Last Day At Work

June 30th marked my last day at the office. Very surreal feeling to walk out into a very uncertain future but super excited for what is ahead for our family. Co-workers threw a little happy hour party and we raise a few glasses. Was fun to celebrate and explain some or our details.

I have been working there for almost 16 years and I will miss the people, place, and work we do. They are truly an exceptional group and I have been very blessed to be a part of it. 

Here is a pic take a few weeks ago when the kids visited my office for the last time before we go. It was the SJ's first time there.

Purging, Giving, and Selling

A few weeks ago.... 

Anything that we are not taking on our journey (which isn't much - see previous post) must be packed and stored. One of our desires in this trip to live more simply and that means purging "stuff". It is pretty amazing how fast we can accumulate things and how quickly we lose interest in that item that we just had to have. The last few weeks we have been moving things into several different piles: stuff to give away, stuff to box now, important stuff to keep at a friends, stuff for garage sale, and stuff we still need daily. The garage sale stuff piles seems to have grown exponentially as we continually reevaluate what we want vs. need. Additionally, I think that the shear pain of boxing has limited our desire to pack it away. After packing a few boxes, it gets easier to just say, forget this, I don't need it! The two pictures below are garage sale junk from round one of the purge. Wish I had taken pictures of the piles that followed these two because they only got bigger.

Below is a pick of half of the garage sale stuff all very neatly organized by mom extraordinaire who slept very little for a few days straight. When it comes to getting tasks completed, she is a machine.

After two days of selling stuff, we are amazed to say, we made more than double high end hopes. Our plan is bless others with this money on our trip when we feel appropriate. Mostly the idea is for the kids to look for opportunities to stretch these dollars and multiply their value for God's kingdom. Will be fun to see how they are used.

Packing for a year - what's it look like?

How does one pack for a year? What to take? What not to take? This starts out as a daunting question but gets easier as you begin to work through it and has an oddly freeing feeling as you actually consider the consequences of your choices. What could you live without for a year? What must you have? Could you leave your favorite jeans behind? The thought of waking and only having one clean t-shirt certainly makes for easy wardrobe choices.

We have been lovingly mocked by a few friends over the notion that we are only taking one backpack per person. While this might sound absurd, taking more than that just adds additional headaches and also defeats one of our goals for this adventure-living with less stuff. Additionally, those who have walked this path before us unanimously say to pack very light, stressing the very. One fellow traveler quipped, "if you think you might need it, put it back".

Here is roughly what our year of possessions looks like. Each of us will have the following:

• Backpack
• Rain gear
• Swim trunks
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 6 pairs of underwear
• 2 running shorts
• 5 t-shirts (one cotton, 1 collar, 3 fast drying)
• 2 pairs of pants - fast drying, travel type
• 2 long sleeves - one thin and one warmer
• 1 fleece
• 6 pairs of socks

Most of the clothes have little cotton, are fast drying and darker colors to avoid dirt.  I'm certain we will miss cotton.

Electronics - this gets tricky and we are each taking a few different devices. Between our family we will have an assortment of tablets, laptops and phones but also the following: 

• Headlamp
• External hard drive
• External battery charger 
• Electric converters
• Headphones

This is how Dad's stuff looks - only thing missing is bathroom and medical kit. Seem like to too much? Too little?