Tag Archives: downsizing

The Downsizing Chronicles: Almost There

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It’s been three months since we moved to our little house, and I’m thrilled to say that we can now get one car in the two-car garage with room to spare. This was no mean trick, as the garage was literally filled to the brim with stuff (rows of stuff stacked as tall as I am) not very long ago. We’ve gone through everything, only letting into the house what we really need or want. That’s been hard, because we liked all of our stuff!

We took some ribbing from family and friends about how much stuff we had, but the fact is that I never had time to completely go through things over the years because I was too busy homeschooling my kids, and I certainly can’t regret that. Also, we kept things that would be needed for our long-held dream of living on acreage, a dream that was apparently not in God’s will, and it wasn’t until we bought this tiny house in town that we knew we could give those things up.

We took countless boxes to Goodwill. We’ve given a lot of toys and homeschooling items to friends with young children. We’ve sold a lot of things on Craig’s List. And there are a few more things that need to go, but we’re working on that.

The hardest items to give up were the books. We love books. And though we do have a Kindle with plenty of books on it, the fact is that there’s nothing like holding a much-loved book in your hands. But there just wasn’t room for all the books we loved.

I’ve sold and given away many books in the past, but there were some I could never let go of, including those I used for my kids when I first designed Life Prep for them. I’m going to be giving those away on this blog soon, because I can’t use them with my youngest.

There is an upside to all of this. As much as I miss the things we gave up, it’s very freeing to live small. The housework doesn’t take nearly as long as it did when we had five bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. The utility bills for this house are lower than the last house (90 years old with 38 windows!) and the small closets here forced us to get rid of a lot of our clothes (which weren’t getting much use anyways because we don’t have jobs and nobody dresses up at church these days.)

So I’m not complaining. And the fact that they’re predicting snow tonight and we won’t have to clean off the car tomorrow because it now fits in the garage makes me extra glad we worked so hard to get rid of all our stuff after the move  🙂

Back at the Keyboard

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Wow, a month away from my blog….never thought I could do it, but it was actually rather freeing. Still, I’ve missed blogging and am happy to be back.

So as I mentioned last month, we’ve moved, AGAIN. That makes three times in four years (for anyone keeping score), and if I say so myself, this was our most disorganized move yet, which is kind of depressing because we have a lot less stuff now than we did four years ago.

Part of the reason this latest move has been so crazy is that we moved into a much smaller house. We’ve always known we would need to downsize, and I thought I was ready for it. I love reading about the tiny houses that are so hip right now; just the thought of simplifying and streamlining the prodigious amount of crap stuff that a homeschooling family of six can accumulate made me happy and excited for the future. But the reality was that we had to slog through a lot of stuff in the heat and humidity (our leases kept going August to August) and it’s really gotten old.

That said, it’s worth it, because we feel lighter with every box we take to the Goodwill store. And (even at my age), I’m learning all sorts of good lessons through this experience. I’ll be sharing a few in future posts; let’s call them “The Downsizing Chronicles.”

As for those announcements I said were upcoming, it’s almost time. Stay tuned.