Days 130-133

Okay. Here's where I went buck wild with selling lenses. I had my eye on a gorgeous lens but needed to make some room in my camera bag (and bank account) for it. So, here's what I got rid of...skip the next few paragraphs unless you're a nerd, or you're in the market for a new lens and want some mini-reviews.

First, my 28mm f/1.8. Fantastic lens but I use my 50mm prime more, and the lens I was lusting after can pretty much cover any ground this lens could. Still, I took this lens with us to Disney World and it was awesome. But I had to make some sacrifices to get the big lens, and this was one of them.

The second lens, on the other hand, was so not a sacrifice. It's the 18-55mm kit lens that comes with the Rebel cameras and I haven't touched it in almost three years. No love lost.

The third lens was a telephoto George bought me back in 2002. I rarely shoot telephoto and it's not image-stabilized (and I don't have terribly steady hands at 200mm). But it was still a good gift. Glass is always a good gift! :)

The last one is one of my favorite lenses, but it was easy to part with...because I still have a copy. My new camera came bundled with the 28-135mm IS, which I'm super-obsessed with, but which I already have in my bag. (FYI: It's actually pretty cheap as lenses go. But ridiculously clear. Highly recommended.The only downside is the variable aperture, and if you don't know what that means, then it won't bother you at all!) Anyway, I kept one and my friend Sarah bought the new one. This isn't the one I got rid of, but here's a photo of me cradling mine lovingly:

So for awhile there, I had so much camera stuff going in and out that I felt like a miniature B&H. But I finally have a fabulously streamlined camera bag. Whew!

That's one of my favorite things with this blog -- I've sold a bunch of junky little things (and not-so-junky big things) that have helped me to get one or two things I've been coveting forever.

Day 129: Car Seat

One of our neighbors passed this down to us, but we already had Danger's infant seat for Trav...which he's quickly outgrowing. So we decided to pass this on to someone else.

DESTINATION: A local mama-to-be by way of craigslist.

Day 128: White Frames

Disclaimer: I might be posting out of order here. But I happened to have this image uploaded and ready to go, so whatevs.

For awhile we had a ton of white frames filled with various photos of us together, but that started to seem...awkwardly narcissistic. Moreover, these were a much better idea when we had drywall and hanging a picture frame wasn't a messy four-step process. (I'm guessing at the number of steps. I usually hang out on the other side of the room and cough dramatically at the plaster dust while G works. But it seems to take awhile.)

DESTINATION: Yard sale. My cousin bought them and plans to put them to use in an adorable manner :)

Day 125-127: Canon Rebel XT and Accessories

This was my first DSLR -- George bought it for me for Christmas 2005 to encourage me to become a "for real" wedding photographer. (I should put that on my business card.) Eventually I outgrew it, upgraded my main camera, and made this my backup. Then I upgraded again, and while "a backup to my backup" is a nice cliche, it's not something I actually need.

I also sold the battery grip (the big black thing on the bottom that lets me go eight hours without changing my battery) and the charger. I'm counting it as three days because it's a biggie, plus I make the rules :)

DESTINATION: Kansas, by way of eBay. This started the fund for a new body and lens. Wait a few posts and you'll see where I really went crazy.

Day 124: Olympus Memory Cards

Selling the camera, so I didn't need a bunch of extra memory cards. That's the whole exciting story...sorry.

DESTINATION: Colorado, by way of eBay. I made $30.

Day 123: Table Runner

A few months ago, we got rid of a candle tray, and I mentioned that I had thought I was Candice Olson and arranged it on a table runner. The other day I realized we still had the table runner. Um, why?

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 122: Leather Sofa

We bought this sofa back in 2003-ish. We actually tell the story pretty often because I'm not very observant, to say the least, and this is a prime example: George picked up the couch from the warehouse and put it in our living room, and I sat about 10 feet away for several hours without noticing there was a giant new piece of furniture next to me.

It never really worked with our new living room setup, and our neighbors needed a couch that would fit down the narrow stairs to their basement. Perfect! Our sofa has a new home!

DESTINATION: across the street

Day 121: Dance Dance Pads

We were reeeeeeally into Dance Dance Revolution (specifically DDRMax2) for awhile, back in 2004. We were introduced to the game by our friends Mike and Chrissy, and lost so badly that we went out the next day and bought not just the game, but a whole Playstation. (I can't say we're not slightly competitive about games. We did the same thing after losing badly at Mario Kart on Wii. And don't even try to beat us at board games!)

Anyway, the good part about getting addicted to a dancing game is the weight loss -- we played for hours every day and I lost 12 pounds in less than a month. The bad part is the stress fractures. (I'm not joking.)

We upgraded to these pads in the hopes that the padding might help our overuse problems, but they just didn't have the same response time so we decided it was better to suffer with the original, unpadded $10 versions. No way we were going to give up our perfect scores for the sake of being able to walk!

