Simplifying...

We sold 2 trundle beds, dressers, etc.

Part of our strategy for starting our "fulltime" adventure (now just 16 months away) is to divest ourselves of "stuff". A few weeks ago we spent parts of two days removing stored "stuff" from the attic over our 3 car garage. That exercise was in preparation for a garage sale. Garage sales are really cool.......people pay us for the priviledge of hauling away our "stuff". What a great concept!! The City of Ontario requires that you obtain a "garage sale" permit. You are only allowed to hold two of these per year. Failure to obtain the permit is punishable with a $30 fine. We chose the "two consecutive weekend" option. Over the 2 consecutive Saturdays (April 24th and May 1st) we sold a lot of "stuff" we hadn't used in years, and received around $700 from eager buyers.

Our fair city also provides a free pickup of "LARGE" items once per year, so the couple of remaining large items (old entertainment center, 4 poster bed) will be picked up in the next few days. Our garage attic is now emtpy, and we now have the use of our 3 car garage again for garaging cars! What a novel concept.....haha!!

The pieces are slowly falling into place. Our next big task will be getting rid of stuff inside the house as we get closer to our "exit" date. No doubt some of the "stuff" will end up in storage. In the mean time we will be doing a lot of long weekends, and maybe one long trip this year. It really depends on Elaine's schedule. We have two "flying trips" planned over the next 30 days. Elaine is flying up to Oregon next week for a getaway with girl friends from her company, and I am flying to Spokane to visit my sister and her family for a few days. Next month we will fly down to Austin, TX for our niece's graduation and to visit with the Texas contingent of our extended family. Additionally, we wil get out in the Newell over Memorial Day weekend, and the July 4th weekend visiting local county parks (Rancho Jurupa and Yucaipa Regional Park respectively).

Thanks for following along!!!