Less Stuff

Today I took most of my stored furniture, from my storage space, to a charity. They will sell it on to someone in need and fund their operations. This is the right thing to do. It was costing me money where it is, I wasn't using it, and I got 10 years of utility out of it before then. It was time to let go.

I am resolved to only own things that I can either pick up by myself or come with wheels. A surprising amount of the stuff left over are papers, needing to be tossed or shredded for security. The remainders are tools I will keep forever, and stuff from hobbies I haven't completely given up but are no longer convenient. The new storage space is smaller, and I won't need it all. I plan to go through what is left, box by box, every week, until I've drastically reduced what is left. I will try and sell some of the books, but others I suspect would be better served donating to the library so they can either put them on the shelf or sell them for operational funding. No point keeping most of them. Even my useless geology textbooks. A few might be valued by my nephews, who like rock and mineral collecting.

The other interesting thing today is last night, at 1:06 AM, it started raining. Light rain, but rain. This is very unusual for California in high summer, which this is. I had to get up and close the sunroof on my car to keep the rain out. The sound of the drops was soothing, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees over the following hours. This helped because today was much cooler and made the task of renting a trailer, loading it up, twice, with furniture, and hauling it several miles to the nearest charity, much more bearable. After returning the trailer we ate burgers, mulled over the lack of stuff in the SUV and opted to return to fill it to capacity. More sweating and effort, but there's now less stuff in there, and I got to show my Dad my new storage space up here, around the corner from where we live. This makes the process of visiting and reducing my stuff far more easy, and thus something I can actually do. Rather than dream or doing, or feel guilty for not doing when it was a 50 minute drive each way. That's a lot of gasoline. This is easier.

When I am done, I think I'll come up with a modular desk, something minimal, light, strong enough and I can put my feet up on it. Without the endlessly broken pullout keyboard trays. Those things are worthless.

Hope everyone has a good weekend. If you have stuff you don't use, why do you have it. Would your life be better or worse if you got rid of it? Would you really miss it?