Life: 10 x 10

I would like to take a moment to publicly commend my family (not that they read this, but here’s the thought counting). This past week or so we’ve all been going crazy over at my parents’ house ransacking the basement and getting rid of stuff – LOTS of it!

It all began with radon. Back before Christmas Andrew and I decided to have the basement at my parents’ house tested (we had been thinking of living in the basement and wanted to know just how big of a problem it had). We got a free kit from the state environmental program; used it, returned it, got the results back aaaand… turned out it had a major problem – over 13 times the normalish level of “problem” you want to shoot for. The problem was not only in the basement, but, being winter with everything tightly buttoned up, the problem had extended to the air on the first floor of the house. This prompted my parents to look into having a radon mitigation system installed – much faster than I’d ever imagined. And since someone is going to be tinkering in the basement anyway, they decided to actually, finally renovate that as well. After 15 years of fluffy pink insulation, there will be walls! a floor! sealed cracks under the floor! even rooms!

But like pretty much every basement everywhere – it was filled to the gills with stuff. Now I’m just not familiar with other people’s basements, other than knowing somehow that almost everyone’s contains the residual and transient stuff of life. I often have thought that no basement was as bad as ours, but now I’m pretty sure that that’s just not true. It’s mostly a hunch, since I have no evidence. I don’t go poking through other people’s sub-levels to see if they’re keeping the same bundle of afgans or the same scuba tank that we are, but I don’t feel too off the mark in guessing that yes, they probably are. I suppose the contents of one’s basement could be considered sacred information; the scattered tea-leaves that reveal subtle secrets of our personalities, insecurities, compulsions and fears. The things you never use, things you used once but probably never will use again, things you want to forget but don’t have the heart to throw away, things you think someone else can use, things you’re saving for the secret second life you hope to start some day, things you kept because you thought they’d be great for passing the time more meaningfully (and yet they’re down here and the TV’s upstairs) – these things are revealing. No wonder we’re so reluctant to actually wade through them. But this week, we did. We finally did.

And now Goodwill is either praising us for our contribution or cursing us and plotting the extra wing they’ll need to build to accommodate. Andrew and I got rid of well over half our clothing. We had four huge buckets plus the contents of a 9-drawer dresser and our duffle bags. I’m down to one bucket (summer and winter), and Andrew is down to one duffle bag for winter. (He is, naturally, waiting for summer to see what he will really use. I, on the other hand, remembered all too vividly which of those clothes didn’t fit last bathing suit season…) I got rid of sentimental things I never though I could, like Pookie, the teddy bear my grandparents gave me when I was six, or the heirloom set of china that was my grandma’s. (Note: the china is going to go to another family member. We weren’t pruning that recklessly.) All of Andrew’s and my possessions that were living in the basement have been culled and consolidated to fit quite nicely into just the closets of the room we stay in. My family went through seventeen (!!!) buckets of holiday decorations, mostly Christmas, and whittled it down to just four buckets for all the holidays.

Seventeen is indeed a huge number of buckets, and perhaps that number has impressed you already, but I feel the need to put this in just the right perspective for you: When I was little, holiday decorations were practically part of my education, and I first want to be very clear that I thoroughly enjoyed it as a kid. I feel like it gave us something of a sense of occasion and invited us to find reasons to celebrate life all year; the leprechauns, cupids and bunnies eventually diffusing into the simple joys and expectancies of the changing seasons and the appreciation of the transience of life. (Well, that came a little later but as a kid it was really just colorful and awesome.) My family has an impressive, and perhaps impassable, track record for the aesthetic onslaughts of Christmas and Halloween. At Christmas, our house was the North Pole, and my parents have been making Halloween haunted houses in their garages since before my brother and I were born. At Valentine’s Day it was like the Pink Truck had crashed into our house and on St. Patrick’s day it was like living in a Keebler elf tree in mythical Ireland. We decorated extensively for not only the big ones, but for all the “lesser” holidays as well. The ones where you might have a day off from school, but it’s not like hoards of family are coming to visit. I’m talking President’s Day, Columbus Day, Memorial Day – if it was on a calendar, we had things hanging on the walls, scattered on surfaces and clinging to the windows to match. Seventeen is the number of buckets that were left after we got rid of the lesser decorations – the Presidential portraits, the tiny models of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, the pilgrim salt & pepper shakers and “maps” of the “New World.” Once upon a time, seventeen buckets were the bare essentials.

