Today makes two weeks that I’ve been here, but I’ve been upright for only about half of it. I still have a lingering cough that is manageable as long as…
I am not afraid . . . of rough spots . . . or lonely times . . . I don’t fear . . . the success of this endeavor…
After 12 weeks of manic purging, organizing and cleaning, the house is finally empty. We have lived here for 17 years, longer than anywhere I have ever lived in my…
We are not hoarders. And, yet… Preparing for the adventure ahead has been nothing if not an exercise in reducing our material possessions. When it’s all done, we will have…
Always in big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little…
How else to spend your first full day of “vacation” than to wait at the Civil Registry Office, the purgatory of all things government in Portugal? We had set aside…
After the initial surge of selling, recycling or tossing the junk you have amassed, then the harder decisions come. The pace slows. The heart races. If you are to completely…
We have spent the last four weeks in a frenzy of cleaning out. Household goods to Salvation Army. Nicer work clothes to Goodwill Boutique. Books to the Friends of the…
The “overheat” warning light lit up on my paper shredder this evening. And we still have two file drawers to go. God knows what else we’ll discover as we peel…
There’s nothing like the reality of moving into “European” (read: small) quarters to make you reconsider the amount of accumulated stuff you have in your life. While I have been…