Showering at work

12/7/09 Wood burning kit, given away

Today I downsized a wood burning kit by giving it to the children of one of the kindergarten teachers at my school. Abby, Libby, Andrew, and Matthew Fleming gladly accepted the early Christmas gift, and promised not to burn down their house with it. They're good kids; I trust them.

Twenty minutes after parting with that, I was presented with all of this:

Wow.

None of the gifts were really for me, however, so this is not a setback. Rather, my wonderful colleagues at the Guy E. Rowe Elementary School hosted a fantastic baby shower for Joanna and me, at which they showered us with gifts for our son-in-waiting.

It would appear that Chase -- great name, I know -- is not as committed to downsizing as I am, which is fine. I'm not even jealous of the great stuff he got. Plus, when he's not looking, I'm going to read the books anyway.

Appropriately enough, the final gift we opened was a set of blocks from the Flemings. I especially appreciated their handmade card. I promise not to downsize it anytime soon.

Rack 'em up

12/6/09 Two CD racks (one homemade, one store bought), given away on craigslist

Now that I'm on the way to digitizing all of my music, my need for CD racks has been greatly reduced.

I would have guessed that my offer for a free, homemade CD rack on craigslist might have garnered interest from some forty-something dude with the complete works of Led Zeppelin who was working to spruce up his double wide trailer. Who else would have CDs and want to organize them?

The surprise answer was a very polite teen from Gray. My craigslist post only mentioned the CD rack I made, but when he arrived, I remembered I also had a large plastic one in the shed, which I also offered him. He took them both.

"Ah, I can do something with these," he kept saying, as if we were going to redesign them. Maybe he will turn them into iPod racks, which seems more appropriate for 2009.

An iPod rack... hmm, maybe I need to make myself one of those...

Countdown to Christmas

12/5/09 Seven coats, donated to Coats and Toys for Kids

All credit for today's downsize goes to Joanna.

To kick off the Christmas season, Joanna got us tickets to the Portland Ballet Company's production of the Nutcracker. With that on the itinerary, I told Joanna I should do some sort of holiday-themed give-away.

"Channel 6 is doing a coat drive today," she replied. How does this woman know all this stuff?

This morning we went through our closets and managed to collect seven coats we could live without. Truth is, most of them (okay, all but one of them) belonged to Joanna.

One of the coat drop-off locations was right on our way to the ballet. Local news personality Cindy Williams was in there, and she thanked us profusely for our coats. It's always good to brush elbows with the stars while doing good.

With warmed hearts, we zipped (c'mon, it's pun) off to Merrill Auditorium, where we thoroughly enjoyed the Nutcracker, along with a thousand eight-year-old girls dressed in holiday plaid.

Only twenty giving-away days left until Christmas!

Editor's Note, 8/2/10: I'm still kicking myself for this one. This was my best chance to help the Challenge go viral. There I was, downsizing right in front of one of Maine's most well-known television reporters, and I didn't tell her about the blog. Joanna was nudging me the whole time, but I became the shy sixth grader who could only smile and nod. Ah, what could have been...

Car Talk

12/4/09 Mailbox post, given away on Freecycle.org; Massaging, heated seat topper, given away to my brother-in-law

Double downsize today, which brings two things to mind. The first is a story; the second a cautionary tale.

The Story:

We live on a dead-end, private road, so our mailbox is clumped with our neighbor's mailboxes at the top of our street. About two years ago, I pulled alongside the row of mailboxes, as I do most days on the way home from work, rolled down my car window, and reached out to get my mail.

Only there wasn't anything there.

No mail. No mailbox. Not even the post the mailbox is supposed to be mounted on. Just a gaping space between the other mailboxes.

Thank you, local teenagers.

Within a few days, I had gone down to the local hardware store and purchased another mailbox and another post, which I installed back in our USPS designated area.

(By the way, I reported the missing mailbox to my local postmaster, figuring that messing with mailboxes consituted some sort of serious, national crime. She responded with the government's version of "Sucks to be you!"