But “bare essentials” has changed in definition around here, and I think we’re all getting a taste of the therapeutic benefits of letting go. I’m estimating roughly five or six sedan and/or pickup truck loads of stuff either has or will find its way to the thrift store, dump or recycling center. After a particularly productive Thursday, four of us took two massive carloads of things all at once to Goodwill (which has a fantastically convenient Donation Drive-Thru), then went down the street to see a movie to celebrate. Well done, fam. Well done.

The plans for the basement are humming along, and the contractors are scheduled to come in and begin tinkering within the next month or so. I recently went through the Googledoc spreadsheet that Andrew and I made to document exactly what we have in our storage unit, which box it is in, etc. I created another column and at the top I labeled it, coldly, ominously, in bold capitalized letters, “FATE.” I went through every thing and entered a preferred fate – throw out, donate, redistribute to family or friends, yardsale/consign, recycle, burn/shred, scan and then burn/shred etc. I was surprised at just how much I found I’m willing to part with.

And now, I’m absolutely itching to have a Spring Storage Unit Party. Simplifying your possessions isn’t actually simple. It can be grueling. It can be tedious. It can fill landfills. It can challenge your sense of duty to nostalgia.

I’ve personally found it to be pretty darn addicting.

Take a look:

All my clothes, ready to be bagged.

We’ve moving. We’re staying in the new place for several weeks at least. Possibly months. What you see above are the clothes that I will have during that time. It’s not ideal, but I’m getting my clothing load down to something approximating workable.

Going down each column in turn:

• Column 1:
  • Eight pair socks.
  • Thermal underwear.
  • Swim trunks.
  • Yoga pants.
• Column 2:
  • Five pair underwear.
  • One sweater.
  • Four T-shirts.
• Column 3:
  • “Nice” clothes:
    • Two “nice” shirts.
    • “Nice” pants.
    • “Nice” undershirt.
• Work clothes:
  • Work sweater
  • Two work shirts.
  • Work jeans.
  • Work boots and gloves (in car).
• Column 4:
  • One pair jeans (on my legs).

This should allow me to do laundry every four days. Let’s see… the swim trunks may seem a little odd this time of year, but I’m going to be cold-water dousing every night, so they’ll be used. The yoga pants are mainly for yoga but double as “pants I wear when my jeans are in the wash.” Eights pair of socks may seem excessive for four days, but I’m going to be working hard outside in the cold, and I want to be able to change frequently. I may wish eventually that I’d packed more socks, actually.

The “nice” clothes wouldn’t normally be necessary, but I am getting headshots done for my resume tomorrow and am then hitting the road immediately, so there’s no way to offload them.

Well, this will all fit in one duffel, but it’s tight. I want to reduce further, but I think I need to take a look at my washing tech before I do. Perhaps one of these is in order?

Happy New Year! Rather than make new resolutions, I’ve decided to scrutinize the ones I’ve accumulated over the past year. Matt and I are about to go on “vacation” (more on that later) for a week and this seems like a good time. It’s been about two months since my first blog post, and I find myself wanting to know where I stand. What have I accomplished since my initial, fiery resolve?

