get rid of things I don't need

I sold a few things that have been taking up space in my tiny apartment and made a helpful amount of cash in the process:

-the silly bike trainer that takes all the joy out of biking
-my old mountain bike that’s too heavy for my uphill commute
-my very old laptop that I was keeping for sentimental reasons

I decided to give my not-as-old apple laptop to my mom, which I sent back home with my boyfriend on his last visit. I couldn’t sell it for the price I think it was worth since all those great new macbooks are out, so I figured my mom might as well enjoy it and get some mac lessons this summer while I’m home. All that’s left is to try and finish a big project at home on my desktop and then try to sell that before I leave in a few weeks. I can do the rest of my school work and studying on campus at the computer lab where I work.

I also planned to sell one of my old trumpets because I decided that I would never play seriously in an orchestra again, but then I realized that even my other trumpet was useless to keep around since I have so many other goals in my life that I have NOT already accomplished in some fashion that I will most likely never put the time in to enjoy playing the trumpet the right way again. If I do, I will most likely be in a place in life to obtain another trumpet, and in the meantime I don’t need to be carting these two around. I’m going to take them to a local store soon to be sold for commission so I can get them out of my hair ASAP.

Once all of this is done, the big event will be my first weekend back at home when I will go through all of my old things (and some of my mom’s that have crept into my old bedroom) and have a glorious, cleansing yard sale! I always loved having an LA garage sale – the quirky neighbors come out of the woodwork, I get to hang out on the lawn all day watching clutter be lifted off my shoulders, I make a little cash, and my nephews get to hang out and sell lemonade. WIN-WIN-WIN.

I already feel lighter and I am about to dig into my stash of trash here in my apartment so I can prepare for the main event!

Having a friend stay at your furnished apartment for a month while you go away to do holiday things is an excellent way to reveal your magical power of ruthlessly culling the fat from your collection of material possessions. Very efficient.

Plus, impromptu homework/packing/pizza parties are awesome for both fun and giving stuff you don’t use to your friends who will use them.

I am realizing that this goal, as it stands, is about 20% physical crud that creates mental crud and 80% straight up mental crud. That’s a lot of crud!

I closed some more online accounts that just waste precious minutes of my day and it feels good to see my personal tracking sheet of internet password reminders shrink a bit. I am trying to apply my physical stuff techniques to mental stuff. I like to write down what it is I want to buy and then make myself wait a week (or a few days until some sort of deadline I set for myself, like when a paper is turned in) so that I can revisit it when I am calmer and the sexiness of the impulse is gone. Most of the time I end up crossing it off the list and thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t waste money (or space!) on it. Then I can feel really good about the other stuff that I do still need, or sometimes I’ll even make myself wait a few more times (especially for big purchases).

I am trying to do this with my wishlist of activities. I started with a list that looked like this:

races
karate
crossfit
weight training @ univ. gym
swimming at univ. pool
riding bike weekly on local trails
running lake loop at least weekly
speed workouts @ track
interval runs through neighborhood
weekend trail runs

Now it looks like this:

be active 3x weekly
crossfit if there’s time & money
weekend trail runs if there’s time & no money

I was able to cross off a lot of that stuff because it’s now dark in the mornings and evenings when I like to do all my exercising. A mixed blessing, to be sure.

Oh, and I finally reorganized my files and tossed a bunch of paperwork that’s really old. I mean, how long do you really need to keep old bank or credit card statements – especially for closed accounts?

I also only had to wear bikini bottoms for 3 days last week before I finally got to the laundry. Living my life is learning to appreciate clean underwear.

I just took care of some financial stuff that has been weighing on me: closed a credit account I don’t need, called to verify my address + shoe size + grandmother’s favorite vegetable so that I can access my new IRA account, and did some general balancing of the books. Next on the list is to attack the mound of dirty laundry that’s growing next to my bed. (If garment orogeny were a major, I’d graduate summa cum laude.) Doing laundry counts as clearing mental space, too, because it can be really distressing when you run out of clean underwear and have to rock bikini bottoms under your jeans for a week.

