The Ramblings Of Jenn Shuey

I just got some awesome news.  I have this online friend, Craig.  We met back in the days of spending hours in a private electronic music chat community, about 6 years ago.  He eventually bought himself a bike, and we became bike chat buddies as well.  He’s one of the best friends I have online, but we’ve never met because he lives in Seattle.

These days we hardly get to speak anymore because of fast paced lives and different schedules.  In fact the last time I talked to him was a few months ago when a truck hit him on his bike, and I took the time to help him find a Seattle injury lawyer. He was pretty banged up for awhile with some broken bones, and aside from a few texts here and there we didn’t get to speak.

This morning he left me a message though telling me he’s coming to NC for 50 days for his wilderness first responder/leader training, so we’re finally going to get to meet in person! Yay! He’ll be here in March, and he’ll be staying about 2 hours away in NC, so I smell a road trip!

As I’ve been going through more of the junk we’re getting rid of I’ve realized how much room I finally have in my closets.  I finally have the room I need to store things properly instead of having everything sitting around in boxes.

I’ve also realized how much of this stuff we never use, how many times we’ve bought multiples of items because we couldn’t find what we needed.  For example, during this declutter I’ve found 13 duffel bags yet every time we’ve gone away for the weekend or on vacation in the last couple of years I’ve had to borrow suitcases from my mother-in-law because we couldn’t find our duffel bags.

They were all stuffed in various boxes in the closet, under the bed, all over the place, and I know for a fact I bought 2 of them this past year when we went to the beach just to have the extra space to pack things.  Without all this other junk I would have been able to find the original ones no problem.

Better yet, I want to get rid of all the crappy duffle bags, and finally invest in one good set of luggage we can use for everything.  I especially like the Swiss Army luggage. My best friend has a Swiss Army boarding tote that I absolutely love, so I’d love to invest in a full set of luggage for us.  Besides, we’re 27 years old now.  I think it’s time to grow up a little and “move up” to actual luggage instead of old ratty gym bags!

Decluttering our home has made me realize that we don’t have to keep buying multiples of crappy quality items just because we can’t find something.  Now we can invest the money in a good quality item that we can use over and over because we can actually find it without tearing the house apart looking for it.