Thank you, federal bureaucracy.

A couple of months after that, the boy who lives next door delivered my original mailbox post -- with mailbox still attached -- to my driveway. Apparently he'd found it in the woods. No longer needing it, I stored it away in the shed, where it lived until today, when a guy came by and picked it up.

I hope his local teenagers don't find it as appealing as the kids around here did.

The Cautionary Tale:

I bought a massaging chair topper (yes, that's what they are called) for Joanna several years ago, because I thought she might like it in her car. Since she's no fan of Maine winters, I figured she'd especially appreciate the fact that it had a seat-warming function.

Alas, she never really used it, so it was time to offer it to someone else. My brother-in-law Jean has to frequently make the long drive down to Boston, so I figured he might like to give it a try. He seemed interested, and I made sure he understood he couldn't give it back one I handed it off to him. Fortunately, he agreed.

However, I feel I must pass along some sage words of advice that I once heard Click and Clack dispense on Car Talk:

Be very careful when using the heated car seat. After a couple of cups of coffee and a bran muffin, the heated seat can create unexpected and unwelcome problems.

Jean, you've been warned.

Dumb asset

12/3/09 Really great fitting pair of corduroys, trashed

Let's count the reasons I love these pants:

1) Corduroys are definitely back. Trust me.

2) Warmth in the winter.

3) Big pockets. It's amazing what a teacher can accumulate over the course of a day. I came home with a toaster in my pocket last week. Not sure how it got there.

4) Unlike every other pair of paints I own, they are blue. Hey, a guy needs a little variety.

5) One word: roomy.

Let's count the reasons that these pants have to go:

1) The threads are so worn out on the butt that it's buffed to a high sheen and I tend to slip right off chairs. I almost pulled a muscle this morning.

And so, yet another pair of perfectly wearable yet socially unacceptable pair of paints bites the dust. You can just call me Mr. Khaki.

eBay comes through!

12/2/09 The final three die cast Star Wars vehicles (Millennium Falcon, X-Wing, Landspeeder), sold on eBay for $9.60

Last summer we had a big yard sale. The idea for the Downsizing Challenge was germinating, but hadn't yet sprouted, unfortunately. Thus, all the stuff I got rid of left my possession without proper accounting or credit.

But, no yard sale is 100% successful, and we did have a few things that didn't sell. Among the left-overs was a shoebox full of ten die cast Star Wars vehicles. I'd had them since I was a kid, but since they were smaller than the regular Kenner vehicles and didn't work with the action figures (speaking of which, here's my new favorite blog), I never played with them much.

For the yard sale, I priced them to move, offering up the entire box of ten ships for $10. Who could resist?!?

Shockingly, everyone.

Only one person all day expressed interest, and he tried to talk me down from the already bargain basement price. Actually, when I rejected his first offer, I was sure he'd still snatch them up, or at least come back with a counteroffer. But, he walked away.

Well, today I sold the final die cast ships from that box. While that dude last summer could have had all of them for $10, I sold them in four sets (the other 3 sets are documented here, here, and here) on eBay for a gloriously grand total of $62.50.

My first Star Wars sales on eBay netted me 99 cents. (Relive the excitement here.) My next sale was for $5.50, but I found that whiningly disappointing since the R2-D2 rocket seemed so unique!

eBay rebounded in a big way with the die cast vehicles, however, and I don't even mind that I can't rub it in that yard sale guy's face. The cold, hard cash is enough of a reward. Cha-ching.

Contracted down

12/1/09 The front corner of our house, removed

Yes, this is the way we kick off the fifth month of downsizing: major construction!

Since the day we moved in, we knew the rotting posts that held up our front porch and half of the roof wouldn't last forever. I'm just pleased they managed to last six years.

Now, those posts (and the rest of the porch) are gone. How's that for cleaning out the old? And, I must admit that there's something to be said about paying someone else to do it for you.

In fact, it's making me see the rest of my property in a different light.

Our shed better start treating me right. I'll have 'em rip that sucker down so fast, the shovels will burst into flame...