Tag: minimalism

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Together Again and One Year Purge-a-versary!

Together again! I’m home after 600 Appalachian Trail miles. I have 278 miles to complete the entire trail. It’s been a great journey but I really missed Gary, the pups, family, and my cozy Ruff Road bed. It’s good to be home.  If you want to check out my Appalachian Trail Journey, go to Trail Gator Trail Tales on YOU TUBE:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDhM9jZwVlQ

Hiking the Appalachian Trail

Together again- What are we doing?

We have a list as we begin our plans to officially hit the road. We have been living in Ruff Road for a year and three months now. Our plan was to be on the road by now but with my hiking, hiking injury delay and other obligations we are still living at home base in Florida.  We will be wintering here as we complete final tasks necessary before hitting the road.   We will be sharing our prep list in the next post since it will include things we’ve done to date to prepare and our final TO DOs.

Our major TO DO for this week was to purge and reorganize inside cabinets and outside storage bays.   My post from April stated:  “They say if you haven’t used it in a year, it has to go.  I think in a small space like an RV you need to assess the clutter more frequently.”  This is definitely true since we have had more than one purge and organize in a year’s time.  This time was more thorough for cabinets in the front of the coach. since kitchen and bedroom areas have been thoroughly reworked in recent months.

How much did we purge?

We threw away five bags of trash- mostly from the inside of the RV which included outdated and unnecessary paperwork.  I know that’s a lot!  I couldn’t believe it myself but when we moved in it was quick so some notebooks or folders were stored without a close review of contents.  For example, our notebook containing product manuals contained a few manuals of items we no longer owned.   Our outside purge yielded one large trash bag full of items not suitable for donation.  In addition, we filled one tote of items for donation.   This included those items that we thought we needed but never used.

Our Biggest Accomplishment

The biggest accomplishment from our reorganizing this time was better utilization of space.  For example, when we moved in we planned to group like items together.  When that space was filled, we plugged in excess items as logical as we could but still had like items in two places.  Also, we have learned over the course of a year, which items we used most frequently and moved them to the easiest accessible bay.  We started out with what we “thought” would be important in grouping items and what to keep.  However, as we put that into practice we learned that changes were necessary based on day to day reality.   We realize that as time goes by, we will revisit our newly reorganized areas and go through the process again…and again…and again.  That’s ok.  That’s RV living.

Our cooler stores all of our kayak equipment. Vacuum items are now easier to access.

Purging is like losing weight.  It can be hard to do.  It is easy to creep back on you.  However, when you lose it or purge it, you do feel better.

Upcoming Posts:

TO DOs for Hitting the Road

What did Gary do while I was away for months hiking the Appalachian Trail and hanging out in Colorado?

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Yard Sale! Yard Sale Reflection…

Books and Clothes and Shoes, Oh My!

Picture this:  A family of five moves into a house that is already full from 34 years of wonderful living with children, grandchildren, and grandparents.  They bring with them an entire UHaul truck full of their household belongings, including furniture.  All unwanted items from two households are stacked in boxes by the French doors in the dining room and spill out onto the large porch.  If you can picture a maze to get into the house, you got it!  ALL of these boxed up and unwanted items must make it to the yard sale tables ready for eager buyers to descend and purchase these treasures!  I’m not sure this paints a picture of the massive amount of treasures we had to sell, but I hope you get the idea.  We were overwhelmed by the “stuff”.

Yard Sales are not my thing!

I’ll be honest.  I’ve had a couple of yard sales years ago and didn’t make enough money to feel it was worth my time.  We live off of the main road so visibility is one issue.  We live on the quiet side of town and not much traffic here is another issue.   Finally, we live in a neighborhood of working middle class folks, not considered high end which I know many yard salers avoid.  I was hopeful because this time, we had more than ever and some really nice things.  I know that we didn’t have the time to “present” items as we would have liked but they were grouped together in an organized way.

How’d we do?  We had steady traffic on day one and a trickle of traffic on day two of the yard sale.  We made some money and did get rid of some things.  It was fun to see others excited about our treasures.  But…there was ALOT left over.  In fact, it looked like we hadn’t sold anything at all at the end of it.

