One person's trash...

As my household clears out our mounds of built-up stuff Monkey has started checking on Ebay if our outgoing items are worth anything. While looking at, what I think of as a pile of junk, I laughed at his efforts and went back to sorting. The books I could see being worth some trade-in credit at Powell's and maybe we could find some specialty vinyl record store that wanted some of our three boxes of inherited records but the rest... Well, Monkey ignored me and went on checking. Most of what he was checking on was outdated tech. Who wants a zip drive nowadays in the time of 4g thumb drives cheep at every store? It seems some one does, along with a lot of other odds and ends that we have no use for. So far it looks like we may make enough to fund our last vacation of the season coming next week.

This is especially fortunate as predictions of a bad winter to come have been starting to pop up. As a result, we are shelling out on a whole cord of wood as well as preparing to go through a lot more heating oil.

I will never doubt the interest of some one else wanting what I'm getting rid of. I'm hoping these things are going to people who will use them rather than junk up someone else's life.

My hero

My primary partner, Monkey, works in community mental health. He does a very, very difficult job with, sometimes very, ill patients on a very tight budget. He hears horrible stories of abuse and neglect from the histories of many of his clients. Sometimes they take out their pain on him by yelling and threatening him. Sometimes, thankfully rare, he loses clients to suicide or overdose. He goes through this every day at the office. Every day he gets up and goes back again for more. He does it because he loves his job. He cares about these people who no one else are helping. He believes that each client has the ability, with some help, to be stable, happy, sober, whatever. When he worked exclusively in addictions he always believed that if some one blew out of treatment that they would come back and, next time, they would succeed at getting sober. Every. Single. Time. Monkey is one of my heroes. How he manages to have worked in community mental health for the past 12 years and not become jaded and bitter has always amazed me.

He posted on his own blog yesterday about his work. You can read it here. He is an amazing guy, my Monkey. I'm so proud of who he is and the work he does. :)

Downsizing

I liked to think I'm not much of a "stuff" person. However, I looked around my house a few months ago and realized that it was packed to the rafters with, well, stuff! When Monkey and I moved into the house we rattled around in it like two marbles in a pickle jar. It was amazing to have so much space. We thought we'd never fill it up. It is now several years later and we have certainly managed to pack in the stuff. I am told this happens to everyone when you settle down in one place for long enough.

I hate feeling crowded. I feel mentally bloated. By current American standards, I have a small-ish house, however, I look around and feel like this should be more than enough space. Compared to other societies, this is an obscene amount of space. I feel like I'm being wasteful simply by using up space for what is essentially junk. My attic, basement and garage are full of stuff that no one has looked at for a year or more. (To be fair, the garage is mostly Author's stuff that he has been going through to minimize his own collection of stuff.) Do I really need any of this? For the most part the answer is no.

So Monkey and I are going on a stuff diet. Our goal is clear out all of our junk-hiding corners and maximize our use of space through organization. We are also being much more mindful of what we think we need to buy. This part is less of a problem for him as it is for me. I've practicing small amounts of retail therapy because of my trouble getting pregnant. (Didn't get a bfp this month? Buy a new whatever to feel better.) The problem is "small amounts" add up, put strain on our finances and fill our house with little bits of needless stuff. So I'm becoming more mindful about what I want to buy.

The stuff purge got us thinking about what we really wanted in our life. We are wondering if home-ownership was really the right path for us. Did we get the house just because that is what adults are supposed to want? Are we actually more urban-living type people than we thought? Would be be happier renting a nice apartment or townhouse in a more urban setting? It is too soon in this downsizing project to answer those questions but they are under consideration. We have giving ourselves 2 years to downsize our stuff, catch up with house maintenance and tighten up our budget. (This time will also "downsize" our pet population since I do believe that a couple of our elderly animals won't last beyond that. I love every one of my pets and will be sad when they pass away. However, I never intended to have quite so many.) Then we will reconsider our feelings about being home-owners.

We've already started the downsizing project by going through our clothes that no longer fit due to our physical downsizing. (Monkey, Author and I have lost over 120lb as a household so far!) It felt amazing to ruthlessly cull our clothes and get all those piles of stuff our of our drawers and closet. I'm about half way through minimizing my knitting/sewing/craft stuff as well. Downsizing is fun!