Gypsy Life - Follow Up

As a follow up to my last post, Beth asked an interesting question of me. She asks "I'm curious: Do you have minimal possessions, or are you a packrat?" This is a very good question and I shall do my best to answer it.

Well first off as a whole my family when moving had a lot of crap. Really you never really know how much junk you have until you move. We seemed to accumulate more junk when we lived in a house as opposed to an apartment. I'd say I'm kind of a packrat. I mean really I don't keep a lot of stuff. I have lots of things but they are small and minimal and don't take much room and are light weight.

I (my family included) used to keep everything I owned in clear Rubbermaid containers and only took out what was needed then put it back. It helped in the yearly packing process, and took less time than finding boxes and filling them with my junk.

But as anywhere you live you accumulate a lot of stuff, and you never really know how much till you move. Seemed like everytime I moved I'd have a new Rubbermaid box that came along with me.

A few moves back I stopped to see what on earth I had that I had to take with me. Going through these boxes I realized I had a lot of junk. Old magazines, empty boxed inside of empty boxes. Receipts for things I threw away, tons of loose pennies, (which I rolled and cashed in). Lots of electronic wires, and computer stuff, things I didn't need anymore. I spent a whole weekend going through it all and throwing away useless trash.

Now it's not to say that I'm a packrat that keeps everything. Just things that remind me of the past, little trinkets from here and there that brings back memories. All of them carefully stored away nice and neat to go through at a later time and reminisce. But too I also have the boxes of hastily thrown crap from sudden out of the blue, (in other words "pack your stuff now we've got to go") kind of moves.

Having somewhat settled down my stuff is really no longer in boxes. I've just about everything out and in it's place. However recently a few months ago I did notice that I was becoming cluttered with junk again. So I made a special trip to The Container Store. (Don't know if you have those in GA, Beth, but you probably do, I think their nationwide, I think). Anyways it's a organizers Mecca or boxes, bags, organizers, anything imaginable to store stuff in.

I went in was taken back by all the stuff and bought things to store my loose items at home. I bought the same Rubbermaid boxes, for clothes and misc items. Nice cool manly boxes to store some colognes, and other products. A nice storage unit for my cabinetless bathroom. And some more misc, stuff to put my junk in. All in all a good hall. So I organized all my junk and put it away. I have nice neat resting places for my records, tapes and CD's, DVD's etc.

All my packratish gypsy stuff I've collected over the years, which really isn't much but still. I don't know why I have a box of receipts of stuff I don't even own anymore, I really need to throw that one away.

Where was I???...oh yes. Anyways I'm a semi-clean packrat. My junk is neat and organized and I did keep only the basics from things from the past. But that's me. After organizing my stuff I felt funny. Not that it was all put away nice and neat and could easily be moved in an instant if necessary. No it wasn't the feeling of moving now that I boxed all my stuff, that got to me. I think it was the feeling that I spent about $150 on empty boxes and storage at this store. What was I thinking!!?? I could've spent less than half that at Wal-Mart. So lesson learned? Yes, next time I'm gonna be a more economical packrat.

Well hope that answers your question. Oh and from one more answer to a question a friend asked me. No I don't speak gibberish like Brad Pitt in Snatch. Well, at least my folks can understand me, anyways from my own brand of gibberish. I have been told I have an odd accent despite the fact I'm from Texas, and it isn't a Texas Southern accent. I dunno how'd you'd describe it. English/Spanish/French/Latin kinda thing going on is the best I could say. Do I speak all three, "Oui". But that's another story.