New Year's Cleaning
I usually spend some time at the end of the year thinning my belonginings. It makes it mentally and physically easier to put away gifts. This year's adventures in deaccessioning are accompanied by my folks preparing to sell the house in which we grew up. This afternoon, I brought home a Civic-full of stuff today, less two boxes and the large stuffed dinosaur I won at Kings Dominion (c1978) that I took straight to Goodwill.

Before I go on to anything else, I looked through two boxes of books that I labeled "keep" in 1999. About 8 books made the first cut for keepers. I can see that I kept many of the others for themes that seemed Important, that seemed to say something about what made me who I am today. For example:

• Magic: The Wizard of Wallaby Wallow; Mr. Moose the Magnificent Magician (a pop-up book)
• Nature and animals: The Whales Go By, Fred Phelger; The Beaver Pond, Alvin Tresselt; "Fish Head" (about a cat that lives at the docks -- a place completely unknown to my suburban experience)
• Joke and riddles books
  

Most of those are going to the Friends book sale. In the Keep pile: Gus Was a Friendly Ghost, Jane Thayer; Stop That Ball, Mike McClintock (an "I Can Read It All By Myself" book).