Simplify – part two

A few months back I went on a little simplification campaign. I can’t say that everything has gone as expected, but it’s a step in the right direction.  For the past 5-6 weeks, I’ve been simplifying our belongings, cuz, you know,

You can’t take it with you Brother Will, Brother John.

You can’t take it with you Brother Will, Brother John.

It ain’t no use mister, after you’re gone.

You can’t take it with you Brother Will, Brother John.

As we were getting ready to pack up our stuff, we realized that we had ALOT of belonging, definitely enriched in goods junk stuff.  The one big advantage of moving is that it gives you the opportunity to go through your belongings and purge, purge, purge.  And purge I did.  Freecycle and I become good friends.  I can’t even tell you how much stuff flew out of our house.  It was really surprising.  What was more surprising was the fact that people wanted it.  I would even put together “boxes of randomness” filled with all sorts of weird stuff, and I’d have 3-4 people wanting to pick it up!  I guess one person’s junk is treasure for someone else!

It felt really good to see so many things just disappear.  As moving got closer, we got even more generous with our free offerings.  Basically, if we hadn’t used it in the past 3 years, it was out.  If it got used sparingly, it was out.  We gave away big stuff, too.   . . . . riding lawnmower, sturdy garage shelves, cabinets, car seats, play castle, I can’t even remember what else.  Which means it was probably a good thing we got rid of it since it clearly didn’t have a special place in my mind!

Even after giving away gobs of stuff, we still ended up with a VERY full moving van.  And, once we arrived to our new home, we gave away another 5-8 boxes of stuff.  Ah, it feels great to simplify!