#sol2014 Hidden Gems

An icy storm this weekend brought our lives to a standstill.  I took the opportunity to begin a huge cleaning project: my office.  It was a glittery, cluttered, mess of books and many unfinished projects.  It was so bad that I actually had ordered ANOTHER copy of a book for a class I am teaching this semester!  I just could not find the copy I HAD last spring!  As is usually the case with a big cleaning project, the bags of garbage and recycling were huge.  The cleaning actually made things look WORSE for a while.  At the 24 hour point, the floor was still littered with "stuff" looking for a home.


I guess my husband took pity on me, or perhaps he really wanted to see the floor of the office appear!  Whatever the reason, he went out to attack the ice while I finished up.  In time, after hours of scraping and calcium chloriding the blacktop areas that would carry a vehicle, he found the hidden GEM of a driveway.  Blacktop, even if wet and still slippery, never looked so good!

Meanwhile, back in the office area,  I found a few GEMS myself. Along with the "missing" textbook, there were some wayward Barns and Noble gift cards and a few Dunkin Donuts coffee cards!  Sigh, sometimes, things get shoved into folders and bins.

There was also this long forgotten GEM, a story, written long ago by a first grader who never was one to ask for cookies or cake.  Instead, he would ask for a good meal of chicken, steak or bluefish!  He still likes to eat a whole lot of good food,only now he might include Sushi!

There were some indeed hidden GEMS in our icy day and my neat, for now, organized bookcase is just one of them!