SELL, TRASH, GIVE AWAY!? YES.

Ray and I are going to be busy and/or away for the next several weekends.  And the away part doesn't include trips to the lake house necessarily.  This is why yesterday was a good day and opportunity to take a road trip to visit our daughter in Williamsburg, VA.  It is about a two hour drive to her apartment which is manageable for the four hours or so of a visit from us that she can spare.  It was a bleak, rainy, gray and cold day.  While she was busy with Campus Golf (one of William and Mary's annual competitions that combines a little bit of crazy golf with a philanthropic purpose as well) in the morning, we were busy getting a car serviced and running a few errands.  Upon arrival to her apartment, we quickly said hi to friends and roommates that were studying for midterms (or taking a break from Campus golf and playing Wii).  We left them to shop at the outlets (Ray needed a shirt for an upcoming wedding we are attending in Key West, and one of the reasons we are gone a weekend), pick up a few things for her at Target, eat Mexican food for dinner and drink coffee while sharing peanut butter pie at a small coffee shop in Colonial Williamsburg town and chat a little more back at her apartment.

Sharing pie and drinking coffee at Aromas.

I hate goodbyes.  Since the next time we  see her will be when she has a job fair to attend in our area in three weeks, this was a good weekend to check in on her.  And the Friday night that she does come home, we will only see her for just a few hours before flying out to Panama the next day.  Leading me to this blog and this post...because we were away for most of the day yesterday, we decided not to stay at the lake house.  We drove straight home instead, passing Lake Anna and the lake house, so that today we could.......clean.

We didn't talk about cleaning the house or our Sunday plans on the drive home from Williamsburg last night.  We didn't talk about anything really.  I broke out my ear buds an hour into the drive, because I only want to listen to country music or Satellite radio for so long.  Then I need my kind of music (current Top 40 or alternative).  We are both perfectly happy with this set up.  We had already talked about Panama earlier in the day and yesterday and pretty much all the days prior.  We took a break.  And listened to our music.  This morning, I jumped out of bed and decided to strip the bed (I didn't really jump.  It was more like "It's Sunday already?"), wash the sheets and and everything else.  Ray vacuumed, I dusted and we did the floors.  The house got cleaned up a bit.  What's the problem then?  The problem here is that when cleaning, all the little stuff is noted.  What am I going to do with this when I move?  Who will want that?  How will I pack up what I do want to take with me?  And then I see all the stuff I "inherited" when my mom passed away two years ago.  Things my dad bought overseas.  Or are they?  Or when they were decorating their new house in the seventies, did they just purchase these things from  stores like Bombay Palace, Hong Kong or Pier One.  My parents liked Asian knick knacks.  Not me.  I googled an old typewriter.  If I can sell it--$50.  Kaching.  I googled one of the knick knacks I was given by a great friend of my dad's.  Hae Song was his name, and he loved to eat kimchi (outside though!) with my dad.  A miniature gold crown inside a paperweight--a replica of a crown from some big wig king (in Asia somewhere) that was worn in 5-6 AD apparently.  $10, kaching.  A samovar (Russian teapot).  No clue.  Again, if it were to sell, $300?  $500?  $2000?  Yeah right!  I may need to get an appraiser or do one of those estate sales of my meager possessions that I think are super valuable!  I know by posting the pictures below, they will be a big hit and sell fast!  I think the dust has gotten to my head here.  My give away pile is getting bigger, and the sell pile is getting the "yeah, this will never sell" look.

This is the samovar.  I have an additional small teapot on the very top  instead of a lid.

Alas, the 5th-6th century Asian Kumkwan Chong  gold crown, and paperweight.

Then my thoughts drift to the upstairs rooms.  My nightstand drawer with an old camera in it and my daughter's first pacifier and hospital bracelet (those are keepers!), the trunk against a bedroom wall with my medical records from my pediatrician, some cards and books, and I don't know what else in it (I went to the pediatrician a lot due to my hearing loss apparently).  Ray starts purging his nightstand drawer (awards/pins received from his service at Giant Food, Bible (wouldn't dare toss that) and more stuff.  Next we move onto emptying the desk in the office. Ray starts cleaning the office itself.  And I shred pay stubs from my teaching job from twelve years ago (I made $23/hr in 1999 teaching and lo and behold was given a raise the very next year to $24/hr--raises are unheard of nowadays!), medical EOB's that were screwed up from 2010, bank statements, and I no longer even use those banks and the next thing I know I am googling this, shredding that, and thinking "this is why I shouldn't stay at home".   I don't want to have to make these decisions.

 This is why it will be good to be gone for a few weekends and back at the lake house when it gets sunny and warm again--if that ever happens.  If I ignore it, it will go away.  HA!  Truthfully, it did feel good to purge. Ray said it was good to stay home and get it done. It felt great when I completed scanning all of those pictures and making sense of my photo albums now turned into photo boxes.  And there are decisions to be made, and we will make them.  That is our character.  Make decisions, purge, clean, get it done and move onto the next task at hand. I have already put  a note out to an old neighbor/realtor in regards to a recommended realtor in the area (since she moved too far away to take care of me).  Do I sell things when I can?  Things my daughter and family doesn't want?  Do I stage my house?  Do I hold onto the things so it looks better to the buyer?  Do I care that much?  I know I won't make a killing off the house.  I just want it to sell in a decent amount of time.  Of course I care.  If I didn't, I wouldn't be walking around the house looking at this and smiling at that, remembering where it all came from and figuring out a way to find a new place for it when I retire to Panama.

I doubt anyone will know where this is...our first weekend in March will be to spend time with friends near the Piankatank River.

Next stop will be Key West!

And finally, back to Panama!