Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Amazing progress!

Wow… did we accomplish a lot this weekend!  More than I ever expected we would.  That’s what’s so funny about a huge project like this downsizing… it seems so overwhelming at first but once you get started on it, it moves pretty fast – and then, the more you get done the more you want to keep doing and before you know it, you’ve made great strides.  I love it!  This is going to end up being the easiest move ever and I know we’re going to feel so good to have lightened our load by so much.

First, we’ve decided to have a garage sale this weekend to purge as much as we can.  Heathen daughter was thrilled to hear it because, now that our sweet angel grandbaby is almost 5 months old, they have a TON of baby stuff she’s already outgrown (clothes and accoutrements).  That’s great because baby stuff is always a good garage sale draw.

We made a big sweep of the house through every closet, every drawer, every nook and cranny to find everything we had tucked aside with the idea that we might possibly use it sometime.  Some of it, of course, had been untouched for years.  Now that the idea is not to hang on to anything we don’t actually need, nearly everything can go.  The re-gifting closet (don’t act like you don’t re-gift!) is now empty.  :)  The kitchen cabinets are now cleared of all the gadgets and gizmos and small appliances that never see the light of day.  Tons of gift wrap and at least a bazillion assorted gift bags (I didn’t actually count them, it’s just a guess, but I think I'm pretty close!), out to be sold!  It is amazing how much lighter I feel and we haven’t even had the garage sale yet. :)

Sweet hubby had a huge project – the garage.  Now, if any of you have ever seen our garage, you know how incredibly organized he is.  However, he had a ton of bins (16 of them!) to go through – bins with everything from tools to electrical supplies to nuts and bolts.  It took him all weekend long but he did it!  He sold some of the bigger things (mostly aircraft tools and such) to a co-worker (who already came by to get them!) and added more to the garage sale.  Now he’s left with only one bin of house stuff that we’ll actually leave with the house.  So proud of him.  :)



And then there were the photo albums.  Sigh.  I’d already gone through them once and pulled out all the pictures I knew we wouldn’t keep but there were still 24 mostly full albums of pictures from the last 35+ years of my life (I didn’t have many pics from before I was a teenager – being 6th of 7 children, mom was not much into pictures at that point – can’t say that I blame her.). Here is what we had though...



But I had a goal – to end up with only one album of my very favorite pictures.  And you know what?  I did it.  In fact, the album isn’t even completely full!  I’m so impressed with myself.  (pat, pat, pat on the back)

I also made an album for each of the heathen children and, before I actually tossed the photos out, I let them go through the stack of pictures I didn’t think any of us had to keep.  They each picked out about 5 pictures from that gianormous stack and the rest of them went into the trash.  Wow.  Talk about a liberating feeling!  I realized if there had ever been something like a tornado or fire, there would have been no way I could have grabbed 24 photo albums and saved them… and my favorite pictures were scattered throughout all 24 of them.  If something happened now, I could easily grab my one photo album and flee with it… and ALL… every single one… of my very favorite pictures would be safe.  I like that feeling.  Here's a shot of our cabinet of photo albums now... (the two albums on the top right are mine and heathen son's... the others belong to sweet hubby and he has to go through those!  The yearbooks on the next shelf are next!)




We'll have a busy week ahead getting ready for the sale and then hopefully clear everything out in the garage sale (donating what doesn’t sell) and then I’m off to D.C. next Sunday for the annual Youth Tour Directors Conference.  Oh, and this Wednesday evening we’re joining some people from Urban Neighbors, a downtown neighborhood association for a wine dinner at Stella’s in midtown.  It will be nice to get to meet some other people who have chosen downtown living.  Maybe we’ll meet some of our new neighbors before we even move in!



It sure feels good to start a week with such a sense of accomplishment.


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