...not that I have ever done that.

I hit a standstill on this front several weeks ago when school and my Marine Corps application got hot and heavy. While my life is still much of a blur right now, I managed to rearrange the furniture a couple of nights ago, which gave me a reason to dredge up the sediment collecting against my To Do wall. On top of the stuff that is too important to throw away but not urgent enough to clean up right now, I started collecting plain old crap like pages ripped out of magazines with articles that I want to send to friends or workouts and recipes I want to try.

The impetus for the move is that it got flippin’ cold again, and this old house is NOT well sealed or insulated (nor will it be anytime soon). My desk, where I spend at least 90% of my waking hours in here, used to be right up against the wall with the windows that leak and all the of the crap piles were stacked in the corner behind me where the nice radiator live. A simple switcherooni made all the difference. For the first time, my apartment isn’t just “small but very charming” – it’s damn charming! This layout makes it feel twice as big. I don’t know why I didn’t understand this sooner, but I’m glad that poor temperature regulation forced my hand. It was definitely a good move. Now I can see parts of my floor that I’ve never seen where the wood is still all beautiful and undamaged!

But more importantly, I recycled a ton of paper that I didn’t need to have lying around anymore, and I reorganized my piles of junk into three distinct piles with a common purpose. Once I have some big chunks of free time, I can choose a pile and have at it. Three weekends and I’m done. Of course, it won’t be any of the next couple weekends while I catch up at school, but it is likely I can do this before the holidays since the marathon will be over tomorrow and my running won’t take up quite so much time for a bit. Progress is progress. I’ll take it.

I really wanted to check this off by the end of the summer, but that kind of snuck up on me and I lost momentum. While I’ve already unloaded several boxes of crap and bags of clothes and excess linens (two whole trips to goodwill), I am still feeling overwhelmed by the amount of crap in my space. I just picked out another four pairs of shoes that are totally unnecessary. Somebody else can get the full use out of my old running shoes with some grocery store insoles. My current ones still have plenty of miles left in them and I already have the next pair I want to try out mentally picked out for when these hit their limits.

Since I am not going to drop these off in the donation bin until tomorrow, I have more time tonight to pick out more clothes to free up even more space in the closet.

Not that this was my stuff, but my storage room was full of things because I let a girl store her things in there for the summer in exchange for some gardening work. She came and claimed her things this weekend, clearing it up, but also claimed the two extra office chairs I had in there taking up space. My friend who graduated in May had given me a bunch of crap that didn’t fit into his truck and I don’t like to make more waste in this overly stuffed and wasteful world. I’m super glad I found two people who needed office chairs! I’m also glad to have the space back so I can free up some room in my living space with things that I need, but not regularly. I can stash my summer clothes in there and unpack my winter clothes soon; I can put my extra bike and bike trainer in there until the weather changes for the worse; and I can keep my guest linens in there with my empty luggage. All that’s left to clean up is this one shelf that is piled with random crap that needs to be installed or fixed or mailed to friends… and little things that need a new home.

I just checked the Goodwill website and there is not only one on the way home from work, but it also accepts just about everything I put in my trunk to donate. It will be nice coming home with an empty car tonight so that I can fill it up again with the other crap that’s still in my way!

I also donated two boxes overflowing with old textbooks to some tutors who live nearby. I don’t know why I thought I should hang on to them at the time, but now that there’s no doubt how archaic they are and that I’ll never use them again I think this was a good solution. Those neighbors seemed very grateful and I feel good knowing they will put them to use.

Already my mood has improved greatly! It’s all in there waiting to be delivered to a local tutoring group and Goodwill. I’m lined up for phase two: evaluating the stuff I kept and carefully shopping for better things as I phase out more less-than-ideal stuff. My closet is the prime target, but furniture is a close second.

I made a list of the things I’m going to put in my trunk to take to goodwill, throw away or give away to friends, and find a new place for. I’ve known for a good while that I have too much stuff, but nothing was really changing so I had to make things more concrete. This should improve things quite a bit and I may even be able to check this off at week’s end! (Okay, well maybe in two weeks realistically.)