The moment Ian came up with this “Memory Millionaires” thing, I was on board.  All in.  When is it going to happen?  Calm down, wait a second, there are a lot of things that need to be done!  First things first, let’s determine our mission, vision, and goals. That’s what any good organization would do, right?!  I do this stuff for a (current) living, so I was ready for it to take a while, to spend some time brainstorming, nitpicking, etc… Well that didn’t happen!  Within the time it took us to eat dinner, we had our Mission & Vision statements, and goals were easy to come up with.  These are our current MVG, and will change as time passes:

Mission: Prepare to move into an RV and travel North America, in order to gain insight, gather knowledge, and live amazing experiences.

Vision: Our vision is a lifestyle that allows us to explore North America, and the world, enriching our lives through knowledge and experience, while learning more about ourselves, enhancing our relationship, and trying to have a positive impact on every place we visit and person we meet.  

Goals: Determine what we want in an RV, find one that meets our criteria, and budget, and purchase.   Purge our possessions down to what can fit in under 200 square feet of living space.  Sell what we can, donate the rest!  Be ready to put the house on the market by March 2017.

These have already been tweaked since the first time we wrote them, just one month ago! First, we obviously need to rid our lives of some stuff.  Okay, a lot of stuff.  Living in a 1300 sqft. home on half an acre, with dog, cat, chickens, and a garden, plus Ian’s 1700 sqft. garage, we have acquired MANY things.

I thought purging all this stuff would be much more difficult, but it’s been really so very easy for me. To me it was all about changing my mindset; I’ve been asking myself if items are useful or if they bring me joy.  If it doesn’t fit into one of those two categories, it’s likely going away.

One of the things that Ian said to me since we started downsizing was “YOU CAN ONLY BRING ONE MAKEUP BAG.” And my reply was “whatever,” while I’m thinking “He didn’t specify the size of the bag…”  I rarely wear more than mascara, but when I do choose to wear makeup, I need options!  I forsee a lot of negotiations over what stays and what goes.  Especially items with “sentimental value”; somehow men and women don’t see eye-to-eye on those things!  Right now we don’t really have a goal, other than get rid of things we don’t need, so a lot of things are going in the “maybe we should keep this” category.  It’s easy to pick things that we cannot part with; snowboards, our beer cap maps, and hand-made plates, but do we really need to keep my dried wedding boquet or my Arkansas license plates?  I’m sure these decisions will be much easier once we’ve actually purchased an RV, but until then it’s easier to hold on to those items that we (me) just aren’t quite ready to part with.  I just have to remember my mantra, “Is it useful or does it bring me joy?”