Too Much Stuff

Our landlady believes that our current dwelling falls somewhere between 900 and 930 square feet. So we need to leave behind all the stuff that fills the 250 to 280 square feet of space that we will lose in the move. And this has been a difficult thing to do.

We figured the best way for us to do it would be to take one room or section of the house at a time. Steven divided the house into nine of them. I thought starting at the linen cabinet would be easy enough. I had read that people only need two sets of sheets per bed. Makes sense to me; you have one on the bed while the other is in the wash. But, as easy as it was to set the extra sheets in the give away pile, the question did surface: how much space does a set of sheets take up, and would it really make a difference in the long run? And then we would sit and stare at the sheets and ask questions back and forth until we came to a decision. Moving into a smaller space is just a constant barrage of second guessing yourself about stuff to get rid of and making decisions is tiring.

We moved onto the master closet to thin out our wardrobe. I read somewhere that you should only keep what you would pack to take on a one month vacation; If you wouldn't pack it for a month's vacation, get rid of it. Here's the thing, getting rid of clothes is hard.  The memories you have of what you did or where you were in your clothes can create strong emotional attachments. And what if you need it someday? And you could always reuse it in a project or something, right? In the end we had to set all our feelings aside and look at our own clothes with an outsider's eyes. Using logic and numbers, you only need 6 pairs of shorts. And then, if you look at them objectively, the ones that are too big or too faded anyway need to go.

Let me tell you, closets and cupbords are the worst. Sure, on the surface we don't have much: a desk, a computer, a couple chairs, etc. But so many little things kept coming out of our closets and cupboards. We have already filled and emptied the cargo area in our car after only cleaning out 2 closets.

We've got a long way to go. But we've made some good progress so far.