Ship? Store? Sell? Give Away? Throw Away?

Today was an end to an extremely long and tedious process, one that has lasted most of the summer. Today I had my estate/yard sale.

Ever since Aramco first approached me about the job, I realized that I needed to do some pruning of my household goods. As a single female, I will always and only be allotted one-bedroom housing in Dhahran. One bedroom and perhaps not even a very spacious one.

So back in June, I started walking through my house, looking at every single thing that I own, and asking myself a series of questions: Do I want this thing with me in Dhahran? Do I need it there? Would I have room for it? If the thing was valuable in some way, was it worth paying years of storage unit fees to keep it? Did it have sentimental value or only economic value? Would someone else buy this thing? Could I replace it later? If nobody would buy it from me directly, was it worth donating? Or did I just need to quit messing around and toss it out?

There were additional complications. Of course. If I wanted to have the thing with me in Dhahran, could I let Aramco move it on the slow boat? It would be up to 3 months before it arrived. Would the thing fit in my allotted air freight box? The so-called E box usually arrives a couple of weeks after I do but it has limits on size and weight. Could I carry it with me in my luggage on the flight over? I'm planning on taking four suitcases (and paying the airline overage fees with no protest) to ensure I have immediate access to critical items for me and the dogs. Plus getting unusual things through customs is often easier if they are in checked bags. But those suitcases are only going to hold just so much stuff.

If the item was to be stored, it had to be securely packed and labeled. Actually, once I made the pile of "store" items, getting that stuff packed was straightforward. But there's now the little matter of how to get all those boxes to Virginia.

I posted ads for things to be sold to my dog sport yahoo group lists and Craig's List. So far, I have had tremendous success with this subset of my things. My former things. I posted my CL ad and had the estate/yard sale this morning. In a giant, five-hour push of effort (with the help of two friends), we sold nearly everything that was left. The pile of stuff to take to Goodwill will fit in a couple of boxes. It's really amazing what people will buy at a yard sale. A nice antique wardrobe that we thought would be gone right away is still here while opened, partly used boxes of nails sold in the first hour. The process of putting prices on things for sale was very helpful in pushing some things right into the trash.

My house is not entirely empty. One room is full of boxes (ship and store). There's still the odd bit of furniture (my dining room table and chairs)--but no beds. I sold all of them on Craig's List, usually within hours of listing them. I'll dispose of the remaining bits of furniture the same way. All of my clothes are in suitcases or boxes--ask me to find a specific item and I simply could not do it. One room is a chaos of towels, blankets, sheets, and sweaters. I'm still sorting that mess out.

Although much work remains to be done, I feel like today was a significant milepost. I've pared my house full of things down to the essentials. I feel lighter.