Our process for taking the leap and following our dreams took about four months.

Step 1 was to declutter, organize and purge!  It is truly a “freeing” experience to purge your possessions. We felt like all of our stuff which we accumulated over the past 26 years of marriage was bogging us down and distracting us from what really matters—just being together and exploring the world. Most of the things that we had in our house were a collection of random items given to us by family and friends years ago when we got married in 1996 or when we bought our last house 16 years ago.  We kept a few key pieces like my grandmother’s buffet and our dining room table and chairs which helped us create priceless wonderful memories with our daughters at nightly family dinners and holidays with family and friends.  Other than those few items, photo albums, memory boxes and of course thousands of photos (I am a photographer so yes—thousands!), we didn’t need to keep anything else.  What we didn’t realize we “needed” was the feeling we had giving our possessions away to friends and family and those in need. It was an indescribable feeling of gratitude we experienced as we reflected on our life in our home raising our 2 daughters and how we could share everything that we were blessed with in life with others. While both of our daughters were home for a month in June, we spent time going through boxes of memories we collected over the years with them.  We laughed until we cried and cried until we laughed –that will truly become one of my favorite memories of us in that house.  We found a local church in our town which accepts donations of clothing and household items that they give to individuals and families in need for free.  We also had the opportunity to basically furnish my nephew’s entire apartment that he was conveniently moving into at the time we were clearing out the house. We were more than happy to give him whatever he needed to get started in his new place and he was very thankful!

Another way we gave away items was by putting them at the bottom of our driveway and posting photos on a local free site on Facebook. Literally within minutes the items were gone! One of the funniest moments was when Jim cut the grass for the last time and then left the mower (while it was still hot) at the bottom of the driveway and it was gone within 10 minutes. I didn’t even get to post that one!  Honestly, we were so happy when people came and took our stuff because it meant that we did not have to move it or store it!  It was a fun game that we played guessing how long it would take before an item was claimed.