Too Much Stuff

This past week has been a busy one for me. I came back ready for action after staying with my cousins after the third spraying for mites. I moved up my sewing stash again. This time it is smaller since I gave even more away. I also moved up my clothes, again finding more room than the first time around because I thinned things down. We went to IKEA and got an underbed chest so I could get my shoes out of the way. We also got Phil a chest of drawers so he won't have to put his clothes on the floor when he visits. We also hung some art. As Phil said when he visited, "It looks like you down-sized. You have art everywhere I turn my head. It's a little too much for my taste." On the other hand, friends Mike and Florence came over, helped hang a few things, and said that they liked the art because it reminded them of our house in Bellevue and the many good times we had together there. We then emptied out the self-storage unit, which took about 7 carloads to accomplish. That stuff had to go into our garage. Then, of course, I had to sort through things and stack up boxes. My goal was to have our remaining things stored in the garage with enough room for one car to park. It took awhile, but I managed. Neither Larry nor I had enough motivation to try to thin down our possessions even more right now, but we both know that will have to happen in the future. What is in the dozens of boxes stacked in our garage? Photo albums, books, school papers, things that we made, Cliff and Phil's stuff, the Villeroy and Boch dishes I like so well, but don't manage to use very often, the crystal, a few vases, bedding, and many framed photos and paintings that we don't have room to display. When I look at it, I think that we still have too much stuff. But I also give myself permission to take time to continue the down-sizing process--and I also tell myself that I have done a good job so far.

I read somewhere that someone is putting on a one-man show about the things that people save and what they throw away. There is definitely a psychology to this. I think that it is OK to hold onto some items from your past, but not to the extent that they keep you from enjoying the present.

A Taste of Adventure

I have been feeling guilty about not blogging recently, so decided to do something about it. We are still dealing with the mite problem and most of my stuff is bagged up in the garage. Friday, hopefully, will be the last spraying for mites. I'm really looking forward to becoming more settled here at the townhouse, but there always seems to be something that comes up to derail my plans to unpack. The lastest unsettling event was having our refrigerator go out on Friday. The management company didn't deem it enough of an emergency to have the repair person come on the weekend. He came late in the afternoon on Tuesday, didn't have the component he needed for the repair, and promised to come today (Wednesday). We lost most of our food. Our good neighbor Phil graciously agreed to let us use one of his refrigerator shelves. We couldn't save everything, though. The appliances in these townhouses are low-end builder basics and are notoriously unreliable. A number of neighbors have already had their refrigerators go out, so it's not just bad luck on our part. The appliances are only 5 years old, which makes it sad that a company like GE doesn't make dependable products anymore. At least we don't have to pay for the repairs--being renters has advantages.

Now back to the topic of my title--our 18-year-old cat Tally got a taste of freedom on Saturday night. Larry and I went out for a little walk and didn't close our front door tightly. Tally went outside when it blew open. Back in Bellevue in recent years he never would go out the door, even when he had the chance. We thought he wouldn't go out here in Wallingford either. We are happy that Phil was at the house, discovered the open door, and started looking for him. We wouldn't have noticed for hours otherwise since Tally sleeps a lot in odd places. At any rate, after Larry and I joined him in a half-hour of frantic searching, Phil found Tally in our neighbor's yard, where he was looking around. Tally has been pawing at the front door every day since his adventure. He sits in our window, looking at the backyard, commenting now and then about how much fun it is to be there. We are wondering if he'll ever forget his adventure and are now very careful to close the door. Is Wallingford that much more exciting than Bellevue? Is Tally showing us that in our older years we can always find adventure if we enter doors that are open to us? Perhaps our old cat can teach us a thing or two about how to live.