March 4, 2018

Well, as I said in last week’s blog, this Avon lady is hitting the road in the near future. This last week I spent time letting go of a drawer full of sentimental cards and letters. How can I let go of the little cards and valentines and cute little notes and hand-drawn pictures my kids gave to me when they were little? Or how can I get rid of the beautiful card my mother wrote to me to tell me what a precious daughter I was to her–my mother who is now gone to heaven?

Well, I found a way. I’ve been scanning them into the computer. Yes, it takes time. But it can be done by devoting a few minutes a day to the task. I got it done in one week.

I made a folder called “cards” and made sub-categories of the people the cards were from like “kids”, “mom”, “dad” and so forth. It was fun re-reading all the wonderful things said to me on those special occasions. If you want a real boost to your self-esteem, try it!–but keep the tissues handy.

I kept a few cards that were really special that wouldn’t have scanned well. Was it hard to finally toss the others into the trash? Yes. But I know that in the long run, that’s where they will likely end up anyway. I’ve had fun remembering all the good times I received such beautiful cards and wishes from those I love most. Now they are stored much more permanently and I can retrieve them any time I want.

In the next week, I’ll tackle the paper “mountains”.

February 23, 2018

Well…not yet. We’re hitting the road in the near future. We plan to be full-time RVers in about a year from now.  I thought I would document our “journey” to get on our RV journey.

Probably the first thing about hitting the road is downsizing 42 years of married life into a 23 foot trailer and a 10 x 10 foot storage unit. The task of downsizing seems daunting when I stop to think about it. But the key to any big task is doing a little bit every day to reach the goal. So I’m determined to get started toward the amazing goal of RVing full time!

This week I’ve been going through kitchen cupboards. I started with the very top cupboards. You know, those top cupboards you really can’t even reach.  I found vases, nick-knacks and mugs we’ve collected over the years, especially cups with gold trim that you can’t use in the microwave. (I didn’t like washing them by hand, so I hid them.) My husband couldn’t part with two of his mugs with gold trim, and since it’s not really worth trying to convince him that he will probably never use them again, I put them back on the shelf. (He’s always re-heating his tea in the microwave so I know it’s very unlikely he will start using them).

If we were moving to another house, I would have probably just packed everything up again and moved it all. After all, we’ve moved 13 times in our married life–I’m pretty good at packing! But this is a different time in our lives. We are in our sixties, and “things” just don’t mean as much to me as they used to anymore. If we ever do settle down in a house again, it will be smaller. Time to clean out the “stuff”.

Yesterday, I cleaned out the middle cupboards. These are filled with things we use everyday. What I found was some seldom used cups and saucers, a sugar and creamer, several small pitchers (from my small pitcher collection) and some other items that needed to go. In the meantime, I have more space for the things we use most often!

Today I cleaned out the bottom cupboards. We have five kids and 7 grandkids, but who needs 6 glass 9×13 casserole dishes? I kept 2. We don’t plan to entertain in the RV, but someday if we settle down again, a couple of glass casserole dishes will suffice.

Other things I found in the deep recesses of the bottom cupboards were a bread slicer form, (remember bread makers?) a HUGE plastic turkey platter (where did that come from?), a pineapple-shaped wooden platter (from Hawaii that I gave to my mom who didn’t know what to do with it either), and a couple of pitchers that I never use. Plus two stacks of plastic lids for McDonald cups. Seriously. My husband likes to put his iced tea in re-used plastic cups. The lids don’t last long, so he “collects” them. Lots of them. WAY more than he will ever use.

The “Plan” is to have a yard sale soon. But since it’s still February, I think the yard sale will have to wait a few more weeks. Even in California, it’s cold in February. In fact, it snowed last night!

I realized recently that my family liked it when I “collected” things so they knew what to give me for birthdays and Christmas. In my lifetime I’ve collected ceramic animals, miniature tea sets, tea pots, vases and plates. They kept giving me things for my “collections” long after I ran out of room to keep them. Collecting is fun–but when you have to take care of the collections, dust the collections,  and find ways to display them, the fun seems to go out of it. And 42 years later….well, now I have to deal with it all.

The psychology of “letting go” of “stuff” became clear to me the first time I read “Clutter’s Last Stand” by Don Aslett years ago. How much of your life do you spend dusting, washing, cleaning, storing all those things that amount to clutter? How much do you spend on products to dust, wash, clean and store all those things that amount to clutter? How much joy do those things add to your life? Jesus said, ““Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.”

So true. Life does NOT consist of possessions. There’s so much more to life.