purge and pack

it is yet another saturday morning where i am awake before 7am.

there was a time when i would have called anyone a liar if they said this would be my life someday.

a husband and three beautiful children, all still sleeping. me. up early.
lies, all of it!

but it is my life and how beautiful it is. despite the current squalor we're living amongst.

see, no matter what happens, it looks we're officially going to be living in our current home while we put it on the market. we are approved to buy while renting this place but my husband, who hasn't necessarily embraced the powers of an ever-abundant universe such as i have, is somewhat worried that we may need the equity in this home as financial reserves if business numero dos doesn't perform before the end of the year. technically, i know the business doesn't just perform like magic with the wave of a wand or the twitching of one's nose. i know it's all on him and not the universe, so to speak, but the universe clearly works with the willing, as was evident with his last franchise placement.

regardless, i understand and support his decision. it just makes a whole lot more work for me.

and it was a partial lie. my four year old has probably been awake since he got up to pee a few minutes ago and he is likely the reason the baby is now awake. so, while it's still beautiful, so much for a quiet morning with my coffee and keyboard.

but back to the current conditions of our living room and office...see, if we were just to move, and then rent this place, all i'd have to do is pack. well, purge and pack because even though we are doubling our space (or almost), i don't necessarily want to take all of this stuff with me. but because i do things like hoard art supplies and notebooks and buy pretty toys and handbags and shoes, and because i not only have to purge and pack, but also stage this house in a functional but also saleable manner, let's just say that what came out of my closet yesterday was a monster, unleashed all over the rest of the house. and because i couldn't find packing tape all day long, piles just kept piling up but nothing was packed. of course, that means today shouldn't be difficult - i'm going to costco to get packing tape galore with an actual, professional-like tape gun. i had one, once, and it is very likely located somewhere in our garage but despite the fact that we've always maintained that space to park actual cars in, the rest of it is a mess. the shelves are a free for all of tools and "we might need these somedays" and at this point, it would be easier to just go get a new tape gun. but i am looking forward to the purge and pack in the garage that is yet to come - especially since awesome papa and i had a grand ol' time the other night going through the contents of a nightstand i want to get rid of. a nightstand he was using to keep all manner of things, like a phone book with the names and addresses of people he hasn't spoken to in more than ten years and a post-it note declaring that he likes plants and flashlights. true story. this purging excercise gave me the necessary confidence to approach the task at hand with possibility.

it's easier to feel that way when it's not your stuff. that's why those cable TV people can be so ruthless when helping the hoarders of america. but i've done this enough to know that it can be done. and like i've said before, i never want to do this again. but here i am. the big difference this time around is that the stuff isn't random junk, it's mostly kid or kid-related stuff and i blame it on the fact that i went from being a single mom of one child to a married mom of three children in the last five years. good excuse, no? okay, maybe not - three kids, especially three boy kids really don't need much and i do take full responsibility for my attraction to "shiny, pretty things" as my fourteen year old always jokes.

it's no joke, though. right now, most of the stuff in my house is dedicated to a "sale" pile than anything else. i read it's all too much. i only differ with peter on a few points (like saving my kids' umbilical cords. sorry, dude, if that makes me gross and creepy too bad. i'm not going to "cherish" them by putting them on display or anything, but tucked away in little keepsake boxes, they are not hurting anyone.) but i am going to sell what is reasonable to sell, and sadly, at this point, there is a lot of it. now don't get me wrong, i'm not deluding myself into some perceived value on crap. i've thrown away or donated plenty of what i'd saved for some far-off future time when i thought whatever it was would be worth loads of cash. i got rid of my holiday barbies and original cabbage patch dolls for crying out loud! but still, there is some value in selling most of this stuff, so even though it won't happen overnight, like peter might prefer if he were here, i don't plan on taking a lot of this with us when we move. there are three "sale" piles - one for our community rummage sale next month, one for the children's resale shop that i have a running credit balance with, and one for online sales where i can sell cloth diapers and items that we maybe never got around to using that will fetch a near-retail price. i plan on packing and purging and then parting with these items, in stages, while we're still living here.

and now that my husband is awake, i'm sure he's wondering why i'm writing about all of this, instead of. you know. actually doing it.