minimize my material possessions

I’m moving from Texas to Boston in September, and to cut costs I’ve decided to leave behind anything that won’t fit into the two suitcases Jet Blue allows! It’s just too great of a distance to bother moving everything, when I know I’ll be coming back to Texas 6 months out of the year (I’m in Boston for graduate school) so… a wild adventure into living minimally will result!

Now . . . What am I going to do about a bed?

I managed to get rid of quite a few things pack ratted… I mean accumulated over the years. I now have an adjustable kitchen/dining table and [technically] three chairs to get rid of.

I say technically because I’m rather fond of one as a computer chair but I’m figuring its easier to unload the table and chairs together if there are two as opposed to three chairs to go with it.

If it means an extra 20.00USD though, I’d split with it in a heartbeat. In addition to clearing space, quite frankly, I need the money to pay bills.

I’m also doing a number on the yarn. I’m hoping to have all the projects in my goal completed on schedule and even a blanket or two extra.

Tragically in Japan there’s no Salvo’s or Vinnies bins where I can give my old clothes to charity, so I had to make do my giving away a lot of my old clothes and things to friends.

...and oddly enough, the stuff that they sell in Vinnies you can sell for a tidy profit here in Japan.

We’re moving onto our amazing narrowboat soon, which has meant I’ve had to get rid of a huge amount of stuff! Finally! Freecycle & Bookmooch are both invaluable!

i have a lotta shit… uhhh… ummm … poop.

I cleared out a lot of my old stuff and it’s now hollow sounding in here. It’s like the inside of a wide, deep cave or something only warmer and wired for electricity and telephone…

Next stop, the bag of mystery materials… muahahahahahahaaa

Oh yeah, I found my scissors. The calendar is still MIA though…

... and im getting rid of 5 things a day to declutter

Where my scissors are is anyones guess…

I need them to get the addresses off of the other half of the old magazines. EEEEk. In order to find my scissors, I must clean my room, and to do that I must..er, this is getting like ‘I know an old lady who swallowed a fly’...

First things first. Clean my room, desk included. I’ve no laundry detergent but I won’t be deterred. I’ve got shampoo and even neighbors if it comes down to asking. I’m just thankful that I don’t wear heavy fabric clothing that often.

While I’m doing that, I’m going to tear through the few clothes I’ve kept to wear since packing the rest away one year ago to see what can be donated of those. Then, and only then, will I open the box of packed away stuff.

Well, must get to it.

Come to think of it, there’s another thing I did yesterday in addition to give a t-shirt away. I’ve kept an old stack of magazine since the days of what seems to be the Suns formation and, despite three moves, could never seem to let them go.

Last night, for some reason, I went through them and but for them having my name on some of them, I saw absolutely no reason to keep any of them.

Well, they’re getting chucked out. Next stop, old catalogues.

When I go to the American Red Cross for either donations or volunteering, I usually get one or two of the gratuity items. In the case of t-shirts, for some occasions, they’ve practically thrown them at me and this has obviously caused a duplicate shirt issue.

So, I gave one to my mother for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture. It helped her feel a little better and, as I realized after the fact, it made my owned items just a bit lighter.