Michael:

So with all the gear that we needed to pass on, much of it I chose not to sell and just give away. I have a soft spot in my heart for church plants and have been enjoying attending one on down weekends. We had the chance to pass gear along to a growing church plant that can use this stuff. If you are like me and have extra gear you aren’t using, find a church plant and make their underfunded dreams come true! 

Amberley:

Here’s a shout out to our friends at South Point Church in Stonebridge, the new holders of Michael’s gear/crap.  They are the best.  My kids love it there and they have been kind and welcoming to us.  They are genuine and honest and opened up their garage to take old gear.  They are my kind of people.  

http://www.southpointchurch.ca

Michael:

Coat hangers are the victims when you move to a capsule wardrobe. There is no such thing as a victimless crime. Now we have all these orphan hangers that need homes. Here is a life hack, keep all the ones that look the same and then you won’t go to Ikea and re buy matching hangers for the 10th time like me! 

Amberley:

The worst hangers are the tiny one that came from Old Navy with tiny little clothes. And then they end up in my closet and I try and hang my clothes on them and they fall off.  

Michael:

Here is something that most of you have in your basement, or realistically your super cool car that is equipped with a cd player. You guessed it, a cd wallet full of old music that was terrible then and terrible now. Who needs more Sonic Flood  in their life? Not me! 

Amberley:

I kept 2 cds.  

1. The 25 Silly Songs CD I bought for $5 to play in my minivan.  The kids used to think it was cool.  Now they think it is embarrassing.  Win win. 
2. An old Tehillah So Sask CD.  Because we still might make it big in the worship circuit. 

Michael:

So we missed a few days this weekend. But don’t fear! Days 26-28 will fit into this post easily! Why do you ask? Because I own too much stuff.

I have always been involved in music, since my brother got me hooked on sound systems and I started drumming. Over the years I have collected WAY to much stuff. I have cymbals I don’t use, are broken, or just too small for modern drumming life. I have multiple sets of drum mics, keyboards, guitar amps, and the list goes on. To go with that there are racks of gear, cables and do dads. I had to break it into piles of things I want to sell and things I want to gift. You will learn more about the gifting later.

With all of the gear I had to come to some realizations. I had to realize that I don’t really need to clutter. I kept the gear for my favourite drum set up, but not much else. If I don’t actually use it, I don’t need it. The just incase moments haven’t come along for years and they might never. Why do we hold on to just incase moments instead of living life now? It doesn’t make much sense.

Amberley

I also got rid of 26 things over the weekend.  26 mini chocolate bars.  They are no longer cluttering up the pantry.  They are in my belly.

Michael:

I bought the Costco box of 160 mini chocolate bars. 3 days later the box is 1/4 full. That means that 3/4 of the chocolate bars that were meant for CHILDREN went to Amberley. How in the how do you not have a collection of diabetes?

Amberley:

I could purge my kids’ craft drawer daily.  I don’t even know where all the junk comes from.  I think it’s reproducing.  

Michael:

Amberley is not a representative of the Fischer household to the degree that she can make statements like ‘markers can reproduce.’ It would be ludacris (yes like the rapper, not the English word) to think that a dead marker can recreate itself or have relations with another marker. It’s a dead marker, its no longer alive. It’s time for reproduction is clearly over. 

Amberley:
It’s starting to get harder now. We just wandered around the basement looking for things to add to our pile. Some was easy, like the old paint. Why do people leave this when they move? It’s not kind or helpful. You aren’t doing me a service by leaving all your old paint for me to guess what wall it is for. Now I (actually Michael) have to take it all to SARCAN to recycle. Pro tip: clean up your own paint when you leave.
Michael:
I have left paint thinking I was being helpful… a better idea is to paint a wall with the paint and throw out the rest. But don’t pour it on the ground.That’s not very climate friendly. In fact I bet it is a really bad idea. So don’t do that.
Also I parted ways with old name plates from desks and doors tonight. That was easier than I thought. I guess the realization that one day I will have another door… and it will come with it’s own name plate is even better than an old name plate. Keep your memories, just not your name plates.

