And More of the Same

My reduction of material possessions continued this weekend... gosh it feels so good!  I tackled a few things that have been hanging over my head:

Sewing Machine & Notions:  A friend and former neighbor is going to "foster" my sewing machine and notions for me.  I don't want to get rid of it, but I don't need it in the immediate future.  And she was having seller's remorse for getting rid of hers - win/win!  I sat down on Saturday and sorted out all the spools of thread (organized by size, of course - OCD) and the bobbins.  And then consolidated all the notions from 3 containers down to two.  And, delivered them to her.  Check.

Christmas Ornaments:  I took down the big cardboard ornament storage box - you know the kind with all the little square dividers - and sorted them.  One pile was the Old World Christmas collectible ornaments; Some of those I am giving away, and some I am selling. One pile was the hand knitted ornaments from my Great Aunt  Hazel; I thought that pile was bigger, but somehow it was only 3 ornaments.  Hmm.  Then I pulled out the 3-4 sentimental ones that I want to keep.  And the rest?  After blast email to sisters offering them, I took them to Goodwill.  (And then I heard from a sister today - saying yes.  Whoops.  Things go fast here, people, you've gotta move fast.  LOL)

 

I found a friendly home for my golf clubs...and shoes.

I took more clothes out of my closet... and did a trip to Goodwill.

And then?  The big kahuna:  I opened my footlocker.  The home of things like report cards K- 12 and college.  Wedding items.  Sister wedding items.  Glass cats made by grandpa. My old diary from junior/senior high.  Piles and piles of notes I passed in high school.  It was a Pandora's box.  No wonder I had been putting it off!  But now, there is about 6 inches of paper in it.  I toted a huge construction bag of stuff to the apartment dumpster - I literally could hardly carry it.  But again - so nice to have that done!  I should have taken photos of the evidence of my progress, but I didn't.  I was on such a tear it didn't occur to me to document!

More Mason Jars:  I bought more jars, and tackled the nutty situation in my freezer.  Oh my gosh!  Here's what I pulled out of my freezer - total nightmare:

But just a few minutes later, it was transformed into this:

Ahhhh.  I feel sooo much better!  And my freezer is a lot happier, too!

Onward.  Upward.

Distilling My Thoughts

It's good to have time to sit back and observe.

I am settling down from chaos, and my thoughts are sort of distilling, and I can tell that the way I think about things is changing.  I can't exactly put my finger on it.... but I like it somehow.  I like knowing that I am on a new path, and I guess I have to say that I think I sort of like that I don't know yet exactly what that path is going to be.

First, little things.  For example, I was standing in my kitchen last week and I realized that I had five coffee scoops.  A little thing, right?  But I don't need FIVE.  I got rid of 3 of them.  I know - I realize that really, I can only use one at a time and that I still have two.  But one is a crappy plastic one whose handle got too close to the stove at some point and it melted - but it's long enough to reach down into the coffee bag - a necessity unless you want coffee all over your knuckles.  The other one is a really cute pewter one that is sentimental - I bought it on an afternoon lunch and shopping frolic with my friend Jennifer when she lived in Little Rock.  It's too short for my bags of coffee, but every time I see it I am transported back to that afternoon that was such a precious slice of time.  And so, yes, I still have two coffee scoops.  But I only use one.

I got my work space in my apartment mostly organized this weekend - I got a new printer cartridge so my printer is hooked up and working now.  I got my Internet up, so I can post on weekends with a real keyboard!  And I looked at my pencil cans.  I have three.  I have three because I probably have a dozen pencils, even more pens, and then a whole separate can for markers and highlighters, and a third can for scissors.  Because apparently I need seven pairs of scissors.  But I don't.

Not that those types of observations are earth shattering - obviously they are not.  But it's the way of thinking - the simplified view - I never really thought about having 20 pencils before.  Maybe they are sold in packs of 20.  Maybe not throwing anything useful out was so engrained in me growing up, that I just kept accumulating them - I don't know - but common sense dictates that the majority of them need to be donated or something.

So that's this weird tunnel vision I am having about weird random things around me.  Reality is, I need to pare down enough that I am rattling around in this apartment in the next six months.  I went from 1148 square feet to 600; I roughly cut my space in half.  But this summer (I hope) am going to reduce from 600 feet to under 120.  That's um, a big change.  But in defense of my current possessions - a good number of tubs are shop equipment and camping gear.  And if you took out those and my couch and my bed, there wouldn't be a ton of stuff remaining.  Or so I think.  It's still a lot more than would fit in less than 120 square feet!  Ah, it's good to have goals.

In my career transition workshop, one of the last things we did was write up and practice our "elevator pitch."  Theory being, you meet someone new in an elevator, and you have about 20 seconds to explain who you are and what you want.  I listen to myself talk now, when friends ask me what's new, and I feel my elevator speech changing.  I haven't consciously changed it, but I hear myself saying different things than I used to say, without really thinking about it.  It's as though my thoughts are being clarified...

