Sunday, November 9, 2008

Thoughts on Moving

Yesterday Kim Martins and I helped a friend with selling some things she wanted to sell before moving. It was a warmish day, but rainy and damp. Since she is on a busy street there was drive by traffic and people stopping in throughout the day. Since she asked for help just a few days ago, we didn't advertise in the paper.
When we were low on customers we helped pack some since the movers are coming on Tuesday.
At the end of the day we boxed up what items looked like someone could use for the Vietnam Vets to pick up on Monday, and we threw some items away. My friend came in a few times and asked for a specific item or two back. We retrieved a couple of items, but mainly we tried to shoo her back out of the room so she couldn't see what we were throwing away. My friend admitted that it is very hard for her to throw anything away because she feels it is wasteful. I understand this feeling. It is much easier for me to see what someone else needs to throw away then what I need to throw away! You can rest assured that if I am throwing something away, it really needs to be thrown away. It's chipped, it's taped, it's outdated (think cassette tapes), it's spoiled, it's really junk!

I felt tired but energized at the end of the day. For one thing, I like meeting people. Like the two guys who drove up from Jersey City to South Orange looking for Sonny's Bagels on South Orange Ave.
I also came home with the idea of pretending that I am moving and looking at my own things through this lens, "Would I want to pay someone to move this? or should i let it go?" I really, really want to simplify my own life with less stuff around. Of course, with a 4 year old and an 11 year old there is still a lot of interest in little tiny plastic things around here, but I still could sneak somethings out past them if I use resolve.

I also need to throw a few things up on eBay. To keep your eBay Trading Assistant title, you have to sell 5 things a month and I have fallen out of the habit.

I've handed out almost 250 business cards in the past couple of weeks. I'm looking forward for the little seeds I've been sowing to start sprouting up and bearing fruit. I've been getting positive feedback to the name MT House.

Okay, I'm going to go get a big industrial trash bag and throw some things away around my house now!