Negative Thoughts

I don't watch much tv but a few years ago I became addicted to a show that lasts only 12 weeks??, not sure...So I watched it tonight, this being it's last season. This summer after that show CNN has a 1 hour special where they send one of their reporters out in normal off the news living.

Tonight he was in Nebraska with a rancher, along with someone else reporting on the river traffic in St Louis on the Mississippi River….the major highway for transporting corn throughout the Midwest.

The theme of both locations….drought.

They were about the close down the river traffic because it has become so shallow. The Rancher in NE is about to lose his ranch, unless he is getting rain this summer. I could not tell which year they were in, 2012 or 2013.  I think it has rained a lot through there this year but I'm not sure.

By the end of two shows I had some interesting thoughts….no couch.  The trailer has no couch and during these two shows or the few times I watch tv, always, the bloodhound and the older basset hound lay under the coffee table and the younger basset lays on the couch.

So I wondered how that would be with the trailer having no couch?…just then a "brief" thought on selling the house….but more thoughts on what if nothing sells…the house, the truck, the Mini Cooper?? 

So my response tonight to all of this fast bombardment of negative thoughts I think is interesting because it is different than all the other times this happened to me. In the past when I had some quick negative thoughts like that, I would be outside right now at 11:40pm, pulling my for sale sign up in the dark…..but not this time.

I thought about what if the house and the cars sell….what if the house sells quick and I have not sold my vehicles yet….I would leave my vehicles on my friends car lot and sell them on consignment.

So I no longer wondered about the couch…..I saw the dogs finding their own sleeping/hanging out places inside the trailer once we came inside…I saw getting up early in the morning and after a cup of coffee, pulling out to a new camp within a few hours.  I saw traveling when I had an urge to go somewhere I had either been before or a place I've wanted to see and towing my house behind me…a bed the same size I have in my house, AC IF I want it and peace and quiet away from people, traffic noise, stuffed up sinuses, and to save electricity….a lantern.

So instead of freaking out with doubt….I have finally been able to recognize those thoughts (tiny negative voices) and then think of what I really want to do and that is to be moving around the western states with no yard work, tornadoes, freezing snow, boring work. Then pull into some small town for some gas, groceries maybe a dog park or a local diner.

I can't wait for Linda to show up on Wednesday to sign paperwork for her agency to list my house.….and I can't wait for my cars to sell. Her schedule was not open until Wednesday for us to meet and get the house on the market.

Looking at the "completed" listings on eBay on my Mini Cooper, there were a lot of listings the past two weeks and a lot of no sales and the couple that did, sold way below book value. My friend mentioned to me that it's August and that may not be the best time trying to sell cars or trucks because people are having to spend a lot of money getting their children into school, with book fees and clothes. I then remembered my co-worker telling me she was spending about $1,500 for her 6, 8 and 18 yr old to start school.

Still it only takes one person that likes that color of car, or the location or the low miles.

Spent the day cleaning....for just one person living in this house, its amazing where dust comes from. I took my biggest load of clothes yet to Goodwill, yes they are open on Sundays.  I am down to what I would call the bare minimum....I have a closet and 1/2 to clear out but that will take place this Saturday when I take 8 plastic tubs of sports programs and magazines that I use to sell online to recycling. Then I will have 8 tubs for storage on the road. The other part of the closets are throw away stuff. I even cut down my dishes and silver to a 4 pcs setting, even though I plan to use paper/plastic on the road.

Spent all day getting rid of stuff and as I sit here, it hardly looks like I put a dent in downsizing.