I have been absent from this blog now for more than a year. A lot has happened in the last year. When blogs I've read go missing for such a long period, I drop them and move on to another blog, so I may have lost all the readers I once had, but if not, I have an announcement to make that must proceed all other news...
Our family is moving back to the Bay Area this summer.
Not only are we picking up and moving across the country, one coast to the other, but we are moving from a house with land and property into a houseboat.
The last time we moved from Pacifica to Albany, we went from being settled with no intention to move anywhere, to having moved all of our belongings across the country in record time...like three months. The way we managed this was to just pack all of our possessions and move them with the intent to sort through them when we got here. As a result there are boxes in our basement that have never been opened. Throw them out you say, and I would agree...but unfortunately, when we were packing, we threw everything into boxes and there are, say, wedding photos mixed in with garbage and heirlooms mixed with broken toys...okay, so it might not be that bad, but everything needs to be sifted and we began that long process yesterday with the arrival of a dumpster.
The thing is, we would like to reduce what we own by at least two thirds and I don't mean by just taking out the garbage (see photo). We want to give up, painfully at times, two thirds of what we own and use and have loved. We are giving up furniture, a piano, beloved books, old toys, Christmas ornaments, and yes, even child made pottery... And I want to record this journey with our transition from house to boat, "hoarders" to "minimalists" and east to west from beginning to end. Don't get too excited...we will never be true minimalists with all of the crafts and projects we like to do, but we intend to hone down all of our stuff to include only the things we cannot replace or do without.
Here is evidence of our first day of effort.
If you want to play "Where's Waldo?" with my garbage, I threw away at least four Christmas trees. See if you can spot them. And yes, at one time, when my children were small, I put up five Christmas trees in my house. The lights on these no longer work. Ask yourself, do you want a Christmas tree on which you have to string lights every year?
I don't necessarily intend to bore you every day with my garbage, but I hope to give you periodic updates on the state of our project. Getting a dumpster is a big, big deal for us and it feels good to get rid of stuff. But now that the big and obvious stuff is gone, we have to start going through the boxes, sifting, sifting, deciding what to keep and what to throw out. It will be painful and hard. We will be having a garage sale and it will contain a table devoted to all of the craft materials I don't want with a placard that says, "Fill a bag for a dollar. And we will be calling the Salvation Army and/or Just Junk to pick up whatever is left at the end of the day.
