Replacing the tile in my mudroom has been on my list of house projects for years. It’s a mucky green that has grown even muckier and now just won’t come clean, no matter the elbow grease applied. It’s not a big job but a complicated one, because the small entryway (at only 10 x 13 feet) is home to a packed closet, the pantry, a powder room, the broom closet, and my dog. I tend to jump in feet first to projects, so I ordered some black slate, hired an installer and gave myself the weekend to clear out the closets. I found an entire basket of flip flops, a favorite rain coat I thought I lost years ago, and stuffed way in the back, an ancient backpack of my daughter’s. This time capsule was filled with some old vocab tests, a can of tennis balls, a report card neatly folded into a teeny, weeny square (in the hopes I’d never see it), candy wrappers, and a cootie catcher with silly sayings like “kiss the person to your right.” It was a bittersweet discovery. My daughter heads off to college in the fall and the days of backpacks and tennis matches are almost over. I sat on the floor with the detritus of her sporting attempts around me – soccer ball, riding helmet, field hockey stick – and managed to sort the lot into piles to ditch or give away. It killed me. But the cootie catcher filled with preteen fortunes? That’s a keeper.

Wishing you a happy Easter and Passover,
Erica