Help Me John Weisbarth!
I believe I’ve mentioned before that Pookie and I want to go tiny when we retire.
For those not in the know, John Weisbarth is the cohost of Tiny House Nation. His primary role is to help the folks featured in the episode pare down their stuff and to set design challenges for his pal Zack Giffin (Zack always beats the challenge…always). How much of this is spontaneous and how much is theater is immaterial. What’s important is that John gets the job done.
We have a lot of stuff. For instance, we have three sets of fine china, metallic rims and all (two of those sets were inherited). We have six sets of everyday china. We have seven different Christmas china patterns.
We have four saxophones, two clarinets, two electric keyboards, a trumpet, a flute, and a valve trombone (Pookie is a working musician so that’s not a serious problem).
We have five crockpots, six cast iron skillets, four Dutch ovens, more than a dozen wooden spoons, two ladles, and three mesh strainers.
We have at least a dozen Monopoly sets (most of them are travel souvenirs) and half a dozen 1200-piece puzzles.
I have a closet full of yarn. A closet. Full. That doesn’t count the chest of drawers full of yarn for “current” projects.
All that’s just for starters. We may have a problem.
What if, when we’re ready to go tiny, Chewie and Dobby aren’t prepared for us to dump—I mean, gift them with all the beautiful things we can’t take with us?
So we’ve begun paring down. I gave away my Elvis clock with the battery-operated hips. Pookie sold a saxophone. I’m trying to live with two fewer crock pots. I’ve packed away all but one set of everyday china. When Dobby moved into a house earlier this year I gave him as many kitchen gadgets as he was willing to take. When Chewie moves into an apartment in the fall I’ll do the same.
We also apply a different standard for new acquisitions. Do I really need a pretty enamel colander when I already have two perfectly good stainless steel ones? No. Do I need a salad spinner? Yes, since it will not only dry and store lettuce and leafy herbs, but it will remove excess salt from those over seasoned fries I ordered from the chicken wing place (Pookie figured that one out). Should I stroll the aisles of the local thrift store and maybe find some more gorgeous silver candlesticks for a buck apiece? Absolutely not.
I have a feeling we’ll need every minute of the next ten years because we have such a long way to go.
At least we’ve made a start.
One comment on “Help Me John Weisbarth!”
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Information
This entry was posted on June 10, 2015 by Michele in Retirement and tagged clutter, john weisbarth, minimalism, tiny house, tiny house nation, tiny living, tiny retirement, zack giffin.Shortlink
https://wp.me/p6gwPq-2oCategories
- Abuse and Recovery (7)
- Motor Sports (1)
- Parenting (2)
- Pets (1)
- Retirement (2)
- Stories (14)
- Transgender (1)
- Travel (3)
- Uncategorized (3)
Nervous Knots 
I feel like I’ve spend the first part of my life acquiring and the rest of it getting rid of all that stuff!
LikeLiked by 1 person