5 Months

No, I am not moving (THANK GOD), however my fiance, Marc, will be moving into my house after we get married in June. For some reason this has been on my mind lately and I am beginning to realize that I should probably think seriously about where his stuff will be going and make sure I make room to make the house his as well. There is a piece of me that wishes we were selling my place and moving into somewhere together (or I was moving from another house into my house - I do enjoy my place and don't want anything bigger) sot hat together we could figure out where stuff goes and what not. I however am jazzed beyond belief that I don't have to move.

The house is plenty big for the two of us, 3 bedrooms and 1 bath, let's hope we can figure out how to live together and how to share space. If we can't we are in a world of hurt. However, at the time that we get married and Marc moves in Dakota and I will have been living there for two full years. Yes, I will have lived at the same address for two full years, I haven't done that since I was in high school 10.5 years ago. I am realizing probably the obvious:

• Marc will need to put his clothes somewhere 
• I will need to take my camping gear (tent, sleeping bag, water purifier, and all my other glorious camping gear) and skiing gear (skis, snowboard, boots, etc) out of my closet and make space for him. Seems lame but for some reason I am slow on the uptake and just realized these things
• Marc has some kitchen stuff
• while we registered for lots of kitchen stuff because we both have hand me down stuff and rummage sale stuff we need to purge some of both of our stuff and somewhere I need to makes space for his stuff logically - I do have several empty cupboards that we can put stuff in - but we need to think through the logic
• the bathroom only has two towel hooks
• yes, I use two towels - actually I rotate two towels throughout any given week between washing them - and Marc is probably definitely going to need somewhere to hang a towel or two after showering (I promote showering often - this comes from working with nonshowering junior high kids)
• Some of my junk needs to either go to the attic space (strange space upstairs in my house) or I just need to get rid of it and stop holding onto stuff
• I sort of miss the days when all of my stuff fit in my vehicle - however I don't yet feel like a hoarder by owning a bed,a couch, and a kitchen table - I just feel less like a minimalist 
• the garage needs some loving
• I have a two stall garage but one stall is currently occupied by two kayaks (one is his), three bikes (two are his), yard games, lawn furniture (for the winter), a grill, a dog crate (Dakota's travel crate), and a bunch of other miscellaneous items - we need to figure out how to best fit two cars in the garage 

I am certain all of this is obvious to you all reading it, however for some reason when this hit me like a ton of bricks this getting married stuff became more real. We won't have two places to live - Marc and I will live in the same place. I won't have my own place, I must learn to share again (it has been a while since I have had a roommate) and I am certain that I will do things that annoy the heck out of Marc and will need to come to some compromises. Transitions are strange, while I look forward to transitioning into married life there are also certain things that I think get overlooked in the business of it all and for those of us who didn't live together before marriage moving in is a crazy process. T-minus 5 months until we get married.

How do you feel about moving?

Any tips on how to get rid of stuff and downsize what you own?

Anything you hold on to that you keep thinking you should get rid of?

What is your favorite personal item you own?

134 items & counting

I am slowly but surely making progress on my commitment to the Give 500 challenge. My current goal is to have 500 items given away by March 1 (I figure it will get me through the winter and it can seriously be a winter project). I am in love with the process of going through everything, seriously before I moved to first call everything I owned (I owned no furniture other than my beloved papasan chair and didn't have a dog) fit into my car. It was freeing to know at any given moment I could pack up and move. Although now that I have a house (and copious amounts of furniture - or really enough to fill my house - this way of moving is impossible) and have acquired lots of stuff (some justified some I just don't need) I am realizing how easy it is for junk stuff to build up. So I have committed to downsizing. Not to mention in June Marc will be moving in and I should probably have some space for him to put his stuff too.

Count so far:

• 91 books (seriously I have way too many books after undergrad and grad school not to mention I LOVE TO READ) - I gave a bunch to the library (librarians were jazzed, or at least faked it if they weren't) and a ton of graduate school books to an old camper/camp staffer/friend who has just entered seminary (seriously nice to be able to pass the books off and know they will be used again)
• 4 pairs of shoes (why I have been hanging onto these shoes is beyond me, they were uncomfortable and I hated wearing them and still attempted to wear them when I forgot how uncomfortable they were - so I finally got rid of them)
• 38 pieces of clothing (seriously I owned way too much clothing - and some of it didn't/doesn't fit. Why in the world am I holding on to it?!)

Updated count: 134 items given away, 366 items to go

I will succeed.

Side note: I am also taking into consideration things I buy or acquire, so if I bring something new in the house 2 must go. I don't want to have this much stuff, more importantly I just don't need to have this much stuff! I must stop living in such excess! I am only donating stuff that people would actually want, I am also throwing some stuff away that just needs to go in the garbage. I am not donating things like socks with holes in them, throwing them away and those are not going in my tally.


Do you go through your stuff often?
Any tips on how to prevent crap stuff from building up in your house?
Where do you like to donate your stuff?