stuffed

Since November, I used a lot of energy worrying about selling the condo. It’s been the biggest task in my SLSR plans and the schedule for moving back to Nova Scotia hinged on it—if the sale fell through, I would have to start again with another buyer and push out my move date. When the sale closed in mid-April, all that worrying stopped.

On April 28th, my last day at work, I woke up at 4AM with an upset stomach. Even in sleep, I knew the importance of the day. And I was still thinking about the last two things I just had to finish up as part of the transition. As soon as I drove away from the office Friday afternoon, all that worrying stopped.

And now I have 2.5 weeks remaining to say goodbye to friends here and wrap things up. There is still a lot to wrap up.

Back in late January, I walked around the condo looking at the items I was planning to keep or use at the studio apartment until I left. I thought: “this looks reasonable. I’m almost done!” Because it’d been chipping away at reducing my stuff for so long, I didn’t realize until that day just how much I had already shed.

However, there I was just days before the condo sale closed moving load after load to the studio thinking: “how could one human being who has been downsizing for OVER TWO YEARS still have so much STUFF???”

The studio is currently a chaos as I finish sorting through approximately:

• 6 medium-sized plastic containers.
• 12 small storage facility cardboard boxes.
• 20ish small containers.
• Other assorted mess.

This remaining stuff is basically:

• Small family antiques and keepsakes to pack and send for my niece.
• Items to donate to multiple charities.
• Items I’m using in the studio which I will donate just before moving.
• Items I will take in the car with me for the roadtrip (I’ve decided to drive my subcompact back).
• Boxes to pack and send with items I want in Nova Scotia that I consider worth the shipping cost.

After researching options, I decided that shipping a small number of boxes with UPS makes more sense than hiring a shipping company or pod or U-Haul for the small amount of stuff I am planning on keeping. My guess is this will be about 10 small storage boxes (17″ x 12″ x 13″) but I haven’t started packing yet. Faithful readers, guess the number of marbles in the jar—how many boxes of my STUFF do you think I will end up shipping? Let’s see how much more I can shed in the next 2.5 weeks!

References:

• SLSR: simpler living semi-retirement