| Anne-Marie and I had a mail order bookstore operating from our home and we ran it for 12 years, until March of last 2008. During these years we had all of the walls of the house covered with bookshelves, and a storage unit full of warehoused books. I would buy large lots of books and bring pickup loads of boxes of books home to be sorted in the front room, and all of the mess that comes with it.
One of my sources for books was estate sales, and I eventually partnered with a couple that did estate sales professionally. My position in this arrangement was only clean up at the end of the sale, and not any purchasing favors before or during the sale. So many estates were in order and without unnecessary possessions, but the highlights were the ones that seemed to be the same pile different house, time after time after time.
This exposure to what is left over for the families to deal with is driving us to down size our possessions now, as we are trying to put our life in order, while preparing to full time travel for a few years.
The books are sold and gone except for a box of favorite cookbooks, over 12000, the bookshelves are sold and gone, 33 of them, and we have been trying to clean out the house room by room corner by corner. My advantage is that I have dealt with most items over the years as merchandise and not with emotional attachments. When we are done, we hope to move our personal stuff into a small storage unit in the shop.
Our original launch date for full timing was March 2009, but projects seem to take about three times longer, now that I am retired. The new launch date is September 2009, and I think that this one will hold because #1 Son and his wife are moving into the house.
As each room or corner becomes vacant I feel a bit of relief as it brings us one step closer to being on the road full time.
Five months to launch.
Steve |