Category: Decluttering

Always Home For Christmas

 

Today, someone asked me if I’m going home for Christmas.
I told them that I am already home.
I will be home no matter where I park, because I will always be bringing my home with me. My 330 sq. foot home has wheels.
With family in Oklahoma, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Florida, Indiana and Montana, I could never really gather my entire family in one place, so maybe I’ll spend Christmas in a different state each year.
This year it’s Florida.
I’m a bit of a gypsy. I’ve lived in the first five of those states, plus New Jersey and Tennessee. I moved to Oklahoma four times, Florida twice, New Hampshire twice and I have owned fifteen houses.
But, from now on, no matter which destination I choose, with my family and friends safe in my heart and only a phone call away, I will always be home for Christmas.

 

Things I Like About My Tiny Home On Wheels


I can clean my entire house and outside area in an hour, including changing the bed.
I don’t have to think about laundry every day because I don’t have a washer and dryer.
The laundry sits in the basket for a week until I go to the laundromat. Yay!
I always know where my little dog is sleeping.
If my neighbors are annoying, I just move.
I love cooking on my tiny stove in my tiny pans and flipping eggs with my tiny spatulas.
I only have clothes that I like and actually wear now.
In the middle of the night, the bathroom is remarkably close.
My bed is in the living room. So is the kitchen.
I like the word rolling. I like doing it even more.
If no one knows where I am on my birthday, I can skip a year.
It’s not official until you eat the cake.
I can chase sunshine and never endure a below freezing winter again.

Heading Out, August 27

 

August 27
It’s my last night in Oklahoma, for now.
Tomorrow morning, I head out to Florida.
Tonight, I learned to raise the jacks and hitch up the trailer, including sway bars and chains. Sway bars are heavy!
I bought a shoulder bag for my one lonely computer (we lost three comrades to downsizing) and for my three external hard drives.
Perfect computer bag and it was on sale.
I downloaded two full older WD drives, a desktop and two laptops onto my Western Digital 4 TB external drive. 985, 161, 000 files.
Almost a million files. I was shocked.
I still have another external hard drive, my one laptop and a baggie full of flash drives to back-up, so I’m sure to climb over the million mark.
Tucked my tablet in the bag too.
I destroyed two old hard drives and I was really proud that I could let them go.
Usually, I back-up files and keep both copies, which explains almost a million files.

Swissgear Wenger

Western Digital

Flushing The Poo Poo Away

Today, I learned how to flush the poo poo away, disconnect the sewer, electric and water. Also hooked up the truck and trailer for the trip.
I drove for a few hours and was quite impressed at how well the 2011 Chevy Silverado pulled my 20-foot Coachmen Apex Nano.
I was even more impressed when I pulled off the highway, then into a midsize Shell gas station and parked perfectly at the gas pumps!
That Shell sign looked sweet as sunshine beaming down on my tiny house on wheels.

https://coachmenrv.com/travel-trailers/apex-nano

Chevy SilveradoChevy Silverado

Tiny Pans, Big Flavor

Before I moved into my tiny house on wheels, I got rid of 95% of what was in my ten-room house.
I saved two tiny kitchen pans that are special to me, and it was a good decision.
Last night, I cooked hamburgers in my tiny frying pan, then used it to make a tiny batch of chili.
It was difficult to decide on how much of each spice to toss in to about four cups of chili, but the end result was delicious.
We had burgers for lunch, and I stored the chili in a tiny pot and it fit perfectly into my tiny fridge.
Instead of a gallon of chili, I had enough to feed me four very filling meals.

