Prepping « Robin Writes

We have a lot of stuff. A lot. Moving it is not fun at all—I know, been there, done that. Many times. We’ve been married 17 years and we’ve moved eight times, not counting a few hotels we stayed in while houses were being finished/made ready.

At the moment, we’re looking at building a tiny house, with some outside storage for things like supplies, weapons, fuel, tools, etc., and so we won’t be able to take much with us. Currently, we have an 1800+ square foot home, three-car garage (not as fancy as it sounds, we only put a car in it once), a shed, and a greenhouse.

That’s a lot of stuff.

Yes, we’ll have a storage shed on the property—my husband is a whiz at packing those—and I’m not going to get rid of any family pieces or heirlooms or all of the memorabilia. I have limits, after all.

And I’m not going to go crazy, either. We do have to live here for the next couple years, according to our plan, and we’d like to still enjoy it. Looking around the house, I can see a ton of stuff that we won’t take with us, or store, when the time comes:

Three desktop computers and one laptop—I’m not counting the kid’s stuff, ‘cause that’s his and he’ll take it off to college. Everything will go onto one computer, the newest one, although we may have upgraded by then, so . . . Point is, we don’t need that many! Most of the other equipment here in the office will stay, too, except: the bookcases.

Here’s where we get serious. Okay, *I* get serious—can I consolidate and make do with just three? Or maybe five . . . this is gonna be tough. Five of the bookcases in my office are ancient. Not antique, just old prefab furniture. Goodbye!

Let’s look at the living room: it’s L-shaped, with three main areas. And they’re pretty full. Hmm, let me think. Tiny house. Uh oh. Naturally, Grandma’s electric organ will come with us . . . and a couple things to sit on . . . this is really going to get interesting.

I mean, how do you get rid of things you’ve had in your house, like, forever? Some of these things I “inherited” from Mom. She always cracks a joke about déjà vu when she’s here, since it really does resemble her old place, with the tea cart, the curio cabinet, and some of my childhood furniture, kids’ stuff that we have here for the grandkids. Of course, part of this exercise will be thinking ahead: in two years, the grandkids will be 9, 6, and 5. Unless we have more by then . . .

Anyway, moving on: dining room, actually kinda/sorta part of the living room. Big table. Huh. No room for that. We’ll move in the old Ethan Allen table we use on the patio—also once my mom’s. But the china cabinet? Probably not. Antique sideboard? Definitely. Kitchen? Yikes.

I haven’t even mentioned the bedrooms or closets—most of the items in the garage and outbuildings will be going with us, of course, tools and such, but just for fun I looked up the dimensions of this house:

The living/dining area alone is 800 square feet. I’m trying to imagine everything put into that space and well, this is definitely going to be a challenge. Yeah, challenge. Might be the understatement of the century.

The point is that we’re going to SELL, SELL, SELL! Starting soon, more than likely. This is gonna take a while . . . First step, the garage. And in the spirit of that little adventure, here’s a link:

BOOKSTORE STARTER KIT

In case, you know, you want to be adventurous too!

Yes, we’re starting now—Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? In case you missed last week’s post, we’re moving on out, no, not to the east side or even up, necessarily. Out to the woods. Homesteading. Survival. Peace and quiet. Fewer ridiculous regulations. You know.

First, the getting healthy and in shape part which, of course, is ongoing. I’ve cut my smoking—yes, I smoke, don’t judge—and upped my exercise. Ouch. It’s not a conventional plan, because damn, that stuff is boring . . . Go ahead, you exercise nuts, tell me how wonderful it is. I’ll wait.

There, feel better? Yeah, me too. Okay, so basically I just do more physical stuff each day. Twenty push-ups? I’ll do at least that many the next day. Walk a couple miles? At least two tomorrow. As long as I don’t backslide, I’m doing okay.

We do have some equipment: treadmill, recumbent bike, weight bench. These will be going on the market soon, because 1) we’re downsizing and 2) you certainly don’t need stuff like this if you’re living out in the woods. There’s plenty to do out there to keep in shape—and plenty to do here, too, while we’re “in process.”

In the meantime, sure, we’ll use them. Good way to start, although again, boring! I’d rather get something done while getting a workout than just sit and pedal or walk/run nowhere.

Speaking of running—dear Lord, I almost spelling that “funning.” Not—I have a bad knee(s) and a couple/few messed up discs in my back/neck. Oh, and an ITB problem. Not an ideal candidate for any of this, right? In fact, last week after The Paver Incident as I like to call it, I could barely walk for two days in spite of my heavy-duty knee brace. But, by Day 3, it was like it never happened. Go figure.

No, I’m not changing the name of my blog to “The Gimpy Survivalist.”

Yes, I have an assortment of braces and yes, I’m stocking up on Advil. But the most important thing is exercise and strength—I have been given, over the years, different sets of exercises to strengthen and flex the problem areas. I just need to step it up. And you know how much I like this exercise thing, right?

But here’s where it gets interesting: I finally figured out that I need to strike while the iron’s hot, whether it’s chores or writing or (gasp!) exercising. In other words, I don’t make a plan or schedule because I’ll also make excuses for NOT following it.

So I get in the stretches when I can; and the aerobics; and the weights; and the walking—notice I did not say “running.” Although I saw the video of the 80-year-old dancer yesterday, and I’m slightly ashamed . . .

Where was I? Oh, right: timing. A minute and a half to make my coffee = stretches. Thirty seconds to reheat it = aerobics. More pavers = weights. Plus walking. Not strolling, fast walking. And, dear heavens, not that silly power-walking stuff. Oy.

And if I sometimes need braces or RICE, so be it. The stronger all your problem areas become, the easier this getting-in-shape thing is going to be. It’s not a number, it’s not a schedule, it’s a mind-set and a goal of being able to do the things that you have to do.

Like running from zombies. Heh.