Winter 2011 Week 3

I feel a countdown coming on! Oh my!

I have 60 days until the end of term, March 18th.

My that doesn't seem like a lot! Just two months.

My To-Do List:

• Build my corset
• Write the history paper for the corset
• Write the process paper for the corset
• Build a power point for the corset
• All due in roughly 42 days
• Gather props for Liaisons
• Due February 19th
• Memorize Songs and Monologues for Gawain
• Due January 20th
• To be performed February 7th
• Write 12 play papers 
• Due March 18th
• Finish the CS class
• Finish the math class
• Finish the properties morgues
• Due March 18th

Oh goodness! So much to do!

Getting Ready to Move Part 1

Rick and I are moving to Wyoming in June.

Boy. Just saying that makes me nervous!

The Long-Run Plan:

• Rick is going to be staying permanently in Wyoming while I will come back next fall to finish out school, then I will stay in Wyoming with him starting March 2011. We are hoping to stay there for 2-4 years in order to save up for a sailboat, either a Seawolf or a Bavaria and to pay off my student loans. 

• Hopefully we can afford to renovate my mom's trailer, which she, her husband and my 3 siblings all lived in for 5 months when they first moved out to Wyoming. (She runs the blog over at Real Food for Less Money, so check her out!) We don't mind living in a small space, obviously as we plan to live in a sailboat.

What Needs to Be Done:

• Rick's '66 Mustang needs to be painted inside and out, and have everything replaced that has been torn out (seats, dash, steering wheel, quarter panels).
• At the moment it looks something like this, though it's just a pic I found on the internet.

• What we want it to look like

• Get rid of all we can via garage sale. We already had one two weekends ago and made about $200. However, we still have about 5 tables worth of stuff to chuck.
• Decide what large items need to go to Wyoming and how to fit all of that stuff in just the Mustang to get over to Wyoming.
• Small fridge
• TV
• Printer
• Bike
• Get rid of what we don't need, donate and give what we can to people we know.
• I remarked to my roommate last night that I'm surprised at how much stuff I have to get rid of! I've been slowly donating things since I moved over to Monmouth.
• I have a lot of art supplies that I would just love to give to my sister Lulu as soon as possible, because she loves art, but I have another art class I have to take next year so I have to hang on to it still. :(
• At the beginning of the year I probably had about 8 purses, 5 pairs of high heels and around 100 items of hanging clothing like shirts, skirts and sweaters. I am now down to 2 purses, 1 for regular use and one for fancy use, and one pair of heels, which will be retired soon because they don't show wear very well, and probably about 50 items of clothing including folded stuff.  
• I've done pretty well at getting rid of stuff! I still need to work on my stationery supply and my nail polishes.
• Almost all of my books are gone. I now have a tiny library of 22 digital books stocked securely on the internet.
• Figure out how to get the cats over there too...
• Sell my car, a 2002 Kia Rio. 

Of course, I also have school commitments that I have to finish before I can really focus on moving over there. 

Luckily Rick has been really on top of the moving situation and is especially talented at lighting a fire under my bum and getting me motivated too.

The Best of Both Worlds: lots of books, minimilist style

As I was saying in my Stuff is Evil post, meet THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS:

              One of the ways that I am minimizing that I am really looking forward to is:

An Amazon Kindle! OR A Nook!

I know, it may not make complete sense. I mean, $259 for a book reading device?

Here's how I justify it though.

• Rick and I are planning on living on a boat, instead of owning a house. 
• Not much room on a boat.
• I like to collect the books that are my favorites so I can pick it up and read it whenever it catches my fancy.
• The kindle 2 stores up to 1500 books,  and so can the Nook, but the Nook is also capable of expanding the memory to as much as a minisd memory card disk will allow--up to 16gb. The Nook itself has 2 gb so that makes it 18gb of storage space. If I did the math right, then I could hold up to 13,500 books in one Nook! That sounds about perfect for my book collecting hobby...
• The Kindle 2 also has international wireless, so I can get a new book anytime I want. The Nook requires an internet hookup outside of the US, I believe.
• (The downside of that is I can get a book anytime I want and I am a bit of an impulse buyer.)
• The device is 1/3 of an inch, about the thickness of a pencil. 
• The downside there is that Rick thinks I will break it.
• The Nook is a little thicker than the Kindle, so that might be better. :)
• I might.
• I currently have over 30lbs of books sitting on my bookshelf.
• Seriously though! A device that stores 1500+ books that is the thickness of a magazine! That is amazing and totally worth $259!
• Another downside, I have to wait until I save up the money to get it because I can't afford it yet. I am so excited!

I am really leaning toward the Nook because that expandable memory is just so enticing! 

I recently spoke with a Barnes and Noble representative who told me that they are expanding their selection of ebook textbooks so they can be purchased for the Nook! How amazing! Instead of lagging around ten pounds of books, you get to carry around an 11 oz device, provided they have the eformat of your book available! 

That information sort of makes me sad that I will be graduating in four terms!

STUFF! Minimize and stop it from taking over your life!

WHAT STUFF IS: Stuff is what consumerism is all about! Go buy this! Get out and grab this! It may be convenient, it may be pretty, it might even make your life more enjoyable or easier to live. However! Stuff eventually becomes garbage. Items are replaced by other items that you don't really need and that eventually fills up our landfills and depletes the value of the planet.

WHAT STUFF CAN DO: Stuff can completely take over your life. I have so much stuff that I routinely give bags (about 2-5) to goodwill once a month and I still have more to donate the following month! I am almost 21! Imagine if I let my stuff go unchecked until I was 40. What would my life come to?

ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS I GET STUFF: One of the big pet peeves I have developed is trinkets as gifts. When Christmas or a birthday rolls around, if I get a gift that I know I will not use or that does not have a useful purpose in my life, like a snow globe or a shelf ornament, I will just give it to someone else. Cruel? Perhaps. However, don't you think that its more beneficial to admit to yourself that something is hindering your life more than helping it? I seriously get stressed and overwhelmed if there is too much STUFF lying around.

AN EXAMPLE OF STUFF TAKING OVER A HOME: Rick came and stayed with me at my grandparent's house this weekend. It was engulfing. There was so much everywhere.  My grandma has stuff in the garage I bet she hasn't seen in years. This isn't her garage, but its akin to it:

HOW HER STUFF AFFECTS ME AND HOW I AM HELPING: I am in the process of moving things over to my apartment in Monmouth. Of course, this meant another trip to goodwill. One of the tricks is to get brutal. There was a box in the attic that I put up there a couple of years ago. Rick asked if I wanted to go through it because there might be something important in there. What could be important in that box if I haven't missed it in two years? Nothing. Bye bye! This helps my gram because she has less stuff in her garage to contend with. Honestly, a lot of it isn't even hers. Some of our relatives likes to pretend her garage is a storage unit. We have a sled that's been down there for about four years now. Honestly. *shakes head in disbelief* We should really start charging!

HOW GETTING RID OF IT CAN MAKE YOU FEEL: Oh! There is nothing so freeing as watching possessions that are weighing you down go through those double doors so you will never see them again! It  is like a gigantic weight lifted off your shoulders!

WHY I AM GETTING RID OF STUFF: So, in essence, I am really trying to minimize the things that I am keeping so that my life will be streamlined and free from clutter. And the best part? The less stuff you have, the less mess you have to keep clean!

THE WRAP UP:

So, stuff can be very harmful to your life. What you might have bought thinking that it would help your life become easier actually can clutter your life and make you more stressed. However, I do condone things that are both useful and easier on your living arrangements as long as you can justify keeping it around.

Also see The Best of Both Worlds: lots of books, minimilist style