Reversing the Flow of Packages

While I have received a number of packages from Amazon and other retailers (i.e. Allen Edmonds) lately, I have also been sending a lot of packages out as well. In fact, I have been sending out more packages and items overall than I have been receiving. In addition to the returns process (which has been pretty good despite what some have said about Amazon customer service) because of clothes being absurdly smaller than that which is stated on the tag and overall descriptions not quite matching up with what I received, I have also been collecting the unused items, unwatched DVDs, and unplayed video games from around the house and selling them to Amazon for credit.

At this point I think we have gotten rid of about five or six moving boxes worth of stuff that, in the future, I won’t have to haul from place to place, store here or there, and open and close trying to find that one misplaced item. Putting in the time and selling these items now is saving us a lot of time in the future and putting a little bit of credit in our account as well. Of course, that credit did lead to some of the aforementioned returns so really it is just a vicious cycle. But at least shipping is free across the board.

That credit has also served to help us get a head start on buying some of the Hanukkah gifts for our son. Nothing big but some toys that we have been eyeing since we either saw them in a store or at someone else’s home. However, while we have gotten a bit of a jumpstart on our holiday buying (definitely not the first time we have been in this situation) it has also introduced another issue. Remember that vicious cycle I mentioned earlier. Well, we may have gotten rid of a lot of stuff but we also have a lot of stuff coming in which is currently stacked in a few boxes along the back wall of my office.

It is actually a pretty eclectic pile as there are toys, home upgrades, gifts for family members, shoes, and a completely overhauled wardrobe. And those are just the things that I can remember or see when I glance over. Thankfully, the pile is a bit deceiving as the packaging takes up a bulk of the space, the clothes are replacing ones that I have already donated, and the gifts will be handed out in about a month so it really isn’t that bad and we are still saving space. Of course, I don’t expect this to last and I am sure I will find myself writing about this again like I am doing now and I have done in the past. But, until then, we will certainly enjoy a little extra space.

The Gifts Keep Coming

It felt like this for a while. 

During the course of the year we have received countless gifts from friends, family, and coworkers for our son. Having now lived through this, I can say that this is the time in life when you see the greatest amount of generosity. The first couple of months of the year saw the greatest deluge of packages and envelopes, but there is still a light trickle of gifts even as we head into the fall. It is pretty amazing the amount of items we have received over the months and we continue to be thankful for each and every item that we receive (even the ones that we return or exchange).

Admittedly, it can be a little daunting at times with the amount of stuff that has accumulated in our house but, in the end, it is all stuff that we have had to purchase anyway. It is interesting to think about the number of things and boxes that we originally moved into the apartment four years ago, the increased amount of stuff that we moved from the apartment to our current house, and the volume that will have to be packed and moved to our next home. And I am sure that the accumulation won’t stop there either.

I wish that I was as thoughtful as many of the people that we have in our life. Time and again, I have been presented with the same or similar opportunities and for one reason or another (usually finances or forgetfulness) too long a time passes and the opportunity is gone. I certainly have to get better at this as it is also a time to pay it forward and show the same generosity that has been shown to us. Hopefully there are many more opportunities coming up.

Sometimes I forget about just how great many of the people in our life are and this experience has been a clear reminder of quality of people that we have in our life. And don’t get me wrong, it is not about the numbers. Some of the greatest (and many time most useful) items have been the small thoughtful things that served us well during this learning process. Sometimes it wasn’t even a gift. There have been many times when the help or a willing ear have meant a great deal when we needed them. The gifts have only proven even more how much others car about us and our son. That is what it is all about and that is what we try to convey to our son each and every day.

Frequent Errands

One thing that has definitely increased both since we found out about our son’s arrival and since his birth is the number of errands that we have to run. This is pretty much on a daily basis as there is always one thing or another that we have to pick up, drop off, exchange, or just get more information as well as a plethora of appointments. And it really doesn’t matter how well prepared you think you are, there is always that one essential item that is missing from your stockpile of baby stuff.