What do you do with all of the left over stuff?

Well, our clothes and shoes were so nice, barely used we were thinking, my daughter Michelle and I spent the next couple of weekends and hours and hours staging and photographing the clothes and shoes to sell on Facebook Marketplace.  What did we learn from that?  Just go ahead and donate and save yourself the time.  We had to store these items.  It’s Florida in August with rain everyday so we were combating moisture and mildew which decided the fate of many things that were ruined as a result.

More Purging!

So the next couple of weeks, I spent every day going out to the yard sale tables, taking the tarps off and sorting the items to be sold on EBAY or Facebook Marketplace, donate, trash, keep.  I know what you are thinking!  Didn’t we already do this?  We did  but consider this the final purge.  Everyday the amount was less and less.  Rain clouds would form and I’d retarp the area and wait for rain to clear or begin again the next day.  Meanwhile, Gary made trip after trip to the dump and to donate to local charitable organizations.

So how does this make me feel?

I remember the day that the area had returned to its uncluttered state.  That was a happy day!  Inch by inch, anything is a cinch.  Mile by mile, we’ll get there in awhile!  We were making progress.  We had purged our house of 34 years of “stuff”.  We had purged our yard of the leftovers.  We were living happily in our cozy little Ruff Road everyday.  We were blessed to be Grandma/ Grandpa School Transportation to our grandchildren.  We weren’t on the road yet, but we were happy.  Life couldn’t be better!

But there’s more…

We were making progress but there were still two sheds to deal with.  The sheds were the next stop on our to do list.  Inch by inch, this is getting done, too.  Our goal was to be completely done by the end of the year and at this updated writing, we are almost there.  The only things left to do at this point is sell off our EBAY/ Marketplace inventory or donate it and finish the scanning and digitizing of our photos and videos.

Too much stuff!
This is only one third of it!
Ahhh…cleared!

Reflection…

Even though I do not care for yard sales, I liked getting all of the “stuff” out of the house.  Things that seemed so precious in the house lost their appeal on a yard sale table making it easier for me to say goodbye.  We were able to move forward with the final clearing.  It was freeing, just like when we purged the house.  We felt lighter after the house and even lighter after the yard sale purge.

If Gary were doing this on his own, it would be a much quicker process.  He’s not as sentimental or as much of an overthinker as I am.  So if you are like him, you will get done in half the time or less than we did.  However, if you are the least bit sentimental and tend to overthink things, then welcome to my club.  I’m sharing because if I can let go and do it, you can too.  Happy Purging!

If you have some yard sale reflections you would like to share, add them to the comments and share.  🙂

 

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The MOVE! Downsizing and Moving in THREE WEEKS!

We knew it was coming, we didn’t know this fast!  We had to downsize and move in THREE WEEKS!

Here was the plan:  My daughter, Michelle, and her family were moving back to Florida and planned to buy our house.  We knew about when they were coming.  My last day to work was June 30th.  Then we get word that they would be here July 22nd.  Yikes!  That gave us about three weeks to downsize plan, box up and move into Ruff Road!  Now I’ve watched many downsizing videos, but none of them started with the amount of stuff that we’ve accumulated after six children, several grandchildren, parents passing, and 34 years!   We are not hoarders by no means but we did have…stuff!  Lots of it!

3 Step Purge System for Over Thinkers

Here is my system for purging which I affectionately call the 3 Step Purge System for Over Thinkers.  It is a multi-step process which probably goes against what the experts would say, but it worked for me.  Let’s start with clothes.  I worked in the professional world and had a walk in closet full of professional clothes, which will no longer be required in my retirement life.

Step 1:  I ask myself:  Do I love it?  Yes or no?  If NO-Box up to donate.  If YES- Then it was hung up to keep.  Of course, there is not much room in an RV so I knew that there would be a second purging.

Step 2:  After a day or two, I returned to my YES clothes and I repeated the process.  Do I love it?  I found that I was able to let go of a little more this second round.  It became easier.

