Anniversary - Still Downsizing

On March 1, 2011 the packers showed up at 52 West North Street.

Click here to read our post from March 2, 2011, the day the van was loaded. We left our home of 34 years and headed west for a new chapter in our lives and many adventures. 

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This week we start our third year here in Kirkland. It's a good place to live and we continue to be abundantly blessed. We also continue to downsize. I feel good every time I can empty a bin. 

And free up space on our shelves

Now, if we could only figure out what to do with 

all these family and personal journals!

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STORIES

Chair in top photo - Joe calls this his preaching chair. It came from Joe's parents via the Atherton estate. It was an antique when they received it. When Joe was about 3 or 4 he saw his Grandfather Todd preach. Dr. Todd was standing with his arms on the lectern. Joseph Clinton Todd was a minister and dean of the Indiana University School of Religion. When Joe got home he stood at this chair, put his arms up on the chair and preached in imitation of his grandfather. This is the chair we always use when family members receive blessings by the laying on of hands. 

See the phone books on the top right of the shelf in the middle left picture? Does anyone use paper phone books any longer?

Shelving - we bought these shelves at Sam's Club years ago to replace the gray metal shelves we were using for food storage. One of our family members had these shelves in the garage. The shelves have wheels and are very sturdy. In our crowded basement in Ohio it was wonderful to be able to easily move the shelves aways from the wall to clean or to paint. Here in Washington (no basement), wheeled shelving allows us to cram a lot of shelves and storage into our second garage while we work away at downsizing and freeing up space in the second garage - good thing we gave away our second car years ago. 

Plastic bins - Back in Ohio a friend lost some of her journals when her basement flooded. That was a reminder to me that I needed to get our journals out of cardboard boxes and into plastic bins. When we moved out here I started that project. Good thing I did. One day I had to retrieve something from the middle of the middle of this wall of bins. I was alarmed to discover water. The pipe on that wall had a very slow leak. No damage because everything was in a bin.