The Big Move

We take possession of our new place today, but we haven't even begun to pack - luckily we have the whole month. We have been spending most of April weeding out all the things we've accumulated over the last 6 years, and once again I despair over my giant footprint. I'm trying to gather up all the toys that my children don't play with, and the awful thing is this: one tiny piece is missing from this toy/game, rendering it useless if I don't find it, but surely it has to be in the house somewhere! And what if I get rid of this now and it turns up when I start moving out the furniture? I already had one instance when a boot of my daughters went to Big Brothers and the other one was mysteriously left behind. That nagged at me forever.

Seriously, there has to be a better way to deal with stuff. Obviously, acquiring less of it would be the best place to start (and that should be easier considering the jump in rent that we've undertaken) and I'm really thinking that I'm going to buy only second hand toys from now on. My daughter's birthday is coming up and she's dying for one of those new disney princess dolls, and so far they have not turned up on craigslist. If I buy something on ebay is it really better considering what it takes to ship it here?

Meanwhile I have been working on my third picture-book (number one is still out in the world, and number two was ready for sketches when I was sidetracked by number three). Its amazing how difficult they can be to write - isn't there a better, simpler way that I can say this? Also compounding my difficulties was the fact that this time I created a story around what I felt like drawing. It may be to my benefit that if a line doesn't feel right I will literally have a physical feeling about it, and I have to keep writing and rewriting it until I can read it without that nagging sense that those lines are just wrong. I think I may have got it, though, and I'm keen to continue with the sketches!