Michael:
So here is one of the toughest days for me. The last day will be the most cathartic but don’t let that take away from today being tough. Clothing… I have always had a weird relationship with shopping. I am one of those people that would use shopping and spending money as a way to feel better about something. I would separate financial reality from my need to buy something, anything, but usually clothing. When younger, it was a way of fitting in and being individual at the same time. So over the last few years I have had to make some choices to not live like that anymore. Much of it comes from knowing that in Christ I am good enough and don’t need to look elsewhere.
So getting rid of clothes that I don’t wear (and probably paid too much for), while it should be easy, was a little difficult. But do-able. So over a series of time I have worked on creating a capsule wardrobe and limiting what I own and my relationship with shopping and consuming. This has been one of the healthiest things I have done.
I have written a bit about using the capsule wardrobe as a spiritual discipline and encourage you to check that out too.

It is a wonderful thing to know that when you wake up, you have to choose from a black t shirt or a white one. I love it, you will too. You get to the French press about 30 minutes faster in the mornings! At least I seem to.
Either way, I dropped a ton of clothes off to help some people out who really need them. I didn’t need the attachment, I needed to relax in who I am in Christ, not who I am in a ridiculously comfortable pair of Zanrobes.

Amberley:

Amberley is not here so she doesn’t get a chance to comment on this one. BUT I am sure that she would say. “Michael inspires me every day to live better and be more like Jesus. I wish I had a sweet selection of plain t shirts just like him. What a hero! Greta isn’t the hero of our generation, Michael is. Healing the climate crisis, one t shirt at a time.”

Michael:

That is very kind of you. Thank you. Tonight I will make curry for supper.

Michael:

The last couple of days I have felt pretty good about the things that we have got rid of. Most of it makes sense. Today, however, I have to own up to holding on to this one for no reason. Yup, that’s right, a container full of old dried up model car paint, glue and supplies. When I was growing up I loved building models! Battleships, jets, cars, tanks, whatever it was I loved to build these things! Once we got cats, it got difficult to build things… those little hairy jerks would come along and knock my stuff over. I felt like I was on a cat reality show where they would wreck things just to see the owner’s response. Then came kids, we all know how that would end. So I just put things away… and held on to them… and they dried up… and I kept them. I kept them just incase I was going to one day build cars with Jude… with my dried up paints. So yea, I guess if I want to build the USS Gonnablowthingsup in the future, I will just buy some new glue. Wow, decluttering is annoying!

Amberley:

I once tried to build a model car with Michael.  I was too impatient and ended up glueing the wiper to my finger and smearing paint on the windows.  Not my thing.

Amberley:

Growing up I would come home everyday, take off my coat, open the closet door and toss my coat on the floor.  It made my mom crazy.  Karma is real and now no one in my family will hang up anything.  The front closet makes me nuts.  I cleared 21 items from the closet including:

• Boots/shoes/coats that are too small
• no less than 6 mitts with no partners
• a pack of dried up baby wipes

Michael:

How do they lose the partner for so many mittens in such a short period of time? My main concern when we did this closet was that a lost my favourite knit cap. It looks like it belongs to a sailor, it’s awesome! I found it in the laundry room a day later. Stressful times!!

Michael:

Garages are basically storage bins that sometimes share space with automobiles. Most of our neighbours have trouble getting their Model T’s and F500000’s in their garages because of the massive amounts of junk! We aren’t that bad. Both vehicles fit, along with tools, bikes, skates, road cases, drum cases, sound systems, lighting boards… regular garage stuff. I think my biggest frustration with the garage is that it’s a collection of the past owners’ building supplies and now I have to deal with all of someone else’s unfinished projects. In working through the garage I got rid of the following:

• new bundles of baseboards (10)
• extra trim boards (5)
• 2 vacuum hoses for vacuums we don’t own
• lumber from my finished deck
• lumber that a friend got rid of and gave to me
• a tile cutter
• a tennis racket (I have never played tennis)
• a laminator

Amberley:

Not my stuff.  Not my problem.  Glad it’s gone.