I don't know if anyone cares or will even be notified that there is a new entry. After 5 1/2 years, I am ready to try to keep up the blog again. So here goes.

When the hubby told me that it was too much work to move while we were working full-time and would have to wait until retirement, I was pretty discouraged. I gave up the idea of finding a cute Craftsman Bungalow to live in for at least a decade. My downsizing project stopped just short of slamming on the brakes. Things began to accumulate again. I gave it a half-hearted try by taking a box to Goodwill once or twice a year. But furniture that had been replaced by newer, sleeker models, moved upstairs where no one but the occasional insect lived. Add to that my mother's move to a retirement community when she had to do some serious downsizing of her own (and she really wanted me to have some more family things)...gadzooks! After a couple of years, what we had upstairs were 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and a small bonus room. Although there was a futon in one of the bedrooms, there were 3 tables, 14 chairs, which included a recliner, a bookcase, 2 dressers, a file cabinet, 2 TVs, games and boxes. Man were there boxes - shoe boxes, Christmas decorated boxes, shipping boxes; some were empty, but most had either styrofoam pieces or papers I didn't know where to file (even though the 4 drawer file cabinet was almost empty).

Fast forward a few birthdays and anniversaries, we retired. Da-da-da-da (trumpet fanfare). By this time, I had lived in the nest for 32 years. The hubby went first in April of last year, then I followed in August. We joined a gym and went faithfully about 3 times a week. I built up some muscles and he maintained his. We had time for fun again - retired people stuff like playing cards and doing jigsaw puzzles in winter - woohoo. Once he had been retired for about a year, he decided it was now time to move. I was game, but was also the one who had to start the ball rolling by finding a Realtor and doing some preliminary house searching. All of a sudden, the fun went away and it was work, work, work. I wanted to start in on the blog again, but was too busy purging the second floor. In the evenings I was exhausted.

As I was busy upstairs, my guy was toiling in the basement. I have to say that I spend as little time as possible in the basement; there are 8-legged critters down there! Unfortunately, the freezer and laundry area are in the basement. It was really sad when I had knee replacement surgery last year and was not allowed to go to the basement for weeks. The hubby had to do all of the laundry (sad emoji). Anyway, he had the much more difficult job of bringing 1 heavy box after another up all those stairs. I would go through them and save one or two things from each box. We would then throw the rest of the contents of the box into the rented dumpster that had taken up residence in our driveway. I regret not taking any pictures of the process, but it was all-consuming. We found things that had been there for more than 30 years - quite embarrassing.

I'm sure that some would say I'm a hoarder, but how I differ is that I have no emotional attachment to most of the things - I want to get rid of them. I was happy to purge.

to be continued the next time I can't sleep...