Tree Frogs and Trailers

Why am I up at 6 o’clock in the morning you might ask. Well first, I had to get out of bed and catch a tree frog who was plopping around in my kitchen.
I’ve been really wanting to see one, but I didn’t want to see one in my kitchen. Actually, in my kitchen, living room, bedroom.
Luckily, my dog, Maggie Mae, didn’t even wake up because she would be freaked out forever.
That dog fears her own shadow, let alone a tree frog in her tiny house. That is something she would never forget.
Then, I went to the bathroom and thought my ponytail holder was a huge grass spider. I started whacking it with a dish towel. Fully awake now. I almost killed an inanimate object.
Moving right along, the night before last, I was cooking a sweet potato when flames burst out of my microwave and the whole trailer filled with smoke.
Mind you, I bought a brand-new trailer so I wouldn’t have any problems.
But this morning, I’m up at 6:00 a.m. so the trailer can go to the dealer. The only dealer out of four who would take me for warranty work, because they take in their own customers first.
Funny, they don’t tell you that when they say you have a one-year warranty, good anywhere in the USA.
I only got this appointment because somebody canceled, or it would have been a month.
Honestly, I’m trying to rough it, but it’s really rough if I can’t heat the dog food.
Hopefully it’ll be fixed, before my daughter gets here to visit tonight or tomorrow morning,
Otherwise, I hope Motel 6 really does leave the light on, because tonight, we might be looking for one.
I always try to see the best in a bad situation.
This one has amused me to the point of laughing hysterically.
I’m sitting under the blue lights with my coffee, hoping that tree frog doesn’t jump on my head now.
One thing life has taught me, the story that I can write about almost anything can turn it into an adventure, and on the plus side, I might actually get to see a Florida sunrise.
I’m also thankful that I wasn’t sleeping or on the road when the microwave flamed, because it has been smelling like burnt plastic all along, and I thought it was burning off the new smell. LOL
P.S. Coachman Apex Nano, 2019. I’ve had it for three months, and the list for repairs today is a page long. Already replaced two roof fan shields that crumbled, outside speaker and two jacks. Dealer also has to replace refrigerator.

The Night The Stuff Went Down

I think I’m having decluttering remorse.
Almost like waking up after a blackout, trying to remember each item I tossed.
“I threw away what last night?”
I don’t really need to item by item remember, because it ALL went.
What was in the last room that I attacked with the rage born from exhaustion and frustration?
Just everything I had thought was important enough to move from house to house, even if I never opened the boxes.
The next day was moving day, and I thought the last room would only take a few hours. Although the anxiety I felt every time I went in there over the past year should have warned me.
It was just a corner filled with boxes. Boxes I hadn’t opened since two houses ago, some hadn’t been opened for twenty years.
I had spent the last three weeks decluttering. Selling and giving away the contents of a ten-room house, cellar and garage.
I was on a roll. How hard could this last corner be?
I had thrown away my wedding heels a few months ago, so I thought I had toughened up.
The contents of several boxes had been scattered for weeks, opened and left, the victim of my confusion. Well, I had no choice now.

Tonight, was my deadline and I dug in, armed with kitchen trash bags. It didn’t take long for me to go downstairs and find the huge, green bags.
I always knew I was a good packer, but I don’t know how I fit so much content into those boxes.
I filled at least six green bags with CD’s and cassettes and that was just the beginning.
Some of the CD’S had been special to me. Our ten-year anniversary by Alabama I had signed, “Then Again…Forever, you and me.” I kept that one.
I had listened to and loved each CD at some time in my past.
As I looked through them, I was overwhelmed by how many there were and I began to grab handfuls, shoving them into the green bags.
So many material things I no longer needed or wanted, but surely my frustration added volume to the trash pile.
I was angry, and I was sad, and I just wanted to be free from stuff. Too much stuff.
Our mind is like a computer and it captures every little thing we have ever done, seen or felt and much of my frustration was because I was replaying those memories as I threw each thing away.
My wedding dress got special treatment. It was 3:00 a.m. and I walked outside and hung it on a tree beside the yard sale.
My neighbor was still outside because she was getting ready to have a yard sale with me, and she said, “You have to take a picture,” and of course, I did. As I took pictures, I realized that I was trying to capture my emotional whirlpool in a snapshot of a wedding dress.
The dress had fit like it was designed for me, draping my tiny hips, and it had made Mum smile, because back then, I seldom wore dresses. As I ran my fingers down the silky dress, I could see her smiling face.
I remembered the day I went shopping for it with my mum and how proud she was that I was marrying such a good man, a man who worked and took care of me and my three kids financially.
She special ordered artificial roses for my corsage and for the wedding, because I was allergic to flowers and I remembered how the florist thoughtlessly sprayed them with rose perfume and I sneezed all day.
I threw the still rosy corsage away too tonight, along with a box of wedding day souvenirs.
We never dreamed thirty-eight years ago it would end this way, my wedding dress hung in a tree for a yard sale, all alone in the dark. Us, living in separate houses. Big ouch.
Couldn’t hold on till morning. Needed to let it go, let it go.
He was here helping me finish up the packing and for the closing, and I couldn’t afford to show any weaknesses in front of him. It was a real test.
His heart was hurting as he saw me throw away our memories.
The picture Mum bought me because she thought it looked like us, my IHRA umbrella and hundreds of presents he had bought me.
I think it hit him hardest when he saw my books start to go. Fifteen house and thirty-eight years, and through it all, he’d been complaining about moving my books. I always found ways to resist his demands to get rid of the damn books, because I loved my books. I had learned that if I carried the boxes in and out of the moving trucks, it wasn’t as bad, but even then, the “weight” it added bothered him.
I usually soothe him when he’s hurting, even if he’s sad because he hurt me, but not anymore. Not anymore. Recovering codependent, yes, I am.
Now, as I rerun the night of the huge declutter through my mind, I am proud and sad and proud.
I let it go, I let it go.
I let it all go so I could move on, move into my twenty-foot Coachmen Nano Apex travel trailer and on to the next chapter of this story I am living as I create it.
I took pictures of things that touched my heart as I tossed, and that was enough stuff, for me.