I do my best to take care of most of these things, so long as they can wait until the end of the work day when I am on my way home, but, for the most part, my wife is the one that has to run back and forth trying to get everything done during the day. This would be hectic enough if it was just her but adding the preparation and logistics needed to get the baby ready and out the door adds to both the length of the commitment and the energy it takes to get some of these seemingly simple things done. I don’t know where she finds the energy but, somehow, she is managing to get all of the constant errands done.

All of these small time and energy consuming trips during the day are something that we tried to prepare for but, in the end, we weren’t expecting. While no one thing in particular is consuming the hours in our days, all of these small trips have added up. Some days more than others and overall having a huge impact on our schedules. Hopefully things will calm down a bit in the coming months but we are definitely not holding our breaths for that.

This is why I have been trying to stick to a more consistent schedule at work. In the past, my departure from the office has been fairly open ended. There were some nights when I would get back home well past eight and sometimes long after 10. Now I am doing my best to get home by 7 while trying to walk through the door around 6:30. This allows me to both get some of those other things done but also allows me to spend more time with our son while giving my wife a much needed break at the end of her day.

It is not a perfect system by any means but it is working fairly well thus far. It may be time to take a day off here and there to better prepare above and beyond our anticipated needs. Until then we will have to keep trying to become more and more efficient with these small trips.

A Good Place To Sleep

When we first moved into our last place we didn’t have much to fill the space and it took some time before we were able to make the small apartment comfortable. Over time we accumulated a fair amount of stuff and by the time we finally got out of that building we were able to fill much of our current house. In fact, it was nice spreading things out across multiple rooms.

Since we first hauled everything through the door it has, once again been a slow accumulation of stuff. The vast majority of these new items were not optional as we had a long list of things that our son was going to need both when he arrived and soon after. It is safe to say that this has filled the rest of the rooms and overall space that we gained when we moved here.

However, of all the things that we have accumulated lately (more about that in a separate post) there are a couple of items that are particularly meaningful to us. As has been evident in many of the posts on this blog (another one is on the way), family is very important to me and my wife. This is why we were excited when my mom thoroughly cleaned the family bassinet so that we could use it in our home (it has been around many cats over the years). My grandparents bought the bassinet 75 years ago and it has been passed around the family ever since providing a bed to countless relatives.

It wasn’t until after our son arrived that we were given something from my wife’s side of the family with the same kind of history behind it. My wife’s cousin approached us and said that she had something very special for our son. As it turns out my wife’s great grandmother had knitted a blanket over 40 years ago for her cousin but, for one reason or another, it was never used. It was put away in a closet for over four decades before they decided to give it to our son.

The two are now together… two families now one. We don’t hold on to many items that carry so much history but it is nice to have just a few that we can use and, more importantly, that our son can use. Now, every day, our son takes his naps surrounded by both sides of his family and over 100 years of combined history.

Oh, The Stuff You Find When Packing!

As I have stated before, over the last few weeks I have been busy packing boxes. Whenever I have been home I have either been putting together or stuffing boxes. It really is amazing how much stuff that you can cram into a small apartment… that much is apparent when the closets and book shelves start to empty.

No matter how much I have tried to stay organized I can’t do much more than put general labels on boxes in the hopes that they are put in the right room. There are no specifics mentioned. I guess you could say, given the time of year, that they are mystery presents filled with crap that we have already bought. The good thing is I know that my wife will like what I give her.

However, one of the interesting aspects of this whole process is that after over three years in our current apartment there is stuff that made its way onto a shelf or into a corner that we have long since forgotten about. At least until now. Maybe we didn’t have to buy it when we did.

There are also other things that met the same fate and upon discovering them again it was a “I was wondering where that had gone to” type of feeling or a “I was thinking about picking one of those up”. While this was more common with documents than things it was still an interesting time of discovery even more prominent than when I was simply cleaning.

