We are now officially full timers.
It required a superhuman effort, but all of our excess belongings were disposed of in a combination of Garages Sales, Free Cycle events, one incredible “Free Day” in the garage and one call to the junk removers.
It was not easy, but I am happy to report we are still
married.
The garage sales were only moderately successful.
Things I thought wouldn’t sell, did. Things I thought would sell,
didn’t. Price did not seem to be a factor. Indeed most of the
garage sales, I was giving away stuff. I unloaded a bunch of free
baseball stuff on a darling little boy that walked up with his dad. I’m
not sure he knew what hit him.
The “Free Day” was pretty wild. We put notice of that
up on Craigslist and as we opened at 10AM. At 10:01, this car roars up
and a guy jumps and starts grabbing things. It kind of went down hill
from there. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to put away
things we didn’t want give away earlier.
And the last of it got piled in the drive way and we paid
the guy to come pick it up.
I am still not happy about the amount of crap a) in storage
and b) in the motorhome – I think further culling will be necessary.
Though it was very painful, I am now greatly relieved.
I believe that we had become “slaves to our stuff” and I spent an inordinate
amount of time culling, carrying and packing “stuff”. I will not have
fond memories of the collection of stuff, though I do have fond memories of
individual pieces of stuff.
Post Junk
We had long ago – long before we purchased the Itasca and
set our move out date, booked a cruise on Princess. During the stuff
shedding process, I was very vocal about cancelling the cruise and staying to
work on the house.
I’m glad we didn’t.
Even though we were totally exhausted the day before the
Cruise, the cruise a) set a hard deadline and b) gave us some needed
respite. We slept through most of the first day of the Cruise.
After a week on the boat, we were still a bit sore, but refreshed with a new positive
outlook.
But there is still some aftermath to deal with. There
is some additional work on the house – even though the tenants have moved in –
that will need to be done. And one nasty side effect of the push to move
to the Itasca, is that the Itasca is not currently movable. We just
crammed and jammed stuff into the Itasca that will need to be adjusted,
repacked, packaged etc over the next couple of weekends.
I need to do that before our shake down cruises – we have
two planned: One to Joes Truck Stop to weigh in and one with friends Bill
and Diane who are also becoming full timers. The “Maiden Voyage” however
will probably have to wait until this summer – most likely to Grand Canyon/Williams AZ.
