I would buy huge bags of Bachelor Chow at Costco.

I came up with something and ordered it, hooray! It won't be ready for another 20 minutes or so, but I should be able to last that long.

ETA: I made a gallon or so of granola a week and a half ago and have been eating that for a lot of meals including breakfast today. Did not bring enough with me to have it again for lunch, alas.

We've been here ten years, and we culled a lot before we moved, and again when we unpacked. And still....

Recently H brought back two carloads of things of his brother's, and from his mom's house, family things. And some of those we've donated, a lot of it got sent back with StY when he came to visit recently, especially since he flew out and drove H's prize Pontiac home. He took what he wanted to keep, since it will all be his, or direct gifts to local friends, eventually, anyway.

And still, and still, these rooms that were so big and open are seeming smaller and fuller of...stuff...lately. Time for another ruthless purge and donate this spring, I think. The nearly-new loveseat a deceased neighbor's kids gave us, the giant treadmill I haven't used in ten years and am no more likely to use going forward. The pantry desperately needs cleaned out and reorged--we haven't used the ice cream maker since we've been here, nor the giant roasting pan, nor an accumulation of kitchen gadgets too fiddly to clean to be worth using instead of a knife. Things like that.

I've been relentless against horizontal creep (lay a bill or a flyer on a horizontal surface, the next time you look, a pile of mail has become part of that horizontal surface and is no longer discernible as separate from that surface), but things fill up corners and cupboards and closets, and the overflow is slowly sapping my will to live. Must...retaliate, and regain breathing and living space.

You've been there ten years, Bev? Seems like you just moved.

Right? That's what I was thinking, -t.

I lost so much stuff when S. and I split up, much of it because he told me he was paying the storage bill and wasn't. And it was heartbreaking (pictures of the kids, Christmas stuff), but ever since my need to be ~light~ is incredible. I get rid of stuff all the time now, even books. If I don't wear or use it or like to look at it, it goes.

Now if I could just convince my mother to do the same.

My mom lived in the same house from '73 until her death (44 1/2 years, I'll save you the mathing). I lived elsewhere much of the time, but my bedroom stayed my bedroom and I stored a ton of stuff there even when I wasn't living there. The amount of STUFF in my house is beyond ridiculous. I've been trying to thin it out but it is SLOW going. Maybe I need a msbelle? msbelle, let me know when you need a place to stay in San Diego, mmkay?

I dread having to clean out my parents' huge house. They upsized after the kids moved out, and have been filling the house with stuff ever since. Much of it lovely, beautiful, interesting stuff (they travel a lot, my mom loves shopping for local arts & crafts, they have a bazillion books, etc.), but still. It's going to be a nightmare to go through it all.

My only blessing is that since I'm now living in the house, I can go at my own pace. If I had to do under time constraints? I don't even know how I'd handle that.

A house as small as ours should not have as much crap in it as it does. I suspect that Tim bought it solely because it has Tardis-like qualities. That's the only explanation for how we can have so much stuff.

I have a lot of stuff because I have a big house. But I don't feel super attached to most of it? My shelves of books is hard because I never read on paper now but there's bunches I can't/won't buy in ebook format. And I'm bad at clothes. Everything else, I am pretty ok with wholesale ditching and replacing if need be. I just haven't had to. But if I was moving or putting stuff in storage? Bye bye furniture and dishes and stuff!

If I can ever find the time to finish winnowing down my comic book collection, I think I can then be merciless about boxes of old magazines and other assorted crap that I haven't opened since moving in over a decade ago. T-shirts that I never wear will be harder since so many are of hockey teams or TV shows I have sentimental attachments to.