(Ed. Note: In honor of our house officially going on the market this week, here is the post where we hashed out whether we should sell or not.)
One of the myriad of questions we had to confront in our planning is whether we want to sell our house in Seattle before we leave on our trip. This issue has both financial and emotional considerations so coming to a decision requires a great deal of openness …

In 1991 I was a sophomore at Texas A&M University when I made the decision I did not want to grow up.  The concern was, maybe if I did, I would not be a Toys R Us kid.  Now, how in the world could I let that happen?
My passion for the toy industry began in earnest in 1988, at the end of 104 minutes which would change my life forever.  The experience that so rocked …

Happy New Year!  For us this is an especially important day because it begins our last 9 months before leaving on the Big Trip.  Last week my friend Karen pointed out the similarity to a pregnancy, which I’ve been thinking about ever since.  And in the immortal words of Prissy from Gone with the Wind: “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies!”
Fortunately for me, we are spending today away from phones, the Internet, and …

Only a few more days left in 2009, and I’m excited to turn the page to a new decade.  But before we do that, let’s take a look back at 2009 and what was most popular on the blog.
I may be compiling this list, but YOU made them popular by clicking through, commenting, tweeting, and sharing with your friends.
So what’s popular? Saving money, getting rid of junk, and living a life true to yourself.  I’d …

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some good times.  And I don’t regret the time we’ve spent together.  But I’ve got to go my own way now.
Surely you’ve noticed my distance these last few years.  I haven’t really done a good job of hiding my feelings, and frankly, I’m a little surprised you haven’t called me on it before now.
The more I simplify my life, the less a season of excess appeals to me.  My …

Did you get a chance to hear Debb Whitlock interview me on the Femme Finance radio show on Friday?  She was generous enough to provide me with a copy of the interview, which I have edited down for you below.  (If you are reading this via email or feed reader, you may need to click over to the site to get the audio player.)

Powered by Podbean.com
Listen in to find out:

How we set up our lifestyle …

Or at least it should be on your birthday.  Today is mine, and I turn 39 years old.  What amazes me about this is that I don’t feel like I ever really age; I just have more experiences.  Maybe it is because I don’t have kids and move fairly frequently that there are no real mile markers of growing older.
Except the annual birthday.
Tonight I’ll host my own birthday party.  In addition to what you’d expect …

Groupon is such a good idea that I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it first.  Groupon features one deal per day with something fun to do, and if enough people sign up for the deal they can offer it at that price.  Emails go out in the early morning, and you’ll always know how many people have to sign up to get the deal.  By the time I log on the deals are usually …

Do you cringe every time you open your cable bill?  Yeah, we did, too.  And in an effort to save even more money for our trip and gain back a little bit of the time we were losing to television, we gave up our cable last summer.   We’ve now saved an additional $600 toward our trip, and we’ll keep saving at the rate of $100/month until we leave.
But that still leaves a hole in …

Are you ready to hit the open road, buy a house, take a big trip, go back to school, or just stop working so damn much?  Boy, have I got a deal for you.
We started saving for our round-the-world trip in 2008 and have currently saved over $80,000, which will keep us on the road for at least 2 years.  Since we aren’t leaving until October 1, we have plenty of time to save enough …

Are you on Twitter?  If you just rolled your eyes and reached for the mouse, give me a minute.  I was a doubter, too.  After all, who wants to know what everyone had for lunch or hear the mundane details of a stranger’s day?
Last night I met Dom Sognolla, author of 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form.  Dom was on the original team that created Twitter, and he had a lot to say …

The project is simple:  If you have ever set a goal and achieved it, no matter how small or large, I want to hear from you. This 5-minute survey will ask you a few questions about the process, allow you to identify yourself if you want to, and give you some room to add your own comments.  The survey will only be open for 5 days, and at the end of that time I’ll start …

Whether you’ve ever had a one-night stand or not, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “walk of shame.”  That’s the next morning, when you are still dressed in your glittery clothes from the night before and have to make your way home amongst the regular people getting coffee and going to work.  Everyone can tell by looking at you that you went overboard the night before.  Chances are you probably have a hangover as well.
This …

Have your Facebook friends been updating with “thanks” messages this month?  I noticed the trend a few weeks ago, and about 20 of my friends were doing it.  They even encouraged the rest of us:
Let’s see how many people can do this. Every day this month until Thanksgiving, post one thing you are Thankful for. The longer you stick with it, the harder it gets! If you choose to accept this challenge, repost this message …

Do you like famous quotes? I do, and it seems like every couple of weeks I find a new favorite, which I scribble on a pink index card and keep on my desk until a new one comes along. It takes me that long to really think about it, appreciate, and apply it to my life (with varying degrees of success).
In honor of Thanksgiving in the US this week, I want to share …

We get some really cool questions, both in person and online.  And over the last 14 months we’ve answered many of them in blog posts.  But you guys know I tend to get wordy, so Warren came up with the brilliant idea of putting them together in a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section.
We received a few really great questions last week that haven’t made it into the FAQ yet, so I’ll answer them here now. …

This weekend I had a big revelation about my friendships:  People are going to miss me when I’m gone.  I know that sounds crazy – who wouldn’t realize that her best friends would miss her if she left the country? – but I really didn’t consider it before now.
On Friday night I was sitting in my bedroom with a friend going over some of the items I’m going to auction at my birthday party next …

I double-dog dare you to break a mirror, walk under a ladder, cross paths with a black cat, and step on the cracks in the sidewalk today.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Yeah, I’m not quite ready to do all that either.
Most of us laugh at superstitions, but they are so ingrained in our everyday lives that we subconsciously follow them.  In fact, you will have a hard time finding a building with a 13th floor since …

