survival « Robin Writes

Downsizing. We all talk about it, everyone seems to think it’s a good thing . . . But it’s NOT EASY.

Bookstore surplus aside, I’m cutting back from nine bookshelves to five. Heh. Nine to five. But which books??? Sure, the old textbooks can go—who was I kidding when I kept some of those? And most of the antique books will be sold anyway, some are already on Ebay.

I do have a lot of sentimental things laying around here, too. And those will have to come with us. They may be used, many are being used now, but some, yes, will have to be stored. Sorry, not getting rid of them—the kids may want them someday, or not. Won’t be MY problem, right?

Sadly, it’s my problem right now. There are tons of things in the garage that came from the family farm—some can be used, but some . . . I just don’t know. Might be a while before I can go through it all. Yikes. The kids have things here too, come and get ‘em!

Clothes are easy, even shoes—I’m not a shoe junkie. Oh, I see them and like them, in ads, in the stores, but I rarely buy them. Unless they’re boots. Okay, maybe I have a slight issue . . . But boots are USEFUL!

The kitchen is going to be real problem. Sure, I have things there that I don’t use often, but I DO use them. Sigh. I have a lot of cabinets. A lot. And the china cabinet and antique sideboard? This house won’t have a dining room . . . that means the Mexican pine dining room table and the chairs that Dennis made will have to go too. Unless—hey, wait a minute! Maybe we could enclose the patio for a dining room? Genius!

So, you see, this is a project. Huge. We’re already starting to sell off a few things, piecemeal, but have pretty much decided—gulp—that a garage sale is in order. Oh, dear. Last one was, um, about seven years ago. That’s about how long it takes me to recover from one. And I’ve never made more than a few dollars. Sigh.

Well, here goes: coming May 24, BIG SALE! And I hope you all come—okay, okay, some of you might find the trip a bit of a distance and all . . . Well, wish us luck! Two years’ planning isn’t too much, I’m thinking, although at this point I could be ready a lot sooner. A lot.

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!