DESTINATION: Trash. They really didn't work.

Day 120 G's Old Catalogs

Wow! Catalogs from 2003! Starrett, Reid Tool Supply, and 80/20 ("The Industrial Erector Set")...all good things. I still like paper catalogs as opposed to PDF in a lot of cases, but not these. Not to mention, they are free if I need a fresh one and I don't buy a whole lot of industrial supplies for my house. Oh, and the bonus book is a C programming book -- I have no idea how that entered my life. They were still pushing Fortran in college.

These babies are outdated.

DESTINATION: Recycling bin.

Day 119: Rose Frame

I'm not 100% sure where we got this. I think it was part of a shower gift for our wedding. It's pretty, but we don't have anything floral in our house. Also, I'm a habitual "in-camera-cropper" (that's for my photogafriends) so I can't frame anything as a circle anyway :)

DESTINATION: Goodwill. Hopefully someone else will put it to good use.

Day 118: Starfish Candles

I really liked the starfish tealight favors at my friend Beez's wedding shower. So much that, when she (or maybe it was her mom) was like, "Take as many as you want!" I really took it to heart. I still have a few left, though, and as I've mentioned ad nauseum, my candle-burning days have passed.

DESTINATION: Trash.

Days 113-117: Shirts for Quilts

What are "shirts for quilts"? They're the result of a brainchild I had about eight years ago. I thought it would be cool if, instead of donating my old clothes, I could cut them up and make a patchwork quilt. And then at night, I could snuggle beneath the remnants of cheap tank tops and fake-velvet pants.

Needless to say, I never really followed through on that plan. It was a bad one.

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 112: Turkey Place Mats

Don't get me wrong, these turkey place mats are cute. But there are two problems:

1) Thanksgiving is the kind of holiday you celebrate for one day a year. It's not like Christmas, where I want to decorate in mid-October and keep everything up until spring. (I don't. But I want to.) So the only day I want to decorate for Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving, which brings me to...

2) I have four place mats. The last time we hosted Thanksgiving dinner, I think 29 people showed up. So...

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 111: Leopard Heart Dude

I can't put my finger on where this came from, but the good money is on my Christmas stocking. It just seems like the sort of thing that Santa would see at the mall or at Columbus Mart and say, "Hahahahahahaha I'm putting this in Kara's stocking." (And before any of my siblings says "You still get a stocking?!" -- I've had this thing for YEARS.) Anyway, I no longer need it because...it's a wind-up purple fuzzy leopard-print heart with legs :)

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 110: Van Zant Bag

This one hurts. Note my sad face. Among my excess of bags, I came across...my Van Zant duffle bag! Sweet. Well, except that it's falling apart. And, you know, I'm not eight years old.

I'm only okay with letting this go because I kept my awesome fifth-grade class t-shirt. It's autographed! Jealous?

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 109: Heart Tray

Another Valentine-themed gift. We got a ton of cute holiday decos for my bridal shower but just need to pare a few of them down. We don't even celebrate V-Day with each other, so the chances of us cooking Valentine appetizers and needing to serve them is slim...so I think it's safe to send this off.

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 108: Heart Utensils

These were hard to get rid of. Not because we used them, but because Travis stole them out of the Goodwill bag and made them his toy of choice for about two weeks. But he's finally moved on.

No major reason for getting rid of these. We only used them for decoration because we're OXO snobs :)

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 107: Booklight

I think once you're past the phase of having an enforced bedtime, you're past the phase of reading by booklight. If I want to read, and it's dark, I'll just turn on the light.

DESTINATION: Goodwill.

Day 106: Makeshift Bookshelf

When I first started writing, I kept every magazine that my name appeared in. That was a really cute idea, the first 300 times. When the magazines started taking over my office, I bought a Closetmaid mini-shelf, turned it sideways, and used it to corral them. Then I ran out of room on that shelf.

The responsible, Trashed-inspired move would be to get rid of some magazines. Instead, I bought a bigger shelf and got rid of this one. But I swear, I'm working on moving my clips into binders so I can whittle down my stash of magazines. Until then...

DESTINATION: My cousin Kristie's new apartment, unless she just took it to humor me and has secretly thrown it away.

Day 105: Belts (and we're baaaaack!)

Okay, so I completely slacked on blog updates. I was kind of under the impression that we were only entertaining ourselves, and maybe two or three random family members, so I was just dumping my memory cards into a folder and ignoring them in the hopes that maybe they would resize and post themselves. No such luck. Three people asked about the blog this week though, which made me nerdily happy. Thanks for actually reading this so it's not, like, my diary.

(I don't have a diary.)

Anyway. Back when I did the clothing purge, I also got rid of a ton of belts! I kept two braided leather belts, and here are the rest.

Please note that I could have counted this as six days' worth of stuff and been that much closer to catching up! But I won't. Do I earn some blogger karma or something?

DESTINATION: Hand-me-down bag.