Review: 2013

Dec. 14, 2013

“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”–SOCRATES

It's been almost a year since I started my downsizing project. I think I expected to get down to the bare minimum and have an almost empty apartment/basement/garage by this time. Ooops, I sure miscalculated.

I could have stopped working for a living and just purged. Then things would have gone faster - I guess.

I've sold over 300 books, gotten rid of my giant Berber rug in the living room, gone through closets and cabinets.

I've experienced dishonest buyers at craiglist and amazon ("I didn't get my book. Please reemburse me."; "If you send me part of the money back, I'll give you a good review."; "Please send the antique chair over to ......."! I made a mistake while reembursing a guy so he received the money twice (Amazon: "It's your problem. Solve it yourself."). So I asked him to transfer the money back to my account. Wasn't I silly to even ask?! At least somebody made a profit this Christmas. Somebody gave me a rating of 3 out of 5 (I've only had 5's the whole year - I worked hard for that!) because he thought the book looked a bit older and didn't deserve to be called "very good". You know what he paid for the book? ONE CENT!!! It would have been better had I not even tried to sell the book. Grumpf.

Now, I am getting ready to visit my family in Texas (again) and am trying to wrap things up until I get back. That means sending off the things I sold through ebay, cleaning up my leftover clutter and packing.

Amazon has made it very easy to sell things through their platform but they take a huge bite out of any "profits". Ebay has improved their platform immensely since I sold 100 books ten years ago. Occasionally, ebay offers the possibility to sell without them taking a huge chunk out of the proceedings. If you ever sell, take advantage of these offers.

Altough, I thought I was so clever. Ebay made the offer and I started pulling things out of the cabinets, taking pictures and gayly placing them into ebay. "What a gas!", I thought. Then ebay proclaimed STOP, you are only allowed to sell 10 things. Damn. Have to wait until next year...

So, how does the endless story go on?

More of the same. My ex-husband keeps bringing me stuff from his basement that was part of our lives for twenty years. Even though I've been gone for twenty more years, he is still trying to get rid of stuff. Looks like I used to be even worse!

As far as upsizing my life goes, I have started learning Italian and painting. It is such fun being a failure! Well, I am getting a bit better.

I painted in Monet's garden.

I visited

• Sicily
• Giverny, Paris, Rouen in France
• Texas
• California

Took some cooking courses, one with my daughter. Went to see Lord of the Dance by myself.

I taught new seminars and learned lots of new things. I enjoyed the summer and invested in bright lamps to prevent winter blues.  In the new year, I'll have some improvements done on my kitchen. And start learning sign language. In German - what a hoot.

I guess you'd say, downsizing and upsizing have been successful so far.