Tag: stuff

Happy (early) Birthday, America!

Hey friends! I wanted to pop in briefly and give you an update:

  • No–I’m not falling off the “semi-frequent posting” wagon. Expect another #FridayFive post this week, and then more fun stuff next week.
  • I just finished a book by Jon Acuff called Finish! and will have a review coming soon, after I give it a bit more thought.
  • Currently Reading: the second part of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan; American Assassin by Vince Flynn; and the book of Isaiah. And I have a stack of library books and e-books I’m about to tackle. Whew!
  • I’ve just been really busy lately. I’ll probably post a “This is Where I’m At Right Now” post of some kind in the next week or so. Maybe an update on the new eating plan and some other things going on.
  • One of the big things I’ve been working on is Presto! Fairy Tales, a Youtube webseries of funny and bizarre retellings of long-lost fairy tales (in which I act a bit and also wrote the majority of the lyrics for the original songs). We’re having a blast filming Season 2 right now, but Season 1 is slowly rolling out as well (Episode 4 should be coming out this week!). I’d love for you to take a look, share it with friends, family, kids, fans of musical theater, anyone you can think of.  And if you enjoy it, please SUBSCRIBE!
  • And yes, tomorrow is the Fourth of July, a celebration of the United States’ independence. Which reminds me: Wasn’t I working on a side-blog of American history? Oh yeah! The 4thDave Papers! And guess what? A new post is coming to you…next week! (Putting myself on the clock: check!) It’s about time we get back on track with that one, too!

So, suffice it to say, lots of fun stuff coming soon on the blog. In the meantime, enjoy some Presto!, have fun with friends and family, and if you’re a fan of the United States, set something on fire tomorrow in honor of freedom.

Minimal Monday: Letting Go of Stuff

My wife and I are in the midst of paying off our debts. We’re trying to become more “gazelle intense,” so one of the ways we’re looking to do this is to sell some Stuff.

I have a lot of Stuff. I like Stuff. Stuff is fun. Stuff is fun to buy. It’s fun to own. It’s fun to lend.  “Oh, you haven’t heard/read/watched this certain bit of Stuff? I happen to own that Stuff. It’s in my vast Stuff library/discography/cabinet.”  

But Stuff is Stuff. And Stuff is heavy, when you have to move.  So as the prospect of packing up and relocating to another place in the neighborhood looms over the next month, I’m finding myself a little more eager to get rid of some Stuff so I don’t have to pack it into the HaulStuff truck. 

I took a bin of Stuff to Half-Price Stuff.  I got $30 bucks for a large bin that I was hoping would bring more than double that.  Frustrating. So now some audio Stuff is up for sale on Facebook, so I can maybe get a little more value out of my Stuff. (Let me know if you want the link.)

A friend of mine commented on that post, “But 4thDave, you’re selling your college self!”

Which I am, in a sense. All the musical Stuff I fought so hard to keep, or to repurchase after having to sell it the first time–I’m letting it go. Maybe, in some small way, I’m letting a bit more of my college self go, too. The boy-man who graduated from college and listed to the bands of my younger years is no longer here. He’s been replaced by an older, hopefully-wiser man-man who is embracing a new life with an amazing wife and some important goals ahead of him. A life and goals that are only complicated and crowded by a lot of unnecessary Stuff.

Maybe I’ll miss one or two of the Stuff I’m selling, once in a blue moon. But I doubt it. When I decided what to sell, and I divided my musical Stuff into the “Keep” and “Sell” piles (the sheep on my right hand and the goats on my left), there were several items I had forgotten that I even owned.  They didn’t mean anything to me. And if they don’t mean anything to me when I own them, they won’t mean anything to me when I let them go.

Lots of things to slim down in my life. My Stuff pile is the first.

The tower of boxes of BookStuff in my closet, however? That’s not going anywhere. Even I have limits.