Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Stuff of life

When I came to America I was carrying a small bag with a few clothes in it. A big adventure,
young and free. I made friends fast. Most Americans seem to love the Irish.

It must have been clean up week because when I went to the sidewalk one day people had put out old stuff for the garbage man. It was still good stuff! I took the stuff for my new apartment and the stuff made the apartment looked great!

I found a job fast as a waitress those jobs were a dime a dozen in those day. Then payday came and because I never had money before I bought some of my own new stuff. With many more paydays and paychecks I accumulated lots more new stuff . I then found I had to put some of my own old stuff out on the sidewalk. I even had to get another job to pay for more new stuff.

When Scott and I became friends and we decided we wanted to spend the rest of our life together we bought a house. I just loved decorating it with all new stuff.

For the next 20 years we bought and sold and fixed up houses. Each time we did we had to buy new stuff for the new house. Now I had lots and lots of stuff. We bought a little lake lot and built a house on it then I had to get more stuff to fill that up too. We had a double garage in town and a single garage at our lake house.

I did not like how clutered they were, so we bought a piece of land and built a big shed on it to store all of our extra stuff in. I liked that, because our garages were not so cluttered. Now we were working very hard to pay for all that land, houses, cars and stuff.

One of my favorite's things to do after work was go to the gym with my friend Kim. Scott would meet me there later to lift weight's together one night while I was at my favorite class, Scott came up to me and asked how would you like to go to work in Holland for two years. I said yes without even another thought. The next day I thought what will I do with all my stuff?

To make a long story short we sold our lake house to a coworker and he wanted all the stuff that was in the house. He then he asked if he could buy the land and the big shed for all his stuff that used to be our stuff. We sold it to him. We also gave some stuff away and we stored some stuff for our return. Off we went with only our clothes in a suitcase. We felt so liberated in Europe we hiked and traveled all over "see our hikes for more on that."

It's been seven years since our return to America I am still downsizing and trying to buy only our needs not our wants. There is still days when I fail. I do not get down on myself I look at it as one step backward two steps forward.

Our dream is to travel and hike and live in a motor home. Can't have much stuff in a motor home! More on that coming up.

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