Stuff

We have a friend who seems to have her life together better than most people. She told me once that one of the shortcuts to contentment was to get rid of anything you hadn't used in six months, or didn't think was adding significant beauty to your home. The woman is aware of her stuff, and keeps it in check.

The subject comes up because I haven’t come anywhere near following her advice. Neither has my husband. We’ve both been known to hang on to the darndest stuff because we imagine we might find a use for it someday. We live in the same building as our online bookstore business, which means that in addition to accumulated personal stuff we have thousands of used books and also all the stuff one expects from shipping rooms, etc. This would be neither here nor there except that our landlord has just told us that he’s decided to sell several buildings, including this one.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll have to move on short notice, but it does mean that we might have to move on short notice. Oops. We’ve lived here several years and on close inspection find that we have gradually acquired way too much stuff to even think about moving. Excuse me for a bit while I haul stuff to thrift stores and the dump, and throw more effort than usual into moving books out of back stock, just in case. Luckily we're going into yard sale season. Yard sales are a lovely tradition. The only problem with yard sales is that they muddle the matter of taking stuff to thrift stores...

As we say in this part of the world, “Hold down the fort ‘til I get back, OK?”

UPDATE: The realtor and landlord have come and gone. The usual you-need-to-be-out-of-here-by-then notice for sales like this is 30 to 60 days, as I understand it, but the landlord said that he'd fight for 90 days in our case. And, of course, that countdown wouldn't start unless and until the place sold. The landlord is also looking around for possible other locations for us. We've also been talking to other people, asking them to keep their eyes and ears open for us. Things feel better than this morning, now that some sort of network is getting set up. Now, just as long as I don't let the potential of a longer time frame lull me into procrastinating on the tough jobs that need to get done, I think I'll be fine...