#6 Will It Never End?

Rich, Kandi, LJ and I on the cruise to panama

To be honest, I'd rather be cruising again with our besties, but too much to do.  So we've spent the last week going through the stuff in the garage and house, and we still aren't done.  38 years of stuff to go through!!

LJ took a trip to Sacramento with the neighbors trailer.  It was full of outside tools and garage stuff for Jeff.  I packed up a lot of my collectibles and memorabilia.  LJ asked what could possibly be that important I have to save it.  So I showed him the flattened cowboy hat from my time showing horses as a child.  And my 4H trophy and basketball trophy, along with my Camp Fire Girls vest with the beads I earned (I was seven and apparently not very good at it judging by the number of beads).  I also have letters from my long deceased grandmother and others.  And, of course, being the sentimental fool I am, there is so much more.  Fortunately it all fits in one box.  I even had a couple things that belonged to him, including cufflinks and a pen set given to him personally by then governor Ronald Reagan.  So being a smart ass, I asked if he wanted those in the "out it goes" pile. Judging by the look on his face I'm guessing that would be a no..keeping it.

So I'm thinking he gets it now.  He rented a small climate controlled storage place for the things we are keeping.  It was fairly cheap, a very clean place, and we agreed to revisit this at the end of our first year.  I can only keep what fits in the unit.  Shouldn't be a problem.  Better I think to hold on to important irreplaceable things than regret it later.

Since the house is actually on the market later this week, we started purging the clutter.  There is so much stuff set aside for the garage sale.  Thank goodness he cleared out the garage making room for sale boxes.  The entire one car side of the three car garage is garage sale central.  The timing is off, though.  Our neighborhood does a community garage sale that is heavily advertised with a lot of traffic.  It's in June.  If the house sells quickly, no problem.  Everything we have will be out there.  But if it doesn't, then a lot of nice stuff will just be donated.  We can't undecorate the house and expect top dollar our real estate friend tells us!  With any luck our abode will be in escrow just before garage sale day.  Fingers crossed.

We gave our neighbors our outdoor furniture.  They needed it and we no longer do.  That felt good.  but it feels like we still have so much more to do.  Still loads of stuff in the linen closets.  Gave away our fall and Halloween decor to a friend with little kids.  Nice to see someone continue to enjoy the witches, mummy and Frankenstein I made during my crafty days.


Spent the weekend going through the ridiculous amount of Christmas stuff I have.  Wouldn't be so bad if I didn't over decorate.  I mean 9 themed trees....9.   The memory tree, wine tree, dog tree, snowman tree, victorian tree.. well you get the picture.  Oh it's pretty but good grief.  Just going through all that took a full day.  Rachelle wants a lot of it.  I wish it wasn't so expensive to ship to the U.K. but since it is she is limited on what she gets. She only gets light weight stuff.  I love her but not enough to fully fund the post office for the next year with my shipping fees.  These photos don't even begin to show how much holiday spirit I have lol.  And this doesn't include the stuff I have up in the garage attic.  Are you sensing a theme here?

 Now I'm in my craft room.  Some of my craft tools and stuff I'm hanging on to, but not much.  A little will go in the trailer for something to do when I get bored.  The rest is just too expensive to replace should we get another house some day.  I will always have a craft room... call it my woman cave, lol.  My sanctuary.  I had oodles of fabric so the neighbor across the street got lucky.  She sews so it will be used and she was very appreciative.  I took my hundreds of patterns and bagged them up in sections for the garage sale.  I have to let them go.  I only held back my favorite few.  I'm still overwhelmed with the amount of crafty crap I have collected over the last several years.  Garage sale or donations.. someone, somewhere will be happy.

Next...the kitchen.  OMG I dread the kitchen.  That's tomorrow.  Oh yippee!  That will be a story in and of itself.  I'm starting to think I'm either a pack rat or a hoarder, albeit a well organized and neat one lol.

But I'm keeping my eye on the prize.  And so far, as each section gets done I feel more and more free.  Tired.  Cranky.  But free.  I get more and more excited each day.  I didn't realize how much the accumulation of "things" can weigh you down or just how freeing mentally and even physically letting things go can be.  This is a good thing.  Better than therapy!