These documents were things that I was most excited to find. While it wasn’t the same, it was close to the feeling of when I originally found them and put them aside. It was a feeling of rediscovering family and/or memories depending on the piece of ephemera that came to the surface. Maybe this time I can get around to checking that last item off my genealogy wish list.

Just as I would discover these things I would once again relegate them to the spaces out of sight. I would find them, look at them, and put them in a box to be unpacking in our new place and, hopefully, stored in a more efficient manner. While the documents will be going with us there are also items that we just don’t have any use for anymore and will be making their way to either the dumpster or a donation location.

So we will soon be in a new place filled with the same stuff from our previous residences. And, of course, we will be getting more stuff to fill in the extra space. Thankfully we have good reason for the additional accumulation. Baby needs his stuff too!

Considering The Inevitable Future

With the baby on the way and everything else that has been going on my wife and I have been thinking about preparing for the future. While there have been many happy moments and times of celebration, there are a few realities that we must address in order for us to not have to think about certain things and unpleasant possibilities. It is with this in mind that we have started discussing putting a will together.

This is a conversation that we had when we first got married and we simply put it aside for a number of years. It wasn’t something that we would think about on a regular basis so it was simply forgotten about. Lately, it has been a thought permeating our minds and we have had to give serious consideration to many of the details.

There is nothing that has officially be done at this point… it has merely been discussion and the floating of ideas and scenarios. And while we don’t have much it would be nice to get some of the broad strokes out of the way before this important project is put off again. While I don’t see us forgetting about it like we previously did, we would both rather have it done now while we are motivated to do so and while we have a small measure of time to commit to this undertaking.

We have both seen and read a few wills in our lives but we never sat down to write one ourselves. But it is not just about us anymore, we want to make sure that our son (and any future children) are not left with a cluster when we are no longer around whether that is five or fifty years from now. It is also an opportunity to decide what will happen if we were to become ill toward the end and what needs to be done while we are still ‘alive’.

How will the minimalistic ‘estate’ be handled? Who would care for our kid(s) if it, G-d forbid, happens sooner rather than later? What happens to all of our crap? What are our last wishes? What life saving measures, if any, should be taken? Where will we be planted?

Those are just some of the basic questions that we have been asking ourselves and while we don’t have any definitive answers we are working things through and doing our best to write them down. While this attempt will be a broad one at best (we are doing this ourselves) it will be the basis for when we sit down with a lawyer in the future and pull everything together as it should be. We are going to take care of the basics now and work out many of the details over time. But, it is nice to know that something is getting recorded and that things will, for the most part, be taken care of and we generally know what will happen when that day comes.

Surrounded By Devices

Could be worse!

I have never been a big proponent of all the devices and new technology that tends to dominate the lives of many. I have never gone out of my way to buy the biggest and best phone, computer, etc. Overall, there are a few things that I use on a daily basis (namely my work computer and my cell phone) and everything else doesn’t really matter. This is why I was so surprised when I looked around this weekend at all the devices that fill our apartment.

While I really only use my phone and computer, I also have a small stockpile of old laptops teetering on  shelf in the office closet and a few outdated mobile phones that my wife and I haven’t used in years. And that is just the beginning as between the two of us we also have several tablets, cameras, and other ancillary items that we used briefly at one point or another for work. For not buying a whole lot of technology we sure have a crap load of it floating around.

It just seems like these things have accumulated around us without us knowing about it. We each have 3 or 4 generations of computers, 2-3 cameras, 1 or 2 old phones, and three tablet between the two of us. Many of these items just kind of hung around and fell into disuse like the island of forgotten toys and most of them were remnants of previous employers and previous incarnations of our hobbies (i.e. game systems and cameras). I guess that is the down side of employers allowing me to keep my computer (and being a bit of a packrat).

Other items that are orbiting the clutter have been either free (Kindle, Nook) of really, really inexpensive (several laptops, Wii, no name tablet). Of course, all of this doesn’t include the random little pieces of antiquated hardware like portable CD players, old iPods, and portable dictionaries. Kind of makes you think about doing a little extra cleaning and getting all of this crap out of our living space. While none of the items are particularly large of taking up any significant room individually, when you add them all together it does take a toll on the limited space that we have in our apartment.

