the weeding out

We are in the midst of an ongoing clean-out, throw-away, sell-it project. Allan is a pack-rat of the first order -- a collector, an accumulator, a saver. I am a minimalist. I do save some things, but I am always paring down. I like  s  p  a  c  e.  It's always been a juggling act: he can't save absolutely everything he would like to, and I can't have as much empty space as I would like. Mostly we've been pretty good at it, though I suspect we each feel we've compromised more than the other.



Now, with our impending move, even my favorite pack-rat knows he has to get rid of lots of stuff. First of all, you pay for moving by the pound. Beyond that, why move with stuff that's been sitting in boxes, untouched and un-looked at, for years, only to have it sit in the same box in a different (Canadian) closet?



I started the process early, knowing it was the only way. He's got boxes and boxes and boxes (etc. etc.) to go through. If we wait til the last minute, it will all come with us - which is expensive and ridiculous. I'm trying to get him to do a little every week. Some weeks we are successful!



We're also selling a lot of stuff on eBay (no link, I'm not trying to sell it to you), so we get some money, and Allan feels less bad about getting rid of it. It's utterly amazing what people will pay for other people's trash! It all goes in the Canada Fund.