Things yet to do

Sell everything:
Right, do I use Ebay, have a garage sale, or give stuff away. Do I need to convert it all to cash then donate the money somewhere. Is giving some stuff to my friends avoiding the giving to the poor bit? Probably. How long will it take me to get rid of it all? Should I start now or wait till a month or so before I go...

Jun 27th 06 - I have just agreed to move house. I am moving from the fanciful, costly, penthouse apartment I share with my brother to a more 'down to earth' share house with a few blokes from church. I have told them I will probably only be there a few months until November, and they are ok with that. I think it will be good to step down my living standards before I step out, as well as experiencing a further 'community' relationship building opportunity/experience.

Jun 27th 06 - Also my mum rang to offer to buy me a new double bed as the old single one is quite shabby, as I have had it for over 25 years now. I don't feel I need a new one as the old one still does its job and there is no need (for anyone) to spend money on a new bed for only 4 months use. But I am not quite ready to explain about that to my parents yet, so I have thanked them for the offer and delayed them by saying I will 'let them know about the bed, soon...'

July 10th 06 - Well I moved house on July 1st. It came about quite quickly, a friend from church said a room had become available in his share house, and I said 'I'll move in next week!' This is a good step for down sizing. This is a rickety old shack of a house, which I feel completely at home with. My new room is packed with stuff. I didn't realize how much I had and need to begin sorting and clearing it out. I will probably start with my clothes as I noticed a clothing charity up the road where I could drop some stuff off at soon.

December 27th 06 - It was very difficult to sell everything, but I got down to one small box of personal stuff. I first gave away my white board to a friend at Church and asked her to make a donation to a homeless person in response. Then I sorted out some clothes that I never really used and put them in a charity clothes bin, behind a Coles supermarket.

Later, after I had left work, I had a garage sale, which went quite well. I moved nearly all my stuff out on to the street and put a few signs up. I was there from 8am to 9pm on the Sat and I was surprised by the number of people who dropped by, considering there was no other advertising. I did put up a sign saying that the proceeds were going to the homeless, and so it gave me a good opportunity to talk to the neighbors and bargain hunters about what I was doing. All were very positive and some even told me their own stories of homelessness! I was also surprised by what items sold and what didn't sell. I thought there were some real bargains there that no one even looked at. As I needed to get rid of as much as possible I was very easy on the pricing, later I thought I may have sold some stuff too cheaply but it would have been a problem for me to be holding onto things after the sale, I didn't want to be throwing items of value into the bin.

After the sale I still had about half my stuff left. I put my four most valuable items on eBay, with the help of a friend, and took the rest to the Salvo's shop, as a donation. Although the Salvo's didn't want any electrical goods, and so it was a bit frustrating that I couldn't sell or give away some items, I didn't want to throw a good hairdryer into the bin. so I gave away a couple of small items as well. The eBay items sold for prices I was happy with, and were picked up promptly, except for my bathroom scales which a guy from Perth bought, and says he didn't read the 'pickup only' message in the item description. He has paid but still not arranged the pickup from my friend's house. Very frustrating.

Lastly I put the rest of my clothes into another clothing bin, it was hard to let go of some of those clothes. Overall I wasn't to fussed about getting rid of everything. I still was the same person and had somewhere to sleep, and food to eat. I think a lot of the things in our lives are unnecessary trinkets. We hold on to them so tight, but what value are they really to us? They are wants not needs. In a way it is nice to clear it all out and start again. A renewal can be a refreshing change.

Finish updating my blogs with all the info I want there:
This Blog just started yesterday so has a fair bit of work to go. I have two other blogs under different names, one about my general life as it develops, and another is a sort of an autobiography of my Christian life experiences, and it still has a lot of writing to do. I am thinking I might list the three blogs in the blog side links, just when I go, so people can get a complete picture about me. But I'm not sure as there is some personal stuff in them about others, not just me, that could upset some people that I have mentioned. We'll see...

December 27th 06 - I decided to keep my blogs separate. This Faith Walk is providing enough for me and others to think about and I have put my other blogs on the back burner while this Faith Walk is consuming all my attention. Updating this blog was a low priority during the preparation period. I would have liked to had it updated in the months leading up to the walk, but it was such a difficult period I didn't feel like analyzing and reflection on it then. Sine I started the Walk the daily updates have taken a lot of my time. As you can see from today's date I am now finally filling in some info about what I ended up doing in the preparation time.