The Metamorphosis Begins . . .

The beginning of Phase I of my metamorphosis has begun. The plan is to go from being tied down with a lot of overhead for living and for business to “living and working free.” There are essentially three Phases to this transition.

Phase I: Make the decision and commitment to give up my current lifestyle on the ranch, burn the bridges and leave the ranch. The decision has been made, the commitment has been made, the notice has been given and the bridges are burning. I will be off the ranch by October 31, 2008.

The next part of Phase I is to down size in a major sense of the term. Essentially, I’m pretty much cutting all the “fat” and eliminating years of accumulated “stuff.” This includes furniture, kitchen stuff (dishes, glasses, extra silverware, hand utensils, small appliances, etc.). This is HARD! I’m going through this process right now. It’s amazing how hard it is to get rid of stuff. It was so easy to acquire it. And, it’s really interesting how attached we are to things we really don’t care about nor use anymore. We tend to put higher values on our stuff then the public or anyone else is will to give us. I’m working hard at taking the position that everything is negotiable and that everything must go. So, I’m trying not to be insulted when people make me offers that are way below my expectations. But, my overlying goal is that it MUST GO, so only when the offer is beyond ridiculous or insulting will I not accept the offers.

So far, my queen bed is gone, tonight I’m sleeping on the spare twin bed I’ve had in the studio/guest room. If it sells, tomorrow, I’ll be sleeping on my (very comfortable) bed height, queen-sized air mattress. I was hoping stuff would just fly out the door and not allow much, if any, time to think about it. But, alas, that’s not happening. Instead, I believe this is going to be one of those painful, drawn out experiences that is going to be a long lasting learning experience. Anyway a number of items have gone, but there has not been any significant money recovered and there is way too much stuff still here. Actual traffic count has been pretty low considering ads in three papers and on-line, plus signs.

Also, part of this phase is the actual move from being encumbered by a fixed vaddress. I will be moving my publishing business from Winchester to Fairfax, VA. A long time friend and client and I are forming an LLC and putting the publishing entity into the LLC as a joint venture. I will have an office at his office complex in Fairfax. I’ll be occupying a spare room at my buddy Dave’s townhouse in Falls Church, VA. I’ll also have a room at another friend’s house in Winchester so I can get away from the city dwelling life regularly.

This down-sizing and making this very significant lifestyle change is very stressful and while it doesn’t appear to be all that difficult, it is extremely taxing. It’s now 11:23 PM and I’m having a difficult time staying awake, so I’m going to end this posting here and pick up from this point in the next posting.

Enthusiastically,
Ed