kids. Your stepfather, bio father, stepmother and I are all extremely lucky to have you as a son and we love you so very much.

With today being a holiday, you can rest assured that the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon have been on pretty much non-stop the entire day.

I finally reached my breaking point and headed upstairs to get away from children’s programming. Once upstairs, I decided a little cleaning was in order so I did the usual; picked up dirty clothes, bagged up the trash, put away a few random items from various horizontal surfaces… you know, the usual.

And then as I sat watching last week’s episode of Las Vegas, I looked down to the last cube on my bookshelf and noticed I have an excessive amount of those grocery store check out cook books. I started to pull them out and was greeted with one of my old journals. Interesting. I kept looking and found two journals that I filled before that one. They started sometime in 1992 and ended somewhere around 2001. I began to read through them and couldn’t even recognize the person I used to be.

By the time I began journaling in 1993, I had met my “future ex husband.” I read back to the time we began getting serious, took vacations with his family, I found out I was pregnant with my first child, and then the second, and finally the collapse of our three year marriage.

I  read though pages of pain and then hope, and saw myself pull it together and get back out there.

I read through pages of stupid choices I made in an attempt to get on with my life.

I read about Jason and I becoming a couple and those entries, no matter how sporadic they were at that point,  saw myself changing and becoming truly happy.

Looking back, there were so many entries that I don’t even remember writing or even feeling the way I did at the time. I saw page after page of my handwriting that should something happen to me now, I would never want anyone to read. I’m embarrassed by some of my actions and thoughts.

Today, I erased a part of my past, the written part. I ripped page after page out of those books and out them into one pile. There it was, year after year of my innermost thoughts, thoughts that probably should have stayed in my head, now in a heap on the floor.

I fired up the paper shredder and fed my old demons to the teeth. I don’t like the person who wrote those pages. I wouldn’t change my past because it made me who I am today, but I can say I honestly don’t miss her. I’d never want my family to read those journals. Now, I don’t have to worry about that. Honestly, I was seriously uncomfortable reading my own entries, I can’t imagine how they would feel.

So today I destroyed nine or so years of my written history and I’m positive that was the right thing to do. Those journals felt like a dark cloud or a heavy weight on my shoulders. With them gone, I feel lighter already.

Will I regret it some day? Possibly, but I seriously doubt it.

With January comes New Year’s resolutions, and I’m willing to bet a lot of people made the resolution to become more environmentally aware. Now I have to tell you I’m not an environmental activist by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just someone who’s sick of seeing item after item in the dumpster heading to the landfill that would be better suited for the charity shop or freecycle.

In September of 2006, our family had to make the difficult choice of moving into an apartment. Allow me to give you a little history.

When Jason and I moved in together, he came from a condo and I came from a duplex and we moved into a rental house. When you’re in a house, the city we live in provides you with a regular trashcan, a green waste can, and a recycle bin. The garbage can is the smallest and would always fill up quickly. They do that on purpose to encourage recycling. They’ll give you multiple recycle bins and green waste bins at no additional charge, but if you wanted another garbage can, you’d have to pay extra for that.

The two places we lived after that were also houses and had the same set up. Then the owners of the last house we were in planned to sell and we were forced to move. We were given a very short period in which to find a place to live, and unfortunately the only financially sound choice we had was the apartment we live in now.

The main thing you learn while living in an apartment is just how wasteful people can be. We’re provided a dumpster in which everything goes. There’s no recycling dumpster, no green waste cans, just a total of four medium sized dumpsters for our entire complex. I’ve seen just how lazy some people are with their trash that I have a feeling a separate dumpster for recyclables wouldn’t work anyhow.

What do I mean by lazy? Well we have a spot with two dumpsters side by side and most of the time people won’t walk the extra three feet to deposit their trash bags into the mostly empty dumpster. They just keep piling their garbage on the already full one until it begins to fall on the ground. It’s disgusting, really.

Now getting back to how wasteful people are, it pains me when I see items in the dumpster that could easily be freecycled, listed on craigs list, or even taken to a donation center. The worst offenders are people who are moving. I understand not wanting to move everything you’ve accumulated over the years. Heck, we’ve moved something like four times in the last seven years so I understand more than a lot of people that sometimes it’s just easier to get rid of “it” than move it.

I’ve rescued several useful items that have found their way to the dumpster since we moved in. I got a 15 pane picture frame/room screen that with a little TLC was as good as new. I’ve rescued a huge box of baby clothes, many still with tags on. Right next to me is a side table that I plan on refurbishing. Those are just a few of the many items I’ve repurposed.

Currently in the dumpster you will find a perfectly good umbrella stroller, a baby swing, a baby bath tub, a large stuffed giraffe and an infant play mat. Those play mats aren’t cheap either.

It’s 2008 and yet there are people who think it’s perfectly acceptable to throw out usable items. I realize that the stroller is probably destined for the landfill at some point, but there are plenty of people who could get many years of use out of it before it heads there.

So the next time you clean out that garage or closet, think before just throwing it in the trash. As yourself first if someone you know could use it, and if not, would anyone be willing to pay for this on Craig’s list? How about listing it on Freecycle? Could I donate this to a second hand charity store?