 

 

Goodbye Bobbsey Twins….

John has my Bobbsey Twins books.
I don’t know John very well. I met him when he bought eleven boxes of books from me.
I like any man that buys eleven boxes of books. He must be good, right?
When I called him a few days later and asked him if he would like to own my Bobbsey Twins, free of charge, he said yes.
He came back with all the books he had bought in his van, because he hadn’t found room for them in the house yet, that’s how I know he loves books.
He took the Bobbsey Twins, but he told me, “If you ever want them back, you call me.”
I thought that was an awesome thing to say.
He said that he would keep them safe and treasure them.
I love that, John, but I will never call you for those books. I let them go and I let them go into hands that will give them love and respect.
I knew I could not throw those books away or sell them at a yard sale.
Some had been sent to me by fans of my story, “The Bobbsey Twins, Dad and Me.”
Many were gifts from my husband, who was thrilled each time he found one for me.
There were about forty of them, dating from the first book, and I loved them all.
I saved one, “The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge,” but there was no room for the box full of Twins in my new, tiny house on wheels.
The memories, yes. The books, no.

The Bobbsey Twins, Dad And Me

( #10 SHE Saga) Let It Go, Let It Go

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I feel numb and She is hiding.  I know she’s furious with me and she didn’t believe that I would go through with my plan to get rid of everything that I didn’t absolutely need or want…before we moved into our tiny home on wheels.

I guess it was my turn to pitch a fit. It happened when I was decluttering tonight, when I was down to facing the boxes that I hadn’t unpacked in over ten years.

She objected over every piece I tossed. She cried. She screamed.

She was so upset that she had me walking in circles, holding things to my chest, paralyzed by grief and indecision. After about an hour of circles, I snapped.

“Stop! Stop, leave me the f… alone,” I screamed as I dumped another pile of boxes in the middle of the room. When the pile was gigantic, I sat down beside it with a kitchen trash can beside me.

She left and the silence was eerie.

I quickly filled that kitchen bag, so I went downstairs for the green yard bags and I kept going.

I dragged at least six green bags full of papers, memories, CD’s and tapes down the stairs tonight and out onto the front porch for trash day. Plus, containers and boxes full of stuff.

My wedding dress got special treatment. It was 3:00 a.m. and I walked outside and hung it on a tree beside the yard sale.

My neighbor was still outside because she was getting ready to have a yard sale with me, and she said, “You have to take a picture,” and of course, I did.

As I took pictures, trying to capture my emotional whirlpool in a snapshot of a dress, I remembered the day I went shopping for it with my mum and how proud she was that I was marrying such a good man, a man who worked and took care of me and my three kids financially.

I remembered how happy she was to buy the dress for me, and in 1983, $27.00 was a lot of money.

The dress draped my tiny hips like it was designed just for me, and it made Mum smile because back then, I seldom wore dresses.

She special ordered artificial roses for my corsage and for the wedding, because I was allergic to flowers and I remember how the florist thoughtlessly sprayed them with rose perfume and I sneezed all day.

Our mind is like a computer and it captures every little thing we have ever done, seen or felt.

I threw the still rosy corsage away tonight too, along with a box of wedding day souvenirs. We never dreamed thirty-eight years ago it would end this way, my wedding dress hung in a tree for a yard sale, all alone in the dark. Big ouch.

Couldn’t hold on till morning. Needed to let it go, let it go.

He was here helping me finish up the packing and for the closing, and I couldn’t afford to show any weaknesses in front of him. It was a real test.

