When I write for my travel blog, I know that I am sharing personal stories about the places I have been and what I have seen and been able to do in my life.

When I write in this blog, it is personal and sometimes feels like confession. Now, I am Jewish so I have no idea what going to confession is really like, but I have watched my share of tv shows and movies so I have some idea.

Why blog? Why share personal details about yourself, your life and the way it makes you feel. Well, I think firstly there are probably a lot of you out there, that I may have more in common with on the inside than what appears on the outside. It is a way to connect without haven’t to put anything out there. Many people have told me, “wow, I feel the same way about what you wrote about”, or “that happens to me too”.

So, here goes the confession part of this post.

By now you probably know that I live in a condo. A beautiful, but small condo. Perfect size for one person, you would think. But what happens when you have pretty much outgrown the space you live in? Well, again, one would say, “you need to get rid of some of your ‘stuff'”. There in lies the problem and what has brought me here today.

When I lived at my parents house I used to collect ‘things’. There were always incentives at work – at one point, there was an incentive for gift cards at…wait for it…Consumers Distributing (you all remember that store). I would go to the store, and buy dishes, and pots and pans, and all kinds of ‘stuff’ that I was keeping until I had my own place.

Little did I know that when it finally came time to pack up and move to my own place, I HATED everything that I had collected over the years. Well, that isn’t totally true…

I heard that UNopened Disney movies were (are) worth something. So, I would buy TWO, yes, two movies (VHS) one to keep sealed and one to watch. And every movie had a corresponding mug. I should say that I do use the mugs and they sit happily in the cupboard and are used for tea/coffee all the time.

Fast forward to moving to the condo. After going through what was coming with me and what was not, boxes were labeled and away we went to the condo.

For a while things were great…oh, I should rewind….what about all the visits to the annual Mikasa sale? What about you ask? Well, again, I was living in my parents house, but that didn’t stop me from buying beautiful serving platter, glassware, candle sticks (oh let’s not get to talking about candles).

WAIT…there was the William Ashley sale that came through town every November. It still does, but I no longer go to the sale.

Now you are starting to see the potential problems arising in my beautiful condo.

And now we come to the home office….seems to be the biggest thorn in my side.

I worked from home for almost four years that ended almost a year ago. During that time I have gotten rid of the ‘work from home’ elements – brochures, extra filing cabinets. But what about all my arts and crafts, my scrapbooking supplies, magazines…I could go on.

But I really don’t want to go on. I want to throw away the food and drink magazines, but then I look at them and think about the pretty cover, the recipes, and more….really? When was the last time I looked at the magazine?

I want to fix my home office. I have someone who can customize this for me. I have someone else who has already shared her vision and drawn it out for me. I have a vision.

But I can’t make the vision come true until I tackle my ‘stuff’.

Have I mentioned I have lived here for six and a half years. I would have to say that most of this ‘stuff’ did not come with me when I moved here. How did all of this get in here and how can I make it go away?

That is the question I am faced with even as I sit here typing this post – I look to my left and see a magazine rack filled with magazines, and I look to my right and see CDs, movies and more.

and then of course I think there is my adult ADD….because I start to look at something while I am trying to type this post.

The internal battle continues…I am off again this weekend. Maybe this will be the weekend that I really get a handle on this. That is what I said last weekend, and the weekend before and probably the weekend before that.

Yours truly,

collector of stuff