Monday, June 14

Today I am grateful for:

Dandy seems to be doing okay. I keep checking on him anyways.

I sold two things today! These are things that were more or less just junk to us because we had NO use for them, but I knew had value because they could be used by someone else. They were only listed for one day!

We ended up chatting with both groups of people who came to pick up, and they're people like us; acreage/farm people with animals who like to do building and repair work for themselves as much as possible. I guess they're the same people who see the potential in the things that we saw potential in as well.

We showed the one guy a few other things we are planning to sell soon, and he expressed an interest, so if he gets back to us in the next few days, he might be buying these things.

What's nice, is now my sweetie is thinking of all the things he's been hanging on to because it isn't really garbage but he has no real plan for using it. It's all kinds of "useful" things like salvaged lumber, old steel cable, a fan from a furnace that someone could use for something else.

This is the kind of things that farm people/"handy" people hang on to forever, even though they aren't likely to use it anymore.

My husband and I try to keep on top of our stuff because we are quite aware that hoarding is a big problem for rural fix it folk.

Lately he's been helping our friends de-hoard their Mom's "extra" house, and he's been there three days now, hauling away trailer after trailer of junk. Something like five old boats with trailers in the back yard that might be garbage except for the trailer frame.

Ironically, these friends of ours are kind of hoarders too. They're on an acreage and have an enormous mechanic type shop full of vehicles and tools, their new garage, their old garage, and at least five sheds full of stuff, and a very full house. They're even still building another shed as we speak. From what my husband says, clearing out their (his) parent's crap is making them seriously think about their own habits. They're approaching an age where they might need to move to a smaller place in the next ten years.

I called one of my sisters to chat, and ended up talking to her husband for quite a while anyhow. It's interesting, in the last couple of years I've talked to him a lot. Usually when I call to talk to my sister I'll talk to him for a while if he picks up. I've been making a point of calling this sister regularly because she's one of the ones that's doing well, we have horses in common, and we usually have decent conversations. I know that I'm trying harder to build some kind of connection with my family, because typically I used to just call my Mom and get the news about everyone else from her. We all did this. My Mom won't be around much longer and I want to make sure that I have at least some people in my family that I have a current relationship with.

My husband came home from de-hoarding, and we went in for groceries. What was nice, is that I wasn't dog-tired from doing it. Lately it seems like going for the big shopping trips was really dragging me down. Mainly because my sweetie's strange desire to eat giant amounts of fresh veggies for his work lunch meant massive trips more often. Now that he's off work he's eating a variety of food again.