Boxing Day

Oh Lord, what were we thinking?

This morning we celebrated the first anniversary of Don's Retirement Day by packing boxes and boxes of books. Five things became evident:

1. We have given way too much money to people like John Grisham and Anne Rice
   
2. I have saved books for over 40 years that neither I nor anyone I know will ever read again (e.g., "The Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold")
3. Most of the boxes we had around were empty booze and wine boxes
4. Boxes of books are really heavy
5. Carrying all these boxes of books downstairs will be a new level of fitness training
   

And I suspect that we will soon discover that the market for used books is just about nil.

Oh well, we have to do it because (and here's the news) we are putting our house on the market. This was always part of our retirement plans. LK has been monitoring the property market around here and decided now is a great time to pull the trigger.

The first open house is October 31, so we have about four weeks to do all the things they say you have to do if you want top price. Although we will be hiring people to do stuff like power spraying the pavers and washing the windows, there's still much for us to do.

It's what our real estate agent calls "de-cluttering". It appears that the things you live with as part of your life (like filling the bookcases with books) is clutter when it comes to selling your house. So are the knickknacks we have all over the house, the teddy bears in the study, the baskets in the kitchen and just about anything that you live with and don't even notice after awhile.

We've got several job for handymen but plenty for us to do in addition to our de-cluttering -- lots of touch-up with paint, and a massive clean-out to get rid of things like the very attractive broken picnic table in the back garden. I knew there would be an element of karma to all that lazing around for the past three months. Here it comes.