His heart was hurting as he saw me throw away our memories.

The picture Mum bought me because she thought it looked like us, my IHRA umbrella and dozens of presents he had bought me.

I think it hit him hardest when he saw my books start to go. Fifteen houses and thirty-eight years, through it all, he’d been complaining about moving my books. I always found ways to resist his demands to get rid of the damn books, because I loved my books. I had learned that if I carried the boxes in and out of the moving trucks, it wasn’t as bad, but even then, the “weight” it added bothered him.

I usually soothe him when he’s hurting, even if he’s sad because he hurt me, but not anymore. (Codependency, which I’m recovering from, one day at a time…amen.)

I probably went too far tonight, when I shoved She away with all my strength.
She left, but I know she will be back, so I’m going to enjoy this time without her.

It’s the first time in forever that she hasn’t been challenging me, quietly or violently.

(# 1 SHE Saga) She Wants What She Wants

Link above will take you to the complete list of She Saga posts.

Goodbye, My Virgin Gateway

I threw away my twenty-year-old Gateway computer today.
Probably sounds like no big deal, but she was my first tech love and my best computer ever.
She was also a virgin. I never put her on the Internet and somehow, she survived without all the little patches and urgent updates.
She was working the last time I tested her.
That was about a year ago, and she was fine, so when I sold my house this month, downsizing to a 17-foot trailer, I grabbed her, and I squeezed her into my tiny home.
I knew right away that she was too big, so I was going to double check that I had emptied her files and put her into storage, where she could live out her life in dignity, but when I plugged her in, she was gone. Dead.
A blue DOS screen pushed out white letters, asking to be connected to the Internet to boot up.
I whispered, “Hell, no. No, I don’t think so, not you, my sweet lady, you would never ask me to connect you to the Internet.”
That’s how I knew she was already gone; an imposter had taken over her system.
I’m afraid she suffered a gruesome finale because I got it in my head that I wouldn’t throw her away without taking out her hard drive.
I soon realized that twenty years ago, they didn’t exactly make it easy to get into your computer. I think they never expected us to learn how to replace our own hard drives and mother boards.
It took three screwdrivers, a hammer, a pair of scissors and a lot of stubbornness, but I pried her open and I got the hard drive out.
It was sad, really sad, because I wrote on that computer for many years, and she was my ride or die girl during the five years that I wrote for the IHRA’s Drag Review Magazine.
Aging out is rough but, I guess we all have an expiration date, even computers.
She wasn’t awake when I took her apart and I’m grateful for that and for the fact that she didn’t know how she was going to end.
She’s gone. Yes, I got rid of another thing that I thought I couldn’t live without.
My twenty-year-old year Gateway computer, once the trusted saver, organizer and keeper of my creative efforts, she was a proud lady, strong and reliable. I’ll never forget her.

 

The Wedding Heels

I’m trying to de-clutter my life and unravel my mind.
Yesterday, I threw my thirty-five-year-old, size five wedding heels in the trash. I tried on a lot of shoes before I found the perfect heels. They were important. My future mother-in-law bought them for me. She wasn’t impressed by her son marrying a woman with three kids, so they were a peace-offering.
The heels have stuck around. They made the cut every time I packed. They have been with us to fifteen houses and a dozen apartments.
I had hoped to wear them again, maybe on an anniversary, but that’s not going to happen.
My feet are no longer small and petite, and my husband and I have separated.
I looked at the shoes laying there in the trash, taunting me, reminding me of my wedding day, and I pushed them in deeper. I instantly panicked, but I took deep breaths and I walked away.
Later, I carried the bag outside to the trash can.
Today, I was out front tearing open the trash bags. Coffee grounds, dog’s pee papers, egg shells and dirty paper plates, I found.
No shoes.
I gave up easy, compared to my norm.
I’m not a quitter. I held on to those heels for thirty-five years.
I stopped because I knew it was hopeless.
I could save the heels. But I couldn’t save us.
I’m strong and I’m weak. I’m resisting the urge to go back out there now.
I just want the trash truck to come and take the heels away before I give in to my compulsion to bring them back into the house.
If I can leave the heels in the trash, maybe I’ll make it through this after all.
P.S. The trash men came and the shoes have gone to their final resting place.