Lately I hear myself talking more about traveling and speaking than I do about starting a tiny house community in Dallas.  I feel like I am still going to do that - start a community - but I feel like maybe it's going to be a home base for travel.  Like maybe I'll get the community wheels turning and in between I'll be traveling with my tiny house and speaking.  I can see myself in my mind's eye, pulling into new cities with my house, and building enthusiasm, telling my story.  Being just overflowing with enthusiasm, and how contagious that is - and all the amazing people I am going to meet along the way.  I can just see it.  Yes, there are a lot of questions for which I do not have answers.  But the answers will come.  I'm open to just about anything - and anything could happen.  

Done, Done, Check, Done.

My house was shown to a potential buyer for the first time last evening.  The realtors estimated I would need to be out for about 30 minutes.  That turned out to be quite an under-estimate; the people were looking at my house for more than an hour and a half!  I thought perhaps communication was crossed and that I could go home, but texted to confirm - no!  Still there!  I was fine with it... taking that long has to be good, right?

And my alley neighbor Kelley let me bring Greta and enjoy a happy hour while I waited - so perfect but very briefly a little weird because at one point we could hear voices in my backyard...and we had to tone down our laughter...

The feedback I got after the showing was positive... so time will tell. 

I took yesterday off and I cleaned my house all day.  I mean alllll dayyyy.  It wasn't this clean when my mother visited!!  LOL  But, the good news is, it's uber clean for my house guests this weekend.  And, the de-cluttering and the deep cleaning is done, so theoretically for future showings my spiff up should be very quick and easy.  Assuming that I can live this tidily... HA HA HA HA   It's crazy though - my house sort of echoes...

I feel like I have been blowing through huge things in the past weeks:

The letter to Tumbleweed?  Out the door.

The formal signing with a realtor to sell?  Done.

The Alice in Wonderland Bridal Shower?  Over.  (Success!)

The preparation of my house for showings?  Check.

The first showing?  Done.  And it wasn't even emotional for me.

Okay, I admit, I hate to think of them un-doing what landscaping I have done in the backyard. But I am, ahem -- sitting up straight - I am mature enough to realize that not everyone likes the same things as me.   Yeah, whatever, I probably need to rehearse that.  : )  

It's sort of depressing to acknowledge that the execution of my backyard plan never got as far down the line as I wanted - and that many of my butterfly/hummingbird garden dreams will - at least at this location - remain unfulfilled.  But, as I said, "I am mature enough..."  GAAAAAAAHH.  One hurdle at a time.

So what's next?  I have a friend flying in from North Carolina tomorrow night and staying with me until Monday.  Another friend from FW is going to come and stay with us Saturday/Sunday and we are going to collectively put our feet up and just laugh and do girly things.

Tonight?  A run to the grocery store and then - nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Bits & Pieces

No, no word from Tumbleweed yet... : )  But I am not discouraged, either - it's all good.  Frankly I wasn't really ready last week for a phone call anyway - very scattered with other things going on, so I was actually relieved.  I am feeling more grounded today, and hope that continues this week.

I signed on with Bryan and Amanda as my realtors last week, and I have my first house showing this Wednesday!  I started de-cluttering my house last night.  I"m bringing some boxes home today to keep going on that... not sure WHERE the boxes are going to go, but ... one step at a time.

It's sort of drag to be putting away the more personal items from my house when I have three weekends of upcoming house guests packing bags to come and stay with me (starting this Friday), but oh well.  A minor detail I suppose.

I sent away my first piece of furniture to Lydia last night... : )  We were both happy.

I am having my "estate" sale on Saturday, November 3rd.  I know, estate sales are when someone dies, but heck what else do you call it when you sell everything you own?  It's a wee bit more than a garage sale... Plus I think the term "estate sale" has a certain draw to it.

I'm going to try to get some pumpkins and mums onto my front steps before Wednesday, and get my huge ghostie guy hung up in the tree.  He's always fun.  And my neighborhood has already started going Halloween!  Somehow it's only October 8th and it seems like I am behind... not sure how that happened.

I saw one of my neighbors out on the sidewalk on Sunday evening.  I hadn't seen him since I told everyone I was moving.  His first words, "So you're really doing it?" were accompanied by a huge smile.  We talked about what I hope to do, and some of the reasoning why; he has similar views about how much space we use to live.  He said he'd never heard of tiny houses before my email but that he had looked them up and found them very interesting albeit very small.  He said he works in a lab, where there is so much open space.  He said the next day he went to work, stood in the middle of the room, and announced (something like) that he was going to "change the way we do work.  We don't need all this space!  We could fit 24 techs in here and we only have 8!"  It just made me laugh.  I love how my changes are causing people think about things differently.