Stuff

I have never before been so aware of all of my possessions. Thinking about how little we'll be able to bring makes me reconsider every object in my life. Even though the move is a year away my day is filled with deliberations. I don't know if we'll be able to afford to ship belongings there. I don't know if we even want to. We're looking at this move to shake up our lives, as a restart. So it doesn't make sense to drag along a bunch of furniture and toys. So that's an easy decision there. No furniture, few toys nothing big. Clothes will be pretty easy, this will be a good reason to give away all my accumulated crap that doesn't fit anymore. Shoes will be problematic though. I love shoes. Not all crazy like some people. I don't have hundreds of pairs but I like to have options. You don't always want to wear the same shoes, or even the same 5 pairs of shoes. But that will probably be my limit. Five pairs of shoes. I don't think there will be a call for flip flops but maybe a pair to wear around the flat. Definitely a pair of boots, a pair of running shoes, a pair of dressy heels, a pair of casual heels and a pair of flats. That's pretty boring maybe I can make room for more? I think my biggest problem will be my books. I have a lot of books. I love to read, more than that I love to read real books. And I have probably four or five series that I'll reread every other year. Then there are all the kids books we have. I have books from when I was a kid, ones I've bought for my kids, books in French, ones that I don't want to lose. I think I'll get a Kindle for my books. That frees up some space for extra kids books. Next genre to tackle would be movies and music. In preparation for the move to Europe in 2005 we got rid of all of our CD and DVD cases and put them all in binders. Since then we've continued this practice which really helps w/storage space. The music is technically electronically stored on our computer but a back up is always good. Maybe a back up hard drive? It seems silly to cart all those CDs halfway around the world when we won't use them. The only time I listen to an actual CD now is when I'm in my car. We won't have a car in Prague, ergo we don't need CDs. DVDs are a different story. Yes there are some that we could leave behind, but that will be the main source of English language entertainment so I don't want to limit myself to only bringing a few things. We're spoiled here by cable TV and free streaming on Netflix anytime we want. But on the other hand, we'll be in Europe with history and culture right outside the window. Will we need to be couch potatoes? Will we have a couch? These are the things I think about as I go through my day. Will I need this in Europe? Can I bring it? How will this work?