I gave away art supplies, I sold stuff on Craigs' List and I threw all kinds of stuff away. I even left some stockpiled cardstock when I moved my house and forgot a few things when I ultimately drove out of Michigan for the last time.
But upon returning from Morocco, I'm still stunned at the amount of *stuff* I have. Living on a shoestring for two years magnified the fact I just don't *need* more than that, either.
I mean, I survived just fine on maybe five pairs of pants, so why did I, at one time, need five pairs of pants in varying shades of brown? Or three black ones? (Not counting jeans ... and let's not count jeans, please!)
So now I am downsizing yet again. I've taken countless (well, maybe 4-5) loads to Goodwill already, cut more into rags, given some to Leanne, taken some to a consignment store and thrown more in a "TBA" pile.
And I'm utilizing Craigs' List to the hilt.
Wonder of wonders, I've gotten some bites. I managed to unload ALL my hockey cards to a guy in Wayne Gretzky's hometown. Hamdullah! Let's put out there that I'm making absolutely no money - I wound up shipping four boxes to Canada -- but am just so glad to A. give the stuff a good home and B. never have to move it again.
As far as my stuff goes, that's all I've unloaded, but I've had success in freeing up floor space in my mom's room, too, but finding a buyer for the toddler bed and dresser she bought years ago for some reason.
And the brand new chairs she had in the room, if you can call something eight years brand new if it still hasn't been touched.
Best of all, I got a taker for a childhood's worth of trophies so they're no longer cluttering dust in the house.
And, even though I'm not doing so much of it right now (I'm working on a writing assignment), my mere presence has spurred my mom into some kind of cleaning frenzy. She's going through my grandmother's stuff to sort it (and learning my my brother is the spitting image of her father) as well as finally pulling the trigger on those long-fantasized about home improvements.
No, the new kitchen is still in the far distant future, but we got a new bathroom cabinet. And fortunately, even though I'd planned to, Daddy installed it.
It's smaller than the old one, and looks much nicer. The new medicine cabinet will go up a bit later, but right now Zippy is marveling over how nice at least a small part of her bathroom looks.
Next up is a new storage thingie in the utility room because we lucked out of finding something at Goodwill that she fell in love with. I hope to have little to do with that one, but I am up for painting her room, which is the project in the hole.
As far as jobs go, I am working on the writing assignment, which requires doing a lot of reading and then rewriting -- it's kind of like super-sized book report. I underestimated, I think, the reading time involved but I am into it now.
After that finishes up -- inchallah next week or at least by the end of the month -- I'll get more serious about looking for a job locally. I am still applying for federal positions plus hoping for a call on a different one I'd applied for, but I figure I am still about 3-4 weeks away from apply-for-everything mode.
Symptoms of that will include applying to temp agencies and part-time jobs in Tally, including retail.
No comments:
Post a Comment