We have spent the last week going crazy on the house.  Empty out every closet & drawer...decide what needs to come with us, what needs to stay in the storage POD & what needs to be sold at THE BIG GARAGE SALE!!  I might have some photos to add shortly... but who really cares what the garage sale & all our junk looks like anyhow?

The really cool & trippy thing that happened today was at 3:30, after the garage sale was over & all cleaned up, we had a Small Animal Rescue Center come to pick up our un-sold items so they could sell them in their fundraiser yard sale next weekend.  Sweet guy pulls up in his truck & starts to load up our stuff...wearing an "Amsterdam, Holland" t-shirt.  Come on now, you kidding me??!? 🤪

The main thing to note is that all four of us (the dogs were really no help at all) pushed our patience, our fingers & our feet to the limits this week to thin out all our belongings.  This was like a cleanse for our souls!  I think one of the biggest perks of taking off for a year & renting out our permanent house to another family is this big purge of unnecessary stuff.  It is so hard to figure out what you might need & what to get rid of under normal everyday circumstances.  When forced to get everything you want to keep into a suitcase or a small storage space within a short period of time, you start to realize how little you really truly need to get by.

Talking with friends & strangers alike, there is a common theme... it is the voice of our generation I think... the generation that wanted to HAVE EVERYTHING that had a pricetag on it in the 80's & 90's... these same people now want to get rid of things & move on to experiences!  I feel a contagious sense of community with so many other humans these days because I get such a great response from people who think we are brave or clever or whatever for going out on a limb and doing something we have talked about doing!  I don't feel clever!  I feel liberated & oh so fortunate that we found a way to make it happen.  A lot of people are begging for us to keep a detailed blog so they can see what steps (& missteps!!) we take to get on this road to adventure.  And so many people have stories to share about how they did it, what to include, what to avoid & friends we need to look up in the next 12 months!!  I figure we might have a "friend-of-a-friend" dinner at someone's house about once a week for the next 52 weeks!!

Now listen, in a few months you will point at your laptop screen and yell "A-ha! she bought new boots in Europe!!" or "She has some new art!" or some other hypocritical purchase after the crazy deleting of so many things so at this point I will not claim to be a complete minimalist by any means!  Of course my heart still yearns for beauty in the form of awesome homes & decor & fashion!  But I'm going to be thinking 2, 3, 4 times before we buy anything, especially when we have to bike or carry purchases back to our tiny apartment with no closets!!  It will be a huge lesson for all of us!  Bryan & I figure if our kids can visit a new country & bring home photos, journal entries & memories instead of stuffed animals, success is ours!!