Never took notice of the latest devices but, over time, they just seem to accumulate. They all work, sometimes the old ones are preferred over the new ones, but are they worth the hassle of storage and the random times that we pick them up and use them? I guess I will just have to keep closer track of whether or not I pick them up and put them to work. If not, I will have to salvage what I can off of them (this is mostly regarding computers) and find the best way to get rid of them (possibly at long range). This could get interesting.

Time Flies When I’m Thinking

Last night I had planned on going to bed early. Around ten, I sat at my desk to clean out some receipts from my wallet and throw them in the shred box. This is a simple task that should have taken no more than ten minutes. However, I found myself sitting there, staring at the wall, and thinking. A very dangerous habit but one that I can’t seem to break. Before I knew it, midnight had come and gone and I was just getting ready for bed.

Since the moment we found out that we are having a baby there have been moments here and there when I would catch a glimpse of how drastically our life would change. Last night was the first time when I really sat and thought about all that needs to be done and everything that we will have to shift around in our life. While time is one consideration, space is another and as I looked around our office, there are a lot of things that need to be changed by the end of the year.

It is nothing that we can’t handle but it is going to take some thought to plan out the moves necessary to maximize the limited square footage of our apartment. What can I say, we have a lot of stuff. But that is part of the process; that is part of the change that occurs during this stage in life; out with our stuff, in with the baby stuff. It makes me wonder what George Carlin would have to say about this change in stuff status.

Contrary to what you might originally think, it is kind of a relief. While there are a lot of things that we will be holding on to, it brings to my attention all the things that we never should have held on to in the first place. We’re not hoarders but we are not living a minimalistic life either. It reminds me of when we decided to move to Israel; we had to look around and figure out what we really wanted to keep and what we could get rid of. While this is not as extreme, we now need to focus on what things we want to take with us on this new adventure.

So now, in addition to the cleaning that is already long overdue, it is time to sort and organize so that we can begin preparing for the life that we have always dreamed of which is now, slowly, becoming a reality. I am sure that there will be times when the stress will outweigh the optimism but, overall, these moments when I am just able to sit and think quietly are the ones that will continue to fuel my anticipation. In between, I am going to continue working, cleaning, organizing, and trying my best to prepare myself for the changes on the horizon.

Not looking forward to that 'stuff'!

 

Cleaning Always Makes Me Feel Dirty!

Yesterday my wife and I finally set aside the time to give our apartment a much overdue deep cleaning. I wouldn’t say that our apartment was filthy but after seeing the dirt picked up I can say it was anywhere close to clean either. While we still have a few things that need to be addressed, namely the office, dining room table, and a few items that have to be put through the laundry, there was significant progress made and we both agreed that it just felt cleaner. The floors even passed the white sock test.

Every time we have one of these OCD days, I am reminded of the irony that cleaning always makes me feel incredibly dirty and a shower is mandatory after such a Clorox marathon. Inevitability this leads us to agree that we can’t go so long in-between cleanings and that a (fanciful) schedule is needed. We will see if hope becomes reality this time.

However, I think the most important development from yesterday for me is the realization that, once again, we have too much stuff. I feel as we are becoming the embodiment of a George Carlin rant… soon our stuff will be spread all over the world.

I think it is time to downsize. We have done it before and we can do it again. It’s a simple process overcomplicated by the physical act and mental roadblocks. Hopefully, we can get to the point of removing that which is bogging us down… the vast majority of this issue is my fault and something that I have to get done. Basically I am a crap addict with ten pounds squeezed into an apartment which holds five.

I know you will be waiting with bated breath for the next thrilling post on this exciting topic. Don’t worry I will fill you in on the exhilarating results. Also, as a side note, if you try and pawn your stuff off on me when I don’t have a real need for it I might have to beat you with one of the bags of trash that will certainly result from my efforts.