The Skoolie project isn’t going as fast as we wanted. We realized we needed to get a few things figured out before getting the bus.
We need to downsize our stuff. We can’t fit everything we have in a school bus, so we have to find a way to keep what we want or need without taking up too much space. Getting a storage unit is an expensive option, and not recommended. If you are traveling the country, you can’t go back to get things every week. After much arguing and searching for options, we found a way.
Rob found a great way for me to get rid of the bulk of my storage bins. Put everything possible on the cloud!! I have seen too many TV shows and movies where a massive EM pulse takes out the power and the world has to go back to the horse & buggy days. No electricity, no phones, no cars, no lights, etc. I finally realized the improbability of movies coming to life, so I agreed. Put the stuff on the cloud then sell or donate it.
We are scanning most of our pictures and uploading them to the cloud. We will still keep some, but we want to make sure that we have a backup in case of a calamity. We got this idea from my dad and Kay. They were full-time RVers for years and learned lots of great tricks.
The collection I have that takes up the most space is my DVDs. I love having whatever I want to watch available whenever I want to watch it. Taking 7 large storage bins of DVDs is pretty much not going to happen, but Rob found a way to put it on the cloud. He put all of my DVDs on hard drives and a Plex server (not sure what exactly it is, but we’ll have access to them all). It took 2 dedicated hard drives, but he did it. He is now putting them on Ebay, and anything that doesn’t sell, I am donating.
Now for the largest collection, but only second space-wise, my craft patterns. They are heavy and so have to be in multiple small bins. Rob found a way to get them on the cloud, too. I use Adobe Scan to basically take pictures of them, then send them to my OneDrive account. Very tedious! I do a wide variety of crafts; crochet, cross-stitch, needlepoint, plastic canvas needlepoint, crewel, embroidery, and I’ve tried a little bit of openwork like Hardanger. Not sure about that. I’ve also started Cosplay crafting, but all of those patterns are already downloaded, not in book form.
I have started scanning, and still have only finished one small bin. I have all of my Annie’s Attic and Annie Potter Presents crochet doll series scanned, and am working my way through the Paradise Publications crochet doll series. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed making these, so I have started back making some dolls. I have tried to scan some of my plastic canvas patterns, but they seem to be more complicated. The crochet patterns are words, and the PC (plastic canvas) ones are worked on a grid, so have pictures. The ones I tried are some of my big projects, and I’m having trouble getting the images to show the colors. I could just make my own color choices, but these patterns are complicate and big. One of them is a fashion doll sized (11 1/2 inch tall) castle. I need to be able to see the placement of the walls, and need the colored lines to show clearly. I think the grid is making the colors not show up as well as they should. We are going to try taking pictures to see if the colors will come out better.
I have started donating some things. I have a lot of actual books that take up space. I have been donating some of them as well. I make sure they are available on Kindle before I donate them though! I have been putting them on my Kindle wishlist before I donate them though, I have downsized books before and realized that I don’t remember the name of the series, or the author, so I can’t replace them. I gradually remember and replace, or at least write it down, but there are some that I remember the story and still can’t find the books. Definitely learned lessons there!
I donated most of my Christmas decorations, I haven’t had room to put them up in the apartment, and certainly won’t have room in a bus. I kept some of my favorite ornaments, and will be able to use them next year. I donated most of all of my other holiday decorations, but kept the door hangings. I had quite a few bins of these as well, because at one point I thought I would be all Martha Stewart and decorate the whole house for each holiday. I found out that I am too lazy to do that, except for Christmas and Halloween all I do is the door hanging.
I haven’t been able to get rid of my craft supplies, I can’t do anything with them virtually, so I want to keep them. I have started using them again after being reminded that I really do enjoy making things, and it makes me happy.
There are still some things that are too close to my heart to get rid of. The first letter I ever got was when I was 2 months old. My uncle sent it to me from Viet Nam. He sent me another when I was 2 years old, also from Viet Nam. I can’t get rid of those! But things like that are too dear to me to get rid of.
We are still searching for new ways to downsize, and I will update you as we find them.