In a Rhythm

I can't seem to stop myself with the reflection pictures. I have to post them over here so that they won't take over Austin Daily Photo.

I seem to be in a rhythm of posting every day whether I have anything to say or not, just giving myself something to do in the morning before exercise or tennis while drinking my coffee and checking other parts of the world on the Internet.

We are in a rhythm of discarding and downsizing here, too. As soon as a load of household stuff is off to the thrift store, the dining table starts to fill again with possible candidates for discard. I continue to consolidate souvenirs and archives, reducing the amount kept and the space taken up. I save stuff for the art department at the arts magnet high school (for collage work) or put old paper stuff in sacks for recycling or save postcards for my sister and nieces. I watch the space and weight of everything being kept and being discarded, aware that I want to limit my storage outside the condo and its small storage area to a very few boxes of things.

I'm sure the careful reader remembers the lurking under the stairs entry. Well, yesterday I swept under the stairs and then filled the area with empty boxes and containers waiting to be filled with whatever moves or needs to be packed to be given away. We have gone through most of it, given a lot away and tossed a lot of stuff. FFP got rid of so much stuff in another area of the storage room that the shelves holding it got hauled away yesterday by the handyman. The garbage can (pay as you throw) is full and it's days until pickup.

We also used curbside mall yesterday, putting all our dog stuff out on the curb with a free sign. We have lots of street traffic and it was gone quickly.

We are getting more draconian (FFP's word) about the books, too. If we don't think we will want to read them soon and they are readily available in a library, we let them go. Sometimes anyway. But loads of books are still leaving. FFP gave up a ton of assassination and conspiracy and political books to a friend and the Top Drawer thrift store continues to get stuff.

We have a long way to go, for sure. But we are in a rhythm of tossing, giving away, cleaning out. We have to do some of it every day, relentlessly. We have to start attacking the issue of furnishings and art, too. Which is hard because we have people who want certain things, we are moving certain things, we are moving things to dad's house eventually, we don't know what a buyer might like to have. So there are big issues over big objects. When you get right down to it, though, these things are easier to take care of by selling or having a charity haul them off than the tedious sifting of all the old photos and souvenirs, journals and datebooks, books and magazines. At least I hope so.

Oh, yes, there is much more to do. Much, much more. But we are in a rhythm of doing it, aren't we?