Sunday, July 19, 2015

Small Steps Toward France

Earl and I both know that the end of his job could be inching toward us. Last week, one of his co-workers announced 60 days left until the possibility of them losing their jobs.
We have a backup plan, as I announced in my post France Dreams Coming True, but we're still kind of in denial. That plan requires selling our house. And whose house is ready to go on the market?
Definitely not mine.
On Friday, I  made one small step toward preparing it.
I cleaned up the area around my desk. Our house is small with two bedrooms upstairs and another bedroom downstairs. My desk is situated in a nook in the hallway.
I don't often write there because I need a window, so I haul my laptop to the dining room table or the front porch.
But papers I've graded and notes I've taken and bills I've paid, plus all of the paraphernalia gathered from the kids' events and school reports gathered on my desk in the past five years.
Here's how it looked before I started to clean it.

Hours later, with three boxes full of recycling and three neatly labeled crates, one for each child, my desk area looked neat.
Now if I could just convince myself to work on one area each day. Or if I would pull one box out of the basement storage room every day and figure out what is worth keeping or what needs to go, I could be ready in 60 days to throw the house on the market.
But, a bigger challenge awaits if we do sell the house, because how can we get rid of everything. Everything! Wooden trains and American Girl dolls and rocking horses. Carefully made quilts and snow globes of Paris. Framed photos of all those family members. 
Maybe I'll put them all in small boxes and whenever someone comes to visit us in France, they have to bring along one of our momento boxes. 
Today, hopefully, we're riding our bikes down to the Rib and Jazz Fest to listen to some music. We planned to go last night, but the extreme heat and the itch of my poison ivy convinced us to stay home. 

5 comments:

Jeanie said...

Wow -- I'm impressed with your productivity. I took a look at my desk when I was reading this post and decided that something must be done. So you can add "motivator" to your list of credentials.

I confess, the thought of moving anywhere overwhelms me but when you mentioned the intricacies of moving to Paris -- the boxes of treasures that mean so much to family and leaving them behind -- that really shook me. That might be the hardest thing to leave behind...

Jackie McGuinness said...

You can do it! We downsized 2 years ago so we could travel for months on end. It really is just stuff. Some stuff I passed onto friends or family members. I scanned lots of cards and other memorabilia. But really no one really wants most of it.

Paulita said...

Jeanie, So glad to have motivated you. Moving is an overwhelming task, especially if you can't just move everything with you, like we've done some in the past.
Jackie, I love the idea of scanning things in and just taking them in my computer as I move to a new country.

Louise said...

If you move or not it always feels great to clean up an area like that.

Just Me said...

Dear Great Motivator. I too am impress with your nook cleaning as well as your great idea for one file per child. I have before picture now not sure when I will have an after. I can't imagine getting rid of everything but your idea to just start somewhere, one step at a time, first things first, always works for me. Too hot for those with poison ivy was smart. We are sweating just standing still here in KY. Temps in the 90's and heat indexes in the 100's. Can't wait for August. Smiles.

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