So, in the interest of decumulation, I’m getting rid of books—even cutting deep into books I would like to keep and read someday, I’m getting rid of photographs. They don’t take as much space as books, but they are more numerous, are a burden rather than a blessing, and someday will be a burden to our kids. What else can and should go?

Every now and then I take a “tour” of the basement storeroom, looking for what should go next after we finish with current decumulation projects (mainly the photos). I see boxes of old Christmas decorations we haven’t put out for years. Same for other holidays. I see a couple of boxes of old camping equipment that I’m sure we will never use.  At some point we’ll tackle them, but I don’t think the time is right just now.

The pants I wore to church yesterday seemed pretty big on me. I checked the size, and they are 42s, about 10 to 15 years old. I don’t know, but maybe I’ve lost enough weight that 42s are now too big and I should get rid of them. That, of course, brings up the whole subject of clothes and closets, which is a huge project. Do we tackle that en-masse or one garment at a time? I’ll be pondering that this week. It wasn’t too long ago that I stuck an old pair of 44 corduroys that were way too big in the donation pile and took them to Goodwill.

Last week, seated at my desk in The Dungeon, I looked at the shelf above my computer desk and saw it adorned with what I can only call “stuff.” Some of it is left over office supplies that I “might” use some day.  Some is misc. things. Not quite sure what to do with those. But one thing I noticed is my trophies. These are things I got for delivering technical papers at engineering conferences. One year my paper was awarded best paper at the conference, and I received a trophy for that (actually two, since the first came with a typo and they sent another). The company I worked for then awarded me trophies for writing the papers, as a means of encouraging others to do the same.

Those trophies sat on a shelf at my office. When I retired over six years ago, I stuck them on the shelf in The Dungeon and more or less forgot about them. But what good are they doing me now? None. So I have decided they will go in the trash on Wednesday. The shelf above my computer desk will be a little barer, a little less decorated, but a little close to being ready to be moved somewhere when moving time comes.

One small decumulation step; one giant leap toward downsizing.