Where did I leave off?

I feel as if I've been neglecting you, dear readers.  It was not intentional I assure you.  The only thing I can say is that writing to you takes a bit of mental energy, something I've been running a little low on lately.  Also, while it is decently amusing to watch someone speak incoherently after a long day, it is relatively unamusing to read the blog version of the same.  Anyway, enough about that, where did I leave off?

 It's been about three months since I flew off into the sunset to begin my little journey out west.  In that time, I've figured out the buses, the ferries, and a little bit of the BART (subway).  I've got a few regular lunch places and managed to develop a habit of frequenting the Whole Foods hot bar for dinner (cooking for one isn't very exciting or economical).   Mostly, I've been trying to find something out here that reminds me a little bit of normal life.  But then again, I'm not sure I know what exactly is a normal life and what's so great about normal anyway?  Normal is boring.  And let's face it, if you're in the market for normal, San Fran may not be the place for you.

Point in fact, there is apparently a subset of individuals in San Francisco that believe in their right to be naked in public.  (Does anyone else hear Ron White saying "Pub-Lic" right now?)  They congregate in places to see how long they can mill around naked before the police come by to break it up.  There is also apparently some kind of naked bicyclist's club, although I have no idea why you would ever want to ride a bicycle naked.  Ouch and Yuck.  Also true is the fact that a city counsel  member recently put forth a motion that all such nudists should be made to carry a square towel that they can sit on in public places for sanitary reasons.  This seems logical to me.   It also occurs to me that it's time to stock up on hand sanitizer and wet naps.  But I digress.

This blog is supposed to detail our grand adventures in California and since I last wrote we had a pretty big adventure.  We officially moved.  That is, we moved the furniture and the cats, and we all know that home is where the meowers are.  A few weeks ago a large truck pulled up to 116 Dunn and left with roughly half of what we own.  That's right, half.  Part of the point of this big move was downsizing and simplification.  Generally speaking, every place we could afford was much smaller than our current house.  Also, the movers charged more by weight, so every pound had to count.  Therefore, we set about the ugly business of purging our stuff.

Everyone reading this blog, do yourselves a favor.  Go into your closets, cupboards, and basements and take a hard look around.  Ask yourself if you even like all the stuff you've accumulated?   Because trust me, we all have way more belongings than we could ever possibly need or want.  I found myself multiple times in the course of the moving week saying out loud to no one in particular, "What the [bleep] in this [bleep] and why do I have it?"  (edited for content as this is a PG blog).  I sorted for days into piles for trash, goodwill, yard sales, and moving truck.  In the end, I determined that if it didn't affirmatively make me happy, it didn't go on the truck.  I also admitted to myself that I cannot keep everything because it once belonged to someone or because I made it or someone else did.  I also cannot keep it just because it was a gift.  If it didn't make me happy on a regular basis it had to go.

This strategy resulted in a big pile of, dare I say it, crap sitting in my dining room waiting to go somewhere else. Matt was in charge of the yard sale that followed.  If the packing showed us that we had too much, the sale proved that you never know what you have that someone else would really want and make use of.  Items that I figured would be trash (like plastic cups and travel coffee mugs) were gobbled up.  My papasan chair, which really only the cats loved, was one lady's must have purchase.  Our old and really uncomfortable mattress in the guest room went with our very lived on couches to a woman who needed to furnish a new place on a serious budget.  I also learned that Matt will sell anything that you don't tell him affirmatively not to and that isn't nailed down.  He did an awesome job and that made the last bit of clean up much easier.

The last bit of clean up felt alot more like saying goodbye than I would like to admit.  But the truth is, at some point we all have to be brave and be willing to close some chapters, even if it is for a short time.  If you can't close the door, you can't open any new ones.  And as I go through that new door, I better make it just a wee bit narrower.  I can't go through a purge of massive amounts of stuff like that again.  It's exhausting.

Before I sign off for the night, I need to thank my parents and Matt's parents for really helping us so much more than they had to.  We could not have finished or gotten to this point without your help.  Truly, I don't know how we got so lucky as to have you all in our lives.