Insanity

My life has spun out of control these last few weeks. (If that sounds like a familiar plaint to my long-time friends, that’s because my life tends to do that. A lot.)

However, I have accomplished two big goals, and I’m on the cusp of a third. We’ll see in a few weeks if it pans out.

The first big goal is that I finally cleaned up my storage unit. The one with the mammoth serpent in it. We never saw him on the day we spent pulling everything out, sorting, organizing, cleaning, and putting half of it back. (Thank goodness.) The stuff that stayed is stuff I’m pretty sure I want to keep, and stuff that has to be carefully gone through before I’m sure what to do with it. Books. Christmas and Easter decor. Books. Kids toys and games. Books. My fine china and silver and crystal. Books. Some pictures and random home decor items. Books. A few pieces of furniture. Did I mention the books?

The other half of the stuff that was in that unit went to help complete big goal number two.

The second big goal is that I finally had my yard sale. We’ve been storing up stuff for at least four years, saying we’d have a yard sale “in the spring” … “in the fall” … “next spring” …. It never happened. But I got sick of paying for this storage unit that’s mostly stuff I don’t want to keep. Why am I paying $55, $65, $75 a month (it’s gone up annually for the past three years) to store a bunch of stuff I know I don’t want? That’s nuts!! So I said we would have the yard sale this spring. No matter what. And after two re-schedules, we finally did it yesterday.

How much stuff did we have? Well … let me put it this way. I got up at 0500. By 0600 I was outside putting things out for the sale. At 0800, I was still bringing stuff out of the utility shed where we’d put it when we took it from the storage unit. At 0900, I started bringing stuff out of my living room where it was stacked. At 1030, I was too tired to walk back and forth anymore and gave up bringing stuff out. And besides, from 0730 on, there had been a steady stream of shoppers. So I was glad my friend and my dad were there to help me!

The friend had to leave at noon, but my mom came over then with lunch and stayed to help. We finally closed up at about 1600, when it started to rain. We started packing up at 1600. But we didn’t finish packing up until about 1800. But we sold a whole lot of stuff! What was left over just filled up the utility shed and a small part of my living room. The stuff in the living room is stuff I think I can sell to a local second-hand store, but I need to go through and clean it up a bit first.

And my brother is planning to have a sale at his house in the near future, so we’re gonna pack up all the stuff in the utility shed and join his sale. Whatever’s left then will be given to charity.

The third goal is one of about five that still remain on my master to-do list. But it’s a biggie, at least for me. I hope to test for my purple belt at the end of June. With all of my physical and memory issues, I never thought I would ever get this far. I just need to get a little more confidence on my last two required kata. I have trouble keeping the double-man forms straight. But I’ll get them … I just need a little more time.

Tags: Family Life, karate, stress, True Stories