My mom resides in the yard sale generation, a group of people who believe storing something for 3+ years with the hope of selling it for $1 makes sense. That logic might hold up for homeowners, but being a renter (and weakling), I pay a lot of money to move this stuff around. My problem has not been so much that I was holding out for making money as it is that I am a pack rat, who practices under the theory “I may need that some day.” It’s a horrible ailment.

All of that is changing now. I posted 50 groupings of items on Freecycle. Twelve groups have been picked up and 14 more have been promised to people. A few items have been pieces of furniture. I have an office again. (See boring, non-enticing photo. That corner previously housed a 2nd desk & coffee table, now it’s all bags of stuff I’m giving away!) It’s thrilling. It’s a shame that I have less than a month left to appreciate my newfound space liberation.

Even better, though, is I am making people happy. I ended one woman’s quest to find an old-style lamp/table combo. She’s going to refinish it this summer. Grandma’s old table will be all new & loved again. My first real desk was passed on to a very enthusiastic 5-year-old boy who refused to go to school out of pure excitement over getting his first desk. They left and came back because the boy insisted on hugging my leg. I’ll admit. It was a little weird. And tomorrow, half of my pig collection is going to some uncle that has exhausted himself trying to satiate his nephew’s desire for pig items.

It’s freeing in so many ways. What’s unbelievable is how much stuff I still have left. I’m hoping I will have a better idea of where my future residence might be when I return from SXSW. That knowledge would be helpful in determining what else I should give away/hold on to. And for obvious other reasons.

I’m typing this post in TextEdit, because the power just went out for the 5th time today. We’re having an ice storm. Yay, Indiana. *Moment to reflect on the days when I had a laptop, releasing me from the bounds of power outages* Not only has it cost me the start to two great documents, but now my fellow freecyclers are rescheduling their pick-ups.

As for me, I’m still sorting through every belonging in this apartment. Right now, I’m working on my rock/mineral collection (see other incredibly boring photo). “How do you sort a rock collection?”, you ask. Well, you don’t unless you have a permanent means of displaying it. I’m just consolidating boxes. I’m not emotionally ready to part with any portion of the collection quite yet.

I need to do laundry and pack at some point. It’s hard for me to focus on any one task amongst all this clutter, though.

If anyone’s interested, I have the start of my schedule for SXSW. There a few sessions I’m particularly excited about. I’m also *hoping* to encounter Dunstan from 1976design.com at the Flickr party.  He’s one of my nerd heroes. And obviously, I’ll be scouting out (stalking) anyone from AKQA. I’m still waiting to hear back about scheduling a time to meet up with one of them while I’m there.  Luckily, chance meetings (stalking) will keep hope on my side.

I’m totally kidding. Well, only half. :)

PS I think I found the agency that made my incredible MINI Adventure Field Kit. Butler, Shrine, Stern, & Partners. I almost applied for a job there, too. My awesome cover letter to them was one of the documents lost to the power cutting out. And now the moment is gone.