July 14, 2009

Accumulating Stuff


I just came back from a lovely 2-weeks vacation to France (Lyon and the South), Croatia and Slovenia, but lost my camera there and unfortunately cannot share some pictures...

I'm glad to be back in D.C., but I now have to face impending deadlines and stresses I conveniently forgot about during my leave. One of my two roommates is getting married in September, and understandably, she will be leaving our apartment in August.

I am planning to buy a house in the next few months, and thus must:

1- Sort out my finances
2- Reapply for pre-approval
3- Find a house
4- Go through the buying process
5- Move

Oddly enough, the moving part has me the most worried. I am finding myself confronted by two opposing problems:

1-Not enough stuff
Roommate-who's-getting married is, little-by-little, moving her stuff out of our house, and into her fiancé's. And suddenly, we have no more blender. And vegetable peeler. And vanilla essence. And a small strainer.

And though I joked with her that she had more cooking utensils than Julia Child, I'm suddenly realizing that I DO need a blender, vegetable peeler, vanilla essense, and a small strainer.

2-Too much stuff
I'm trying not to put off the inevitably painful task of sorting through my closets and packing up some boxes. These are some of the items that are crowding up my closet:

-various garden tools and plant foods (I never garden)
-tons of Congolese Kuba cloths (I have no more space on my walls to hang them)
-liquors and other strong alcohols (I always end up serving wine with dinner)
-natural cleaning products (they don't work very well so I've switched to industrial-strength ones)
-waxing kits (I generally end up going to a salon to get my legs professionally done).

My room looks spotless, thanks to my huge closets. But I never open them in public, and the amount of stuff they hide will make moving monstruously difficult.

Sigh.

4 comments:

Magali said...

I'm sorry to hear about your camera :( I hope that didn't ruin the overall mood of your vacation.

I definitely know the feeling of taking kitchen appliances for granted... until their owner leaves.

Why don't you wait until you find a house before getting rid of stuff, at least for the garden tools and Kuba cloths
(which can also make great Christmas/birthday presents)?

As for the alcohol, have a housewarming party or a good-bye party for your roommate and serve it there!

Anonymous said...

Welcome back!!! Nice to see you posting again :)
-Ammo

Shannon said...

I'll help! I love helping people organize their stuff.

007 in Africa said...

Magali, yes I think it makes sense to do that. I will allow me to get a good sense of my new space, and what fits in it. The alcohol idea is definitely a good one - I'll save it for the housewarming!

Thanks Ammo!

Lol Shannon, thanks, I'll definitely be using your services when I move into a new place :)