Shelter/Tumbleweed

We ran up against some obstacles, to say the least. The legal loopholes that usually allow for Tumbleweeds simply do not exist in New Hampshire. After a conversation with a very nice building inspector, I learned that it’s not just illegal to live in an “accessory structure” of less than a few hundred feet, but it is also illegal to live full-time in an RV. I suspect this has something to do our cold-weather climate mixed with NH’s generally high standard of living. As we work out a solution to this problem, we’ve resolved to move to a much smaller apartment when our current lease ends in June.

Finances

More importantly, however, Matt and I realized we simply can’t afford a house right now. Even a Tumbleweed. School loans put us in the red, which is a poor foundation for our new lifestyle. So after many a late-night conversation we decided to make debt our first priority. (I’m pretty sure we made an oath swearing off mortgages somewhere in there.) For us, this means delaying our dreams of part-time employment and spending the next few years earning our academic degrees all over again – this time in the financial sense. This may seem like a setback, but I believe the mental footwork is progress in the right direction.

Stuff

This is the category in which I shine. I’ve learned that it’s very easy to throw things away, but much harder to avoid the ever-vacuous landfill. I wince whenever I toss something in the trash. I’m not mad at myself for impulse-buys of the past, but I am a fan of atonement. This means a lot of cleaning, sorting and selling. A great number of books have gone to the local library. I’ve reduced the clothing I actually wear to about half of what it used to be. The other half is in stasis, but will soon be finding its way out the door. As for the knick knacks, the sentimental papers, and the “I’ll-get-to-it-someday-craft-supplies,” progress is slower, but apparent. I’m not getting rid of all of my high school papers/correspondences, but the vetting process has gotten a lot stricter. And many things are being scanned and gotten rid of.

Computers

Matt and I recently did the unthinkable. We decided to share a computer. Gasp! What?? Whoa, now, hold on there kiddies, don’t get carried away. We share a desktop. We still have one laptop each (er… in my case, a laptop and a netbook). But it’s better than it used to be. At our peak, we had no less than 7 computers in the apartment. And yes, I realize this is absolutely ridiculous.

It wasn’t like we bought the latest and greatest every few months. It came from an inability to get rid of the old. I mean, what if I need an extra computer? Or what if my still-functioning Windows 3.11 laptop is worth something some day? These were the anxieties that kept them close, move after move. And we haven’t completely fixed the problem… yet. Most of them are still sitting around collecting dust. But slowly, we’re finding responsible ways to dispose/disperse. We’d like to get it down to three total. One desktop to share for intensive tasks and one laptop each so we can both read/write at the same time. It still sounds excessive, I know… but we’ll re-evaluate the situation when we get there.

Exercise

I’d give myself an “E” for effort here. Or maybe an “E minus” for feeling the urge to make an effort. I went to the gym one morning in November when I couldn’t sleep. We recently set up our DDR pads and played for about a week… and then… fail. The end-of-year crunch at work put an end to that regimen, but hopefully we can rectify this situation soon.

Food

Yay, another thing we’ve been good at… mostly. Though exercise is lacking, our diet has seriously improved. We recently… acquired… a GABA rice maker. OK fine, so we bought a new thing. No, I do not regret it. Check out the health benefits here, here and here. Plus, we can throw in rice before work and come home to a delicious dinner, making us that much more likely to eat something that’s good for us.

In general, we’ve been aiming for a higher-fiber diet with lots of grains and veggies while phasing out large portions of meat, sugars and salts. When we do buy animal products, we try to find them ethically-raised. A-Market is a wonderful source, but the ethical and natural trends are finding their roots even in the mainstream grocery stores.

We were eating lots of fish, but we’ve had to belay that habit for reasons I will explain in another blog post. All in all, I feel our diets are improving.

Conclusion

Not bad at all. I’m feeling very inspired about getting rid of things, so I’m going to ride that wave for now. Hopefully vacation will be a jump-start to our pitiful exercise routine. But I’m not worried about reaching my goals instantaneously. As long as progress is made, I’m happy. And heaven save me from the day that I’ve reached the end of all my goals with nothing left to strive for.