Have space...stuff it, store it, ignore it.

When I had some recent water intrusion, everything in those areas was pulled out from where the 'stuff' was hidden, and placed into living space. 

But reality checked in. And I'm checking out. Why do I have this, or that, or what was I thinking? I'm giving all the stuff to a local museum to sell. They make $$ and I am over it.   

This is just part of what was under the stairs. 

Here's an example: About three weeks ago. I was parking my bike in the carriage house (a type of garage, but a car can't get into it...due to the yard. And the carriage house probably housed a car once those were invented. Before that, it probably was home to ...a carriage!) It was a far cry from the single car garage that we used to have.

The carriage house was used as Carl's shop. He built beautiful boat/yachts half models in there, and he had his dad's big tools in there: a drill press, a table sander, table saw, and things I don't even remember. I gave his large tools, and some of the smaller ones, away shorly after he passed on. Others could use it. I would not. 

The friendly animals have had a bath..and I'll think I'll keep them for when the grandkids visit.

Carl and Evan (our son) built an '8 hour canoe' in there. BTW... it took longer than 8 hours to build that canoe. And we still have it, hanging from the rafters! Note that it's in the carriage house, not Evan's garage.

BTW...Carl's dad never let any car park in the family's garage. It had a far superior purpose. He built boats in there, and a small single engine, single pilot airplane, called the Bower's Flybaby.   

Back to the subject at hand: I was parking my bike....I realized that I've become the depository and repository for all things flying..and I don't mean flying bugs. The fly-boys (the guys I taught glider and single engine flying with, flew DC4s with in Alaska), whenever we had reunions, brought all their non-important flying stuff over to me, and left it at my house. Typical. 

Much of that stuff was inherited by them from their fathers. Books and ancient tools of the flying trade, that all of us used, before electronics became the norm, the flyboys decided to dump their stuff on me. Undated photos, 8mm film, etc.  

I called the National Soaring Museum in El Mira, New York, to find out if they were interested in the 'stuff' but unless the photos or movies had dates on them..the answer was a big NO. 

Without even thinking twice, this time I started throwing the books into the recycling bin. I put stuff into the unreclycing bin. I was in there for at least 2 hours..and cleared out a ton of stuff. 

Then I came across the movies...and some of them were labeled and they were about flying (mostly National & local competitions for gliders). I called my oldest brother and asked about how he converted the movies we had back in the day into DVDs. He told me to check out the internet because it's much simpler now than it was a few years ago. So I had Costco do the job, for under $200.

Now all I need to do, is open up the Costco box. Or to make it even easier, I'm able to click on the link that they sent me. But I may do that later. I'm rejoicing in the fact that I'm getting rid of the stuff.

Live richly.  marilyn