Hi Gen*HER! It’s been ages, did anyone miss me? I apologize for being gone so long – I’ve been swamped with projects and travel and … because apparently things happen in threes around here … along with Jessie and Heather, I TOO bought a house! LOL. I decided to look at all the meticulous planning the two of them were doing, skip all that, and just buy the first house I saw.

Maybe it took a little more thought than that. I actually saw several houses (eight in total), but my boyfriend and I still ended up with the first one we stumbled in on. I knew from the moment we’d walked into that Open House and encountered other people already in there, looking around, who rudely greeted us with “Welcome to my new home!” that it would be ours. Oh yes, it would be ours.

Now, in the week leading up to our big move-in, we’ve spent hours packing and shuttling over all our ridiculous piles of belongings piece by piece. And despite the mounds of recycling, trash, and donation bags, I’ve come to the realization that we just have SO. MUCH. STUFF. This is not a new concept for me to grasp, but seeing as how I haven’t moved in eight years, I’ve forgotten how good I am at collecting and never, ever letting memories go.

That’s right, I have bags of notes from my friends in high school. BAGS.

This was just the start of what has become an entire room full of books.

So in the midst of all my junk transporting, I’ve come to the other realization that, as stressful and obnoxious packing up all my junk is, there is going to come a time when I’m going to have to UNPACK it all too. And one of the many many reasons why I love my new house is because it’s a fresh start. Clean, modern, and most importantly, empty. Now that it’s slowly filling up with stuff, it’s time for me to face the music. No longer can I transport my junk from one place to the next. Sure, I may have moved it, but now comes the hardest part of all. Organizing it. Finding a place for it. Finding a justification for it in my next environment. I thought that if stuff survived the filtering process before the move, then I was meant to keep it, but oh no.

It’s time to get serious!

(Any/all organizing suggestions welcome)