My lease is up in August, and my job situation is dire.

So, I have decided to move in with my Love. A thousand miles away. To his carriage house, two room apartment.

Thus, I must declutter almost everything.

I have one irreplacable piece of furniture that my grandfather built, a small half-round table. I also have two metal folding chairs, circa 1960, that were the original seating for a local music association. I worked for the association many years, and am a member still.

I have an unfinished table that can still be placd in its box.  He has no kitchen or dining table, and this has drop sides and sits out 18 inches from the wall.

 add a three-tier bookshelf that folds flat. I have a strong emotional attachment to it, but in a pinch it could go,too. To keep room for the metal folding chairs, for example.

The rest can get repurposed over the next few months, hopefully to organizations that help families in transition to housing.

I plan to get a layer of boxes in the Subaru. That's what I can take-- two layers of  "beer" boxes. I will fill the rest of the car's space with kitchen pans, clothes, bedding and the furniture metioned above. I do have a luggage rack, but i'd prefer not to use it.

I have a layer of boxes in books alone, and lets not talk about my music collection....or all the canvases I've painted. Anyone else voluntarily shed 90 percent of what you own? Am I crazy to do this? Can it be done? If I blogged this, would you read?

 

 

 

 

As a keeper of all sorts of stuff, I can hardly relate and would in no way consider you crazy. One of my brothers has done this several times. It works for him. DD is one who doesn't seem to have trouble with moving because very little of her stuff is important enough to her to keep. *** Best wishes, AM

truepeacenik:

Am I crazy to do this? Can it be done? If I blogged this, would you read?

 

Funny... just the other day I was remembering when I was a young married woman. We moved several times, following the lumber industry and, with the exception of a small mobile home parked in another state) we moved everything we owned in the back seat of the car. Dishes, pots and pans, clothes, bedding and bath stuff. Nothing else mattered. Sometimes I wish I could get back to that. "Stuff" is often emotional baggage, I've found. 

A few things, like the table and folding chairs, are worth it, but most are not. They're only things. 

I don't clutter in the past dad was in the miitary we moved placed to place we never had the time or the space to clutter shipping had to weight a certian amount the rest of the weight you had to pay for and its not cheap.

So Im still use to not clutter to much but I have to go into my storeage shed get rid of the last of my old house hold goods from a former life I had.

Hey ann merie hi there bet that got your attention...lol

As someone who lived in a pickup truck topper for two years, I definitely can relate.  I'd shed most of the cookware, though, unless it's expensive stuff--cookware is cheap and common at garage sales and secondhand stores.  If the books are replaceable, sell them and use the money to get the ebook editions. Digitize anything you can, keep the furniture, and get a set of combination and socket wrenches to stash under the seat, since cars and trucks are notorious for breaking down on cross-country trips and if you have these, some good ol' boy might be able to do a roadside repair. 

 update:

I decided to rent a storage unit for 12 months, shared with my son.

I think I'm keeping an ace in the hole in case the move does not work out. 

Still, I am shedding a LOT of stuff. VietNam Veterans of America has been here once, and is scheduled for Aug 25 as well, for the last stuff I won't be keeping.

add some Goodwill drop off trips and wow... I can't beleive what I've loaded myself down with.

Should I decide I don't need my stored items, a friend has offered to retrieve and sell them at a later date.

Scouting places to sell off CDs and books.

 

Yes Im decluttering somethings a few thing at a time from dh's closet since I don't wear size 13 shoes they be kinda kunkie on my feet make it look like gun boats charity might like it in my 40's its to much to hang on to stuff when having a town house condo what ever they call this place but declutter is good for the soul and also for the mind and since Im a recent widow Im doing the rest of the things at my own time and pace.

 The husband and I voluntarily reduced our household to about 1/3 to 1/2 of what it had been so that we could teach in Honduras for a year. The first hundred books (a set of children's biographies) was rough, and then it was like an avalanche of selling and giving away and donating. It's hard to make some of those choices, but it feels wonderful to be free of so much stuff.

Things that helped us to declutter:

1) If I was hanging on to something because it evoked a memory, and not because I actually wanted or needed the item, I took a picture. A picture still evokes the memory, and then I was free to give away the item.

2) I have been helped so many times by other people's generosity with their belongings. Freely I have received - freely give!

3)  Yesterday I came across a box of t-shirts from my college days, and many of them are with a social club that ended up badly with me. I found these shirts and felt guilt, sadness, regret, anger. Plus they were ugly. Good grief, why had I kept them *this* long? If it doesn't make me happy or is useful, why keep it? Mom tried to talk me into making a "t-shirt quilt." Why? So I can be literally be wrapped up in these feelings? No, thank you.I prefer to say them, "Be free, little t-shirts!"

 

 O, the memory-laden clothing.

My exH was a tie-dyer. I have beautiful examples of his work. Not typical dyes, really intricate, delicate stuff.  This is art, not hippy schlock.

I learned to do some of it and we sold shirts at a few Phish shows '95-97, but he gifted me with some awe-inspiring dresses for major life points: graduations, 10th anniversary, new job congrats when I got the first position in Colorado and the like. We sold these dresses for $300, and got it easily.

I am not sure I want to be rid of all of these. Several shirts are slated to find new homes. I donated most of my tie dyed socks (those I can replicate easily).

I met my current partner wearing a TieDye Paul dress.

those, and my collection of late 90s String Cheese Incident shirts (gifts from the band in the early days) and a few batik tour shirts are my big cave in to sentimentality.

The dresses especially sound beautiful. How does your current partner feel about sentimental clothing from a previous relationship?