T-minus – one week and our house looks like a bomb exploded. Upside: We have (thankfully) rented out our townhouse for a year. Downside: We need to hand over the keys in 6 days and we are nowhere near ready.

People tell you to start to prepare for your departure early, and we did. While we knew we wouldn’t need to get rid of everything, we did need to cut our possessions in half so we could fit everything in our storage room.  Being a good Virgo, I made list after list …things to sell, things to donate and things to keep.  I started selling stuff on various online forums more than 6 months ago. Yet, here we are, one week from our departure date and I swear the “stuff” is breeding in the corners. We have buckets and bins and corners and piles where we have sorted and allocated and labelled. We have made numerous trips to charities, recycle drops and the dump. We have pressed our beloved things into the hands of friends and family and posted not less than 100 online sales ads.  But still, the house feels full.

Making decisions about every possession you own can be exhausting. But it is also very liberating. I tried to approach this process by asking whether a particular item brings value to my life right now. This made some decisions easier. For example – my entire work wardrobe – not a problem – that quickly went into the donation pile.  Slightly more challenging was the vast plethora of linens, books, games, CDs, DVDs etc.  Thankfully, I take great joy in knowing that things will go on to be used, especially by those who have a need. But it is when the big stuff is gone and you are cleaning out the junk drawer (who am I kidding…junk drawers, junk closets – really, the whole basement), you find out what you really loathe to dispose of.

I apparently have a thing for post-it notes and scissors. There were so many pens and post-it notes and binders and scissors, we started a bin. Only one bin wasn’t enough. This might be the appropriate time to remind you that we do not have children and the last time either Dave or I was in school was the turn of the century.  How can 2 people accumulate that many post-it notes?? And the scissors. Who needs 11 pairs of scissors? Apparently we do.  So while I have made very difficult decisions to dispose of my grandmother’s sewing machine and my grandfather’s horsehair chesterfield, the scissors have made the cut.