Downsizing

I have realized we have a lot of stuff way too much stuff. In order to make this work, we have to get rid of everything almost everything.  We are hoping we can get our stash down to an 8' 1800PackRat container worth of stuff.  That means we will be going from about 3300 square feet down to about 50 square feet of storage and approximately 300 square feet of living space.  Sounds impossible... We are getting rid of all the furniture, most of our clothes, and everything that is easy to replace.

Newly finished basement with couches, TV, and cocktail style arcade machine

We just finished the basement in our house.  We have a pretty awesome TV that David picked out and a comfy recliner with matching L-shaped couch that recline and light up with the push of a button.  David also special ordered a fancy cocktail style arcade cabinet that he can run just about any arcade/computer game ever designed on it. After finishing the basement, we have 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a rec/theater room, a massive storage room, an office, and all the other basic rooms you would find in a house... for the 3 of us!

The 3 of us in front of our new 79" TV

 With all that room, I still can't find a place for all of our stuff.  I am constantly moving piles around, not sure where so many things belong.  It is very overwhelming! I guess it is fair to say that we live a life of excess!

Lorelei's closet... and these are the leftovers that she
didn't take on her 6 week summer trip to Georgia!

Lorelei's closet is crammed full of clothes but the funny thing is, she usually wears the same few outfits over and over.I know that if I wash a certain shirt, she will wear it the day she finds it hanging in her closet.

I am pretty much the same way.  I have a few go-to outfits that I wear over and over again and plenty of clothes that remain untouched 95% of the time.  I buy a lot of our clothes second hand or at bargain Costco prices so I try to tell myself that it is OK that we have so much stuff but I think I am just making up excuses.


We started downsizing about a month ago by participating in our city wide garage sale.  I think we made over $800 at the sale which is nothing to scoff at, but it is a bit depressing to think that most of the stuff we sold was sold for 10-25% of the original price we paid for it.

We started stockpiling our garage sale items in the dining room

The night before the sale with the garage crammed full of stuff

The set up on the driveway

After the sale, we loaded up both of our cars with leftovers to donate to Goodwill and since then, we have been making 1-2 trips to Goodwill each week!  We are trying to sell the nicer stuff on Craigslist and nextdoor.com but there is still so much stuff left in our house.  The plan is to be on the road in about 6 weeks... but I'm not sure we can get rid of everything in time.  Well, I'm sure we could give it away... but it is nice to be able to recoup some of the money we have spent on all of our furniture and clothes... and my car!  Oh, and did I mention we are selling our house, too?  Fortunately, this is an awesome time to sell a house in our area so unlike our Las Vegas house which we are STILL underwater on, this one should turn a nice profit for us!  It will be worth it in the end, right?

A Change In Plans

It can take me hours to write a simple e-mail.  I am a perfectionist and tend to majorly overthink things when I am trying to get my thoughts down on paper typed out.  It usually comes to the point where David pushes me out of the way gently nudges me, tells me it's fine, and makes me send the e-mail.  So logically, the best way to overcome this fear of written words is to start a blog!  Oh, I should probably also mention that I have a fear of commitment am terrible at completing projects...  As a matter of fact, there is currently a box in my basement labeled "unfinished projects" and I just went through my scrapbooking collection and found multiple stacks of postcards that were partially written but never got addressed or some that I addressed and wrote but never put a stamp on, or some that had stamps but never finished writing.  Also, I have a touch of ADHD (who doesn't?) and find myself drifting away on one tangent or another and rarely make it back to the original point I was trying to make...  But, let's give this a try!

In 2012, we moved to Castle Pines, Colorado.  We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into!  There is this strange season here that happens from October to May... called Winter!  We grew up in Georgia where a dusting of snow can shut down a city for at least a day and a foot of snow can bring everything to a standstill for a week!  I think there is 1 snowplow for the whole state, and they probably share it with Alabama!  OK, perhaps not really, but growing up there does not prepare you for a Colorado winter!

Overlooking our new neighborhood in December, 2012 after our first snow in our Colorado house

I will admit that the winter in Colorado can be quite beautiful.  The weather changes quickly here and like the saying goes, "If you don't like the weather (in Colorado), just wait 5 minutes."  It didn't take long for us to learn that a tumultuous snowstorm can quickly turn into a bluebird sky day.  When everything is blanketed in snow it can be very peaceful and almost soothing.  I love that I can go outside the day following a storm and generally find a cloudless sky and an almost balmy 50 degree day, not like other places that have long dreary winters and hardly get to enjoy the sunshine for many months.

 There are also plenty of fun things to do in the winter.

Lorelei sledding in May 2015

Lorelei & Christy's snowman, May 2015

Christy shoveling snow, April 2016

When we first moved here, I actually enjoyed shoveling snow.  It is kind of like exercise with a purpose.

Yulia & David shoveling snow, March 2013

Winter of 2015-16 proved to be a little more than we could handle!  We realized we had enough snow and we were going to change our 2 year plan that we had recently come up with.

Christy trudging through the front yard snow

Getting ready to measure the snow

Thank goodness we had a yard stick to measure the snow

27.5" of snow, April 2016

Our original plan was to move to Tampa, FL in the Summer of 2017.  We are beach people and a pool family and wanted to get back to living somewhere where we could have a pool in our backyard to swim in whenever we felt like it, not whenever the hours posted on the pool sign allowed!

Since Lorelei was in a Montessori school, leaving in 2017 would put her at the end of a 3 year learning cycle and would be a good time to transition either to a new Montessori school or a traditional school if necessary.  But after this most recent winter,  I started complaining almost as much as David about the snow and what seemed like endless days of cold weather.  One thing I have learned about living in Colorado is there is no such thing as normal weather.  For 4 years I listened to "locals" tell me that, "This isn't normal weather."  Well, forgive me, but if you hear that for 4 years, you realize that there isn't such a thing as "normal" weather.  There are many words you can use to describe Colorado but normal does not fit in the description anywhere! 

 I am a little worried about moving to Tampa because there are so many more things there to dislike than being in Colorado.  The winter can suck in Colorado and we are too far away from the beach and from family but that's about all I can complain about.  Florida is full of mosquitoes, humidity, alligators, sinkholes, Sunday drivers, Silver alerts, red necks (I've heard Colorado has its fair share of rednecks but I haven't encountered any), and lots of religious nuts.  When we first left Georgia to move to Las Vegas, my only concern was that I would miss my family.  When we decided to move to Colorado, I don't think I had any hesitations.  The more I think about moving to Florida, the more anxious I become about the idea.    A few months ago, I decided we needed a new plan to make sure Tampa is the right place for us. Follow us on our journey here, there, and everywhere across our amazing country as we explore and try to figure out where we want to settle down and build our forever home, living in our new home on wheels that we will be picking up from Des Moines RV in just under 1 month.