Step 3:  This was the final round.  Do I love it?  Yes or no?  To my surprise I was able to let go of a few more.  I did add favorites to a box for my family.  Even though I counted this my final round, as I packed to take my clothes out to Ruff Road, I purged even more.

Bottom line:  My clothes fit into the space I planned for them.  I still have variety in my wardrobe.  My purging system worked for me.  Some may be able to do this in one round or even two.  This worked for me.  For the overthinkers of the world, the three step purge system is recommended.

Sorting to Start

Our home had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room, dining room, living room, and two porches.  Our brother in law was staying with us when this grand purge began so that was one room that he took care of, thankfully.  How do you take all of the items, the books, the paintings, the décor, the STUFF and make a plan?

My plan started with sorting.  I began to gather all like items in the living room. All of the children’s books go here.  All of the photography equipment goes there.  All of the fishing décor goes over there.  Everything in the house was sorted, which began emptying out rooms.  Of course, during this sorting process I was also following my PURGING process.  We began posting items that we could sell on Facebook Marketplace.  One half of our living room became our selling warehouse.  That worked out well and one by one many items were sold.  The rest was boxed for a giant yard sale.  Anything we wanted to keep with us was considered carefully, space is a premium in an RV.  Keepers were boxed up to be taken to Ruff Road.

Oh and the photos!  Scanning for four days straight!

So one of the bedrooms had become a scanning station for photos.  We took down all picture frames and removed the pictures as part of our sorting process.  All boxes of photos and photo albums were sent to this room and there is ALOT!   I fancy myself an amateur photographer so just add that to the many family pics.  I stood in that room for four days, morning to late at night, scanning and there are still boxes and tubs left to do.  I finally had to just stop so I could get the sorting and purging done.

When downsizing, scanning your photos and digitizing your home movies are the two most time consuming things you will do.  There is no fast way to do this unless you pay to have it done.  That wasn’t an option for me.  Later on, after the move, I ordered an Elgato to digitize the home movies we had on hand.  I am sentimental and I love seeing my parents and brother again in the movies.  It’s always fun to see the kids when they were little.  If any of you have suggestions on how to get all of this done quicker, please comment and share!

How I stayed sane during this time?  I kept a running TO DO LIST.

Each day I had a TO DO list to keep us on track.  We’d follow the list, adjusting as needed.  I used a regular spiral notebook to keep my list in.  I’d designate if it was Gary or me, cross off completed items and carry over what didn’t get done.  We had a general timeline of what we wanted done by when so that’s how we prioritized the list.  This was essential to us being ready to leave our house July 22nd.  Anyone downsizing or planning a move, it is amazing what you can get done when you plan it out on paper and look at it every day.

How did we do?  Did we meet our deadline of July 22nd?

Why yes, we did- well the majority!  We spent our first full time night in Ruff Road, with pups, the night of July 22nd.  We handed our house over to our daughter that night and haven’t looked back.  We had sorted, boxed, donated and purged.  We only had a few items left in the office, and closet shelves that I weeded out the following weeks.  We had moved all of the things we were keeping into Ruff Road.  This took several hauls and I organized and put it away each trip to make room for the next haul.  Honestly, I am amazed at what we put in here and I was able to put it away neatly.

Ah, so now we could sit back, sip our coffee and relax in the comfort of our new home.  We still had some selling to do and sheds to work on, but the biggest job was done.

Downsizing Reflections…

Downsizing is what it’s cracked up to be.  It is freeing to rid yourself of “stuff”.  This realization began as I had to go in and clean out my mom’s house after she passed.  She, like many who grew up during the depression years, kept everything.  She lived with me her last few years but didn’t want us to do anything with her “stuff”.  I discovered that all of that “stuff” had deteriorated, molded, it was of no value to anyone.  And then, I felt the overwhelming burden of all of this stuff.  It opened my eyes that at the end of the day, our stuff will not stay new, will get eaten and chewed on by bugs, will fade, will deteriorate.  It weighs us down.  You feel lighter inside with each letting go.   Have any of you gone through a downsizing process?  What system worked for you?  Comment and share.  🙂