Suzy and I have been packing out the house getting it ready to show. Last night it went on the market and within hours we’d had the first reports back. The first couple were curious; they went upstairs and then left. Wow.

We weren’t there for the second viewing, but the report back was if there was new carpet in the house it would have sold right then. Since we replace our carpets every 5 years or so, we figure that meant they really weren’t interested.

We are downsizing. And in a big way. Every cabinet in the house represents hours of work dividing the books, games, clothing into trash, Goodwill donation, or move stacks. We bought 45 boxes and rented a shed to move items to. We know that you almost have make the house look not lived in to sell it. And we are almost through the first 45 boxes.

One of the tricks we use to determine whether we save an item or not, is this acid test, “Have we touched the item in the 11 years we’ve lived here. It’s amazing how many things we have that we have never used.

Then I had a reseller come in and purchase over 20 musical instruments, some that I was saving for grandchildren and others, like the English Horn, that we rarely used. Gone is the contrabass and contra alto clarinets. Gone is the Jazzophone, plateau-keyed clarinet, and silver throated clarinet.

The worst thing to pack out is my filing system. One file drawer can take hours. In two weeks we have thrown away 6 huge trash/recycle containers of stuff. I wish I had kept up with this all along rather than trying to do it in one month.