Less is More

hey so says my art quote for today!

BUt it is true.

As I slowly go through my things, I realize I just have to simplify. Most of the items will have to either be donated or thrown away. I can't put it all up for sale. One I wont' have enough money to pay for the damn fees. So, time to just part with it. I don't really own much that is worth much anyway. Probably cost me more to put it up for sale and mail it then I'm getting for it.

I'm not sure why I even accumulated all this mess. Books I can understand, but honestly, I haven't picked ANY of them up again to read them. Hell some books I haven't even read or finished reading! Those will go to libraries or something.

CLothes? Ha don't get me started. I'm not a fashion freak, and actually a lot of the things I have are so old I really NEED to get rid of them. Half the stuff I can't fit into anymore and I'm pained by that. I have this nice long japanese style/design skirt. I had it taken in once. I was actually skinny enough that it needed to be taken IN. Now? Yea, I can get it past the hips but god forbid if I even ATTEMPTED to zip it. Of course, I want to keep it. HOping that it would be an incentive for me to lose this weight. Will I? Who knows.

Getting rid of things is not as easy as one might think. Of course I think "Oh I might need it later". That has happened during school, when I needed some art stuff or magazine articles, and I actually had them! Of course some I had also thrown away so I was like "Damn I KNEW I would need them, eventually!!!!"

Then I think, well this is sentimental. Yea it is. I'm kind of torn with those things. Some of the items are photos. OMG I thought I had burned and shredded everything I had that my first boyfriend ever bought or gave me. Well WRONG! I still found more photos. Oh and of other boyfriends too. Then I sit there wondering, "Shouldn't I keep them? You know, it was a part of my life that wasn't all that bad." THen I think, well my current boyfriend might not like me having that shit. Would I mind him having photos of his exes? No I wouldn't mind. It would be nice to see what kind of people he went out with before me. But then, do I want him reminiscing about those days? That's a little tougher. Not that I sit around thinking about my exes. Something might trigger a memory but it's not like I dwell on them.

Then I think I might use something once I get to his house. Ya know what. If it was sitting in a box these past two years I guess I didn't really need it right?

Why is it so hard to throw away the things I've accumulated? Why did I even collect all these "materials"? Now a lot of the things I am keeping are my photo-related items. As well as my art supplies. But, I have decided that if I don't use any of them within six months of getting settled, then they have to go too. I also need to organize the zillions of photos I have. When I first began taking photography seriously, I read once that if you have bad negatives/slides/photos and you aren't going to use them, then THROW THEM AWAY because you will NEVER use them. That's so right. So I have begun going through my old negatives. The problem is, I started that when I first moved in here, and threw away the wrong fucking negatives. I had this AWESOME photo of Jake (RIP, he was G-man's dog) when he was a pup frolicking in the autumn-leaf covered pond. He loves that photo. He has an enlargement of it but now that I know how to create a better quality photograph I wanted to scan the negative and print it digitally. And I think I threw that one out. I was so angry with myself for not paying more attention. I can't get that image back. Oh I can probably scan the photo, but the quality will be no where near the quality of a scanned negative.

My sister and I went walking today and we talked about going through each other's places. Because we have an attachment to our own things, if we went through the other's things, it would be more objective. Of course we'd still want to keep a lot of it, but maybe it would help us look at what someone else might see as taking up space.

I found my gift card from last Christmas. Actually we didn't even get the gift card from work until several months later. I used it to buy my prescriptions. I will have to use the rest on groceries and after that, whatever I have in my cupboards will have to do. I barely made rent for this month. I was $30 shy and actually ducked my landlady! I had to. I didn't want the check to bounce. But she only had to wait a day. This last pay check was lousy. I missed a weekend and that killed me in sales. I have to miss a weekend of work again this month so I will not make as much which sucks. And of course my boss apparently can't check his email. Well he'll be in for a surprise come January and I haven't gotten reimbursed for buying some damn VGA cord. I'm taking it with me when I leave. Guess what? Then they won't be able to see anything on the monitor for taking baby photos! Not my problem. I bought the cord. I may not use it again but that's my $40. Not sure if I'll even be able to transfer since his ass hasn't given me the contact person in ATlanta to call to work at the hospital over there. I may have to resort to calling the main office and getting it myself. He won't be happy but he really hasn't been very good at communicating with his people.

Oh well, I should get back to cleaning the dishes. I will probably wait until tomorrow. Two things I just really don't like doing: the dishes and the floors.