Stuff & More Stuff

SHIP'S LOG:

     One of the things that happens now that I have "swallowed the anchor," I have the opportunity to consolidate all of my remaining stuff. When I first got set to head south down the ICW, I made it a point of unloading as much of my personal stuff as I could. I got rid of a lot of clothes, all of my books and other odds and ends. I simplified my life by getting rid of lots of possessions. . . .or at least I thought I had.  Turns out that I still had an awful lot! And it had become necessary to do a further unloading.

     The places that I had stored my things have become unusable for storage and the simple truth was that I rally had little in the way of storage in my new digs. Indeed, I would be hard pressed to much more than a few items in the apartment. It became necessary to rent a storage unit. That was easy, but the tougher part was to get my stuff stashed!

    Part of my stuff was on the 3rd floor of a rectory and it required that I not just pack it up, but that I get it down the stairs and into my car. It took two days. The first day was spent going through all the stuff and deciding what to take and what to trash. I found out during the first time I did this, that one has to be ruthless in throwing stuff away. I filled bags and bags with papers, files and nicknacks that I had collected over the years. It is a tough thing to do as I first saved all the stuff for it was "important" to me at the time I set it aside but as a friend once said, if you haven't worn it, used it or were aware you had it for over two years, then it was like you didn't have it. That made it easier but still not easy, which is why the "sorting" process took a whole day. Truth be told, I know that even the stuff I sorted to be saved and eventually packed up and stored in my rented "cube,"  I am going to have to go through again and trash lots of it. It is sort of refining process and there is more "refining " to do.

     After I finished the sorting, I packed it the next day and hauled it down the triple set of stairs and got it into my car. The storage in in Gales Ferry and it was actually easier to get it into storage than to get it to the place of storage. And that was just the stuff from one place. All of the boat stuff that goes on the boat in the spring and off the boat in the fall has to go there as well. That will be done this week once the weather begins to cooperate again. I'll have to do the same save /trash process though it should be a lot more simple as the boat stuff is already "refined" and is all immediately usable, even necessary. But there will still be packing and hauling, up stairs this time, that needs doing, but I have a place for it all to go.

     Once those two places are taken care of, I will still have an item or two that I will need to gather up for storage. It is really a pain in the but but it will be good at last to gather it all together. Ah, the fun of boat ownership!!!!!