To keep our downsizing process in check, I thought I’d list what’s been accomplished, and what remains to be completed. In a separate blog post, I will document the status on the refits on our St Francis 50 catamaran.

At home, here’s what’s been accomplished so far:

• 5 dead pine trees were cut down and stacked

• spindly trees were removed, and put through a chipper that we rented from Home Depot. Here is a picture that shows our pile of tree branches that had to be chipped.

And, here is a picture of the chipper that we rented. It had a hydraulic feed, which meant that twigs could be put through the machine without much effort, save the lifting of the branches.

• we’ve made at least 10 trips to the Value Village thrift store to drop off loads of clothing, bedding and kitchen items
• we’ve given many things away using Freecycle, including vintage license plates, bikes, food processor, and some other items
• sold the majority of our furniture

• scanned the equivalent of 11 filing cabinets worth of materials
• photographed the front covers of text books that we value but can no longer keep for space reasons. This provides us with enough information to re-order the books later, if we choose.
• downsized our clothing to the extent that I couldn’t attend a parent-teacher interview at the moment without wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt
• downsized our living/dining room (which had contained about 220 moving boxes). The living/dining room now looks like this:

What’s remains to be completed:

• write letter to the school board to indicate our intentions for homeschooling
• empty and sell our chest freezer
• establish a mailing address
• print medical expenses to prepare for tax year 2015
• bring extra canned goods to the food bank
• cut grass and plant flowers in container pots
• drain the hot tub
• repair our tent
• areas of house to be painted, beginning June 22
• empty our garage of tools, tires and filing cabinets
• develop a plan for the summer, and for sailing. This last bullet point warrants a paragraph unto itself. In fact, it deserves much ink and its own heading…

What’s next?

The Caribbean hurricane season is from June 1st to November 30th. Neither my husband and I are keen to make our first foray into sailing on our boat with our family during hurricane season, even with a skipper. So, that leaves us in limbo.

Our house has been rented. We plan to camp, but the question is for how long?

My husband needs to be in Florida during the refit process. I cannot camp alone – not with four young children who are extremely friendly and tend to run off in all directions. So, we are exploring our options, and incubating a plan. And, because we are also actively downsizing, while doing homework with our kids, incubating a six-month plan sometimes looks – at least, on the surface – like we’re having McDonald’s for dinner.