Downsizing

As I was putting together our most-common Jason's-not-home-for-supper (chicken nuggets fried in the fondue pot for the kids & something else for me) supper, Graham somehow managed to break a Pyrex storage bowl. He must have inherited my gene for breaking indestructible cookware, because I was famous in college for shattering Correll & I shattered a big Pyrex mixing/serving bowl last week. Ah, well, one less thing to move.

I drive my childhood family a bit nuts with my tendency to walk into a room & say "Why is this here?" My parents are collectors of anything that might ever be useful to themselves or anyone they might ever meet. Both my elder sister (who claims I'm more ruthless about this, but has the MUCH TIDIER HOUSE) and I have rebelled by finding it liberating to get rid of things we don't need.

And so we come to the stage in life where I am once again moving. In the six-and-an-half years that Jason and I have been married, we have had four residences in three states. And now, about the time we hit wedding anniversary #7, we'll add another residence to that list, but this time on a different continent! So, my let's-get-rid-of-it tendencies are in overdrive. But, instead of just the typical "we aren't moving this piece of furniture/clothing item/kitchen tool/etc, I'm opening up boxes of old photos & finally putting together a family photo album. It's a really good thing. Cami came across a DIY lifestory book that had never been even touched, except for some unknown giver to write "Happy Birthday 1981" in the front cover. She's been filling it it pretty regularly for the last two weeks & yesterday she completed it. With luck, that means I won't have more of the photos that I wanted to put in the family album stolen for her "Rememory Book."

But now we come to the list of furniture and appliances that I know won't go with us: an antique baby grand piano that never got refinished (or professionally tuned, for that matter), a futon, a small end table or two, a chest of drawer/changing table, two or three bookcases, a clothes washer that's about to die & a dryer that's only a year old and three window-unit air conditioners. Some items are free, others not. Anybody want to claim anything?