Downsizing

Everything is finally in its place. It feels like it has taken months to get to this point. All the sorting, and agonizing, and scrubbing, and worrying. This move has definitely been trying..

To be frank, I have the hardest time throwing things away. My slight obsession with trash really compounded the stress of  moving. I imagine it living out the years of its life on a garbage pile in Southeast Asia. Depressing. I know, but really it forces me to think about the million ways I can make everything I own not trash.

What made the cut.

I started with the garage sale. Honestly, it wasn't worth shit when it came down to the dollars and cents of it all.  I think we made maybe $60 total. The best part of it was deciding the difference between the things that I could keep and the ones that I couldn't. You see, I lived in a huge 3+ bedroom house, and furnished and filled the whole damn thing. I had couches, kitchen stuff, washer & dryer, clothes of all sorts, bike things, tables, chairs. The whole nine. I was moving to a 12'x12' room in a house that already had enough stuff to fill its walls, its garage and then some.

More than half of it had to go. "Sure. A dollar. Yeah, take some clothes too. The guys stuff is over there."

I sold my kitchen table, two books by Obama & a Cookbook to an 80-year old couple in a minivan for ten bucks.




People were pretty stoked around seven o'clock when we introduced the "mostly free yard." "Yeah, you got a truck? Sure, take the two tables. Yeah, those lamps too."



Letting it all hang out. 





I was really appreciating the cleanse.



The next day I had the free garage. I put up an ad on craigslist and had a handful of people come over and take a look. At one point, we just had a father and his son load up a truck to furnish his dorm room. Seriously. We gave him a desk, a full kitchen set, chairs, a whiteboard

 

A lot of crap that I didn't plan on keeping somehow managed its way into my new abode. A 27" inch television from 2005? A cooler? A can of hairspray? a whole bag of spices? really? really? Where did this stuff come from?! Less. Less. I want less stuff.

All craziness aside, I'd call it a 60% reduction in inventory. Not bad, but there's still a lot of work to do.