blondie

We bought a new phone a few weeks ago. I should say 'phone system' because we bought the whole enchilada. The base with answering machine and handset, plus it came with 3 other single sets for the rest of the house.

The old answering machine got stashed away in the laundry room until a few days ago when I started cleaning and reorganizing that area to get ready for some construction that is going to take place.

Just to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything I went through and listened to all 36 saved voicemail messages.

The first two had been saved for over two years. They were of Megan (Braden's best friend in Abilene) leaving one of her first ever voicemail messages.... it was hard to let that one go. The other was of Mason calling me from the desert. He didn't really say anything to profound; it was just the tone of his voice that I liked. I wanted to make sure that I had a 'good' recording of his voice... just in case..... You think about that kinda stuff when your man is deployed.

The rest of the messages were all from the 7 week period preceding and including our move from the rental house to our newly purchased one. It was quite surreal sitting on the floor of the family room listening to all these voices from the past. At first it was my Auntie, then the loan guy, then the previous owner of the house, then the nasty rental agent etc etc....

I felt it was quite symbolic to delete those messages one by one before finally tossing the machine... it felt very good... very freeing.