It’s The Memories

Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie

We start out with nothing and we pick up a lot of things along the way. Some of the things are important and some of them are not.
Some of those things bring us joy and some of them bring us down. Some of them actually hinder us and so many hurt us.
Today, I sit here wondering, where are the letters I wrote to you when you were a baby?
In our crazy lives, we have moved so many times and lost so many material things, and I wonder, are baby letters material things or are they heart things?
I always tell you that you are my sunshine and the first time I told you that you were two years old.
I sat down that night and I wrote you a letter so that you would always know, no matter where you went, if we were together or apart, that…

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It’s The Memories

We start out with nothing and we pick up a lot of things along the way. Some of the things are important and some of them are not.
Some of those things bring us joy and some of them bring us down. Some of them actually hinder us and so many hurt us.
Today, I sit here wondering, where are the letters I wrote to you when you were a baby?
In our crazy lives, we have moved so many times and lost so many material things, and I wonder, are baby letters material things or are they heart things?
I always tell you that you are my sunshine and the first time I told you that you were two years old.
I sat down that night and I wrote you a letter so that you would always know, no matter where you went, if we were together or apart, that you were a ray of sunshine in my life.
Since then, we’ve put a lot of miles on our boxes and our possessions.
We have traveled to different states, to different apartments and lived in dozens of houses.
A lot of memory boxes have been lost along the way.
I spent a moment regretting those losses, wishing I still had your baby book and your brother’s Hot Wheels and Lego’s and your hippie christening dress, but then I remember that most importantly, I still have you and your brother, and all the moments I spent with your sister.
I own my memories and I don’t need to carry around all the boxes.
Even knowing that, I still have way too many boxes because every time I lose a memory box, I hold on tighter to stuff.
I think today I need to clean out some of the boxes and lighten my load because in the end we come with nothing and we leave with nothing.
It’s all the people we love in between our beginnings and our endings that matter and the things we carry around are not important.
The best things can’t be packed up in a box…the memories, the love and the moments.
The boxes are just stuff that can be lost.
We own our precious memories, the moments and the love already received, because those things are safe, packed in our hearts and in our minds.

Memory Clutter

I was finally in the mood to start some spring cleaning and I decided to begin with my office.
As  I cleaned, I realized why I held on to so many mementos and gifts from the people I love.
It wasn’t the actual notes or the drawings, it wasn’t the colorful gift bags with ribbons and bows that captivated me.
No, what I was struggling to fit into this small room, aside from computers, printers, writing, books, CDs, tapes and boxes of pictures were the moments when the gifts had been created and given.
I wanted back the happiness and the love in each child’s face when they had handed the gifts to me.
The pride in my mother’s eyes when she handed me her handmade crafts and the warmth of my sister’s hugs, the memories remained in the gifts.
After so many years, these items still triggered every emotion imaginable.
The metal sculpture my twenty-five year-old grandson welded for me when he was twelve, a green pipe with a bowl.
It had made my teenage son laugh so hard because he said it looked like a bong.
“Bong?” I’d asked. He’d laughed some more.
The toys from McDonald’s that my grandson loved to give me for presents. The man who spun like a top but could never stand up, the mermaid that he took for me when he could have had a GI Joe, into the Goodwill bag they went, but my hand hovered over a miniature Blue Fairy.
I remembered watching Artificial Intelligence over and over with my grandson and he was so proud when he found me the Blue Fairy.
The movie was about a little robot boy who wanted to be a real boy and he searched for the Blue Fairy to help him.
I couldn’t drop the Blue Fairy in the bag. Four out of five is pretty good, right?
The huge finger paintings with crackling paint. My once tiny granddaughter’s handprints with mine certainly had to stay.
The plastic sunflower my toddler grandson had presented to me…running up to me with his little fist closed tight around a treasure, he had opened his little fingers to present the treasure. “Flower,” he’d said, full of pride. When I saw it was plastic, I knew I’d keep it forever.
The poster created by pain and love that my baby sister presented to me the day after my suicide attempt twenty-eight years ago, that did go into the trash.
I pulled off the pictures, but the memory of that day and how much I’d hurt my family still burned.
Huge envelopes and boxes for each of my four kids and boxes for half of my fifteen grandkids.
What should stay, what should go?
Would they remember the objects and would the objects mean to them what they meant to me?
Would my son and daughter clean out all this junk after I was gone, moaning at my eccentric, hoarding habits? I didn’t know.
I set the bag of donations aside so I could repack it. Another box to be saved.
I just couldn’t part with any of it right now, but I could clean another room tonight.
Who knew spring cleaning could be so emotional?