Marking Time

It’s been 10 or 11 days since my last post in this blog… a case of bloggers block! As you know, we accepted an offer on the house on the 15th. Since then, we’ve waited for the home inspection, waited for the results of the home inspection, and are currently waiting for the “back-and-forth” negotiation process that comes out of the home inspection process to end… which it surely will by Thursday afternoon, the 10th business day after the signed offer. I’m not good at waiting. The buyers did make an issue of a section of roof shingles that are wearing more than the others, and wanted us to re-roof the place. In return, I offered a partial credit at closing — which seems commensurate with the problem, which is really a cosmetic, not a functional, issue. So we wait.
In the meantime, we continue the cathartic purging of possessions. Box after box of things that are utterly, or nearly, useless. Betamax video tapes, audio cassettes, old receipts and statements, miscellaneous hardware, nuts, bolts, wires… all of it was so important at some point in the past, but now is just more fodder for the landfill. What is this urge to accumulate?… to store as much stuff as we have room to put it? It seems innate… that we’re wired to stash stuff. We’re like squirrels that are never satisfied… always finding and hiding as many acorns as they have time to find and hide — far more than will ever be used. At least for us, shedding ourselves of this stuff is uplifting, energizing, liberating. Highly recommended!