I’m not a resolution-maker. Not at all. I can’t recall that I’ve ever made one, and this year is no different.
That said, since I returned – both to Seattle from Madison and to health from sickness (I had severe, hospital-necessitating food poisoning over Christmas) – I have noticed that I have changed how I’m living in a number of ways. So maybe, somewhere in my brain, a resolution switch got flipped without any conscious effort on my part… Or maybe having been sicker than I had ever previously been in my entire life subconsciously made me want to change some things about that life.
So, without further ado, here are the things I’ve found myself changing in 2009:
- I’m keeping my apartment cleaner. Like, WAY cleaner. Like, super-scrubbing my char-encrusted dutch oven, cleaning out all the closets, catching up on my three-foot stack of backed-up filing, getting rid of furniture kind of clean. It’s beautiful to look at, and it makes me want to keep it that way.
- I’m making my apartment nicer. I got a new, rectangular dining room table, replacing both my desk and my old, semicircular dining room table. It has changed my life. I sit at it all day long, whereas I never used either of the deposed pieces of furniture. I’m also finally getting around to putting a curtain up on my bedroom window (currently a very bland, severe rectangle with icky mini blinds). Plus, I got a flat-screen TV for Christmas, which makes the whole place look better – and makes it easier to manage my higgeldy-piggeldy entertainment infrastructure.
- I’m dressing better on a daily basis. Jackets instead of hoodies. The occasional skirt or dress. Fewer t-shirts. More creative accessories. …Interestingly, this has not required me to buy much more clothing – just to reconfigure what I already had, and decommission a few old scrungy favorites.
- I’m making more of an effort to live my principles – especially environmentalism, localism, and support for good corporate citizenship. I’m phasing out all my non-bio-friendly cleaning supplies. I’ve swapped out my last few non-CF light bulbs. I’m keeping the heat lower. I’m trying to buy more local and/or organic foods. I’m focusing even more than I did before on buying the greatest possible percentage of my day-to-day needs (and wants) at local, independent businesses. And most radically, I am no longer using international banks for my deposit accounts. By the end of the month, I will have completely withdrawn from both Citibank and WaMu Chase, in favor of my local credit union (amusingly, BECU, the Boeing Employees Credit Union).
Of course, it’s only January 13th – I wonder how many of these things will stick…
So, my three readers, have you made any resolutions – or accidentally stumbled into any?
I am really inclined to go the route of #2 too, but don’t know how to get rid of the OLD furniture. Should I freecycle it? Craigslist it? I don’t want to make decisions about this, and that has prevented me from getting new stuff.
Well, that and money.
I also have this fear that if I buy furniture that fits my current living space, it will not fit a future one and I will have to get rid of it.
So, to me, what I do with the old stuff depends on two things:
1) What it is (and the corollary: whether anyone else would want it enough to pay for it)
-and-
2) My tolerance for waiting for Craigslist people
I’ve gotten rid of a lot of things lately. I did the following things with them:
- Old TV: gave to a fellow iPhD, for free (didn’t have much resale, saved me lugging it away somewhere)
- Old (broken!) PowerBook: sold it on Craigslist
- A box of nice-looking, decent-label clothing & shoes: I have an appointment at a consignment place soon; hopefully they’ll resell it for me.
- My old desk and table: I took apart the former and folded up the latter, and stored them. In case, y’know, I change my mind. I think I’ll probably take the table over to Goodwill though.
- A whole bunch of other stuff (2 old printers, a whole bunch of old clothing, and lots of odds and ends): Goodwill!
Goodwill is also the answer to getting new things without going broke, at least with the great Goodwill near me. My dining room table, which is IKEA, but has a solid wood top and a sturdy metal under-frame and legs, cost me $39 at Goodwill. Awesome. I also got my curtain rod there – $5.
Plus, how long have you been living in your current place? To me, if you’re there for more than a year, and you’re going to be there for at least a year more, it’s worth it to make yourself comfortable. If there are really specific things – like, say, barstools – just buy cheap ones.