Have you ever been dying to know the answer to something but felt too embarrassed to ask?
We often do this in group learning environments because we don’t want to look dumb.  But when it comes to gossiping with our friends, there seems to be no limit to the questions that can be thrown on the table.
Now that we’ve all become such good friends, I’d like to gossip a little bit with you.  And I don’t …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
There, we’ve done it.  You now know exactly what we did to save half our income last year to take the trip …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
How would you like to see the world while you pay off your debt?  Living without cable or a car seems much more …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
You can really complicate your budget process by adding a bunch of tools, reading a ton of books, and listening to everyone’s advice. …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
One thing that can easily throw you off track with your budget is a birthday or holiday.  Guilt, habit, and social pressure make …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
As part of this series I want to show you other people who have reached a personal financial goal. …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
So you’ve made up your budget and you’re on the way to financing your big dream.  And then you look around your …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
Now that you’ve worked out how much your big dream will cost, where you are currently spending your money, decided which expenses are …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure.  And what’s right for me may not be right for you.  But I think we …

This is part of a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
Back in my spending heyday, it was nothing for me to drop $300 on a pair of boots, plan a weekend trip …

How much are you spending?
Can you tell me how much per year you spend on groceries or cable TV? Or how much money you charge each year on your credit cards?
If you don’t know, you are not alone.
What’s important to many of us is what we can have right now, not what we can have later on.  So it makes sense that our spending habits function much the same way.  We worry if we have …

This is the first in a series called How We Saved Enough Money to Change Our Lives and How You Can, Too. Click here to get all the posts delivered directly to your email inbox or feed reader.  You’ll want the inside scoop on how we saved $75,000 for the adventure of a lifetime!
How much money do you think it takes for two people to travel around the world?  Actually, let’s take it a step …

This blog is all about living your best life and following your dreams.  In order to be able to do that, you have to allow other people the same opportunity to live their best lives and accomplish goals.  You can’t do that when they don’t have the same rights as you.
Referendum 71 was placed on the Washington ballot by a man who doesn’t even live in Washington State.  He became outraged when our legislature passed …

You’d think someone who is willing to get rid of all her worldly belongings to travel the world would not be so focused on safety nets, but I am.  Lately I’ve been thinking about the small ways the idea of  a “backup plan” keeps us from reaching farther toward our goals and actually reaching them.
In other words, the potential pain of not having a safety net (or having a very small one) could make us …

We’ve talked a lot about our lifestyle changes over the past year as we get ready for the Big Trip.
Now that we’ve hit our financial goal, however, it makes sense to tell you exactly what we did to save almost half of our income in a year (and the things we did leading up to this year) so you can do it, too.
Whether you are planning for a trip like ours or a completely different …

It has been over 3 months since we pulled the plug on cable.  How are we doing?
First, a Recap
You may recall my first post about television being a problem for us when we implemented TV-free Tuesdays at our house.   That worked well for a very short time, and then we began backtracking by switching the date around to coincide with nights we already had plans out of the house (how convenient!).  Then we just started …

How many times have you ever said that to yourself:  A) every day, B) on a good day, or C) never?
This week I discovered a great little exercise to help you appreciate your strengths and use them to accomplish more every single day.  Want to know what it is?
It is called the “I like who I am” game, and it was sent to me by Chris Haddad, a marketing and copywriting guru here in Seattle. …

Do you ever watch those “docu-dramas” on television about the incredibly obese, people with addictions, or terrible relationship issues? Sometimes seeing the extremes helps us feel better about our own issues (at least I’m not THAT bad!) and sometimes it spurs us to action (I don’t want to end up like THAT!).
If your issue is clutter, then you are probably aware of shows like Clean Sweep, Clean House, and Hoarders.
Today Oprah, the Queen of …

Most people don’t move as often as we do, so they don’t get the chance to become experts in the process.  After a couple of local moves (within 30 miles) and a few cross-country, we’ve developed a system that makes moving almost painless.
Today I shared these tips with Redbook magazine for an upcoming story about making your new community feel like home and wanted to share them with you.
7 Ways to Take the Stress out …

Do you look back on high school as the best time of your life?  Probably not, but for many people it was the easiest time in their lives to make friends.  Think about it: exposure to hundreds or thousands of students every day and organized social activities meant that it wasn’t hard to make friends if you put forth even the slightest bit of effort.
(I know, I know – not everyone was class president or …

So many blogs and news sources point out when things go wrong, and we’re always waiting for the next scandal, aren’t we?
One of my favorite newsletters is by Chris Brogan, and he has a regular column about Who’s Doing it Right.  This just seems like a small way to balance things out, so I’m going to follow suit and post regular updates on Who’s Doing it Right.

Josh Hanagarne is the World’s Strongest Librarian.  Josh is …

This is it!  We are now one year exactly from our departure date to Ecuador, the first stop on the big trip.  It is hard to believe that it is so close, and we still have so much to do.
At the end of each year I like to take an inventory of what has been accomplished and what I want more of in my life going forward.  Since we are now on a one-year countdown …

It is a bit ironic when you think about it, but most of us need help to live simply.  You’d think it would be easy, wouldn’t you?
For those of you who have struggled with this (and I count myself in that number), there is a now an easy resource to help you along your path.
The book is called The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life and it is written by Leo Babauta, the blogger behind …

This month marks one year since we made the decision to leave our jobs and chart a new course on life.  We started this blog to document our planning process in hopes it could help future couples thinking about a similar adventure.  As the year progressed we had many discussions on how much to put out into the world about ourselves.  We were worried about alienating any readers and so initially took a very middle …

It’s a provocative question, and one I’ve had directed at me for much of my adult life.  And you know what?  I’m not going to answer it for you today (mainly because the answer is both yes and no and because it doesn’t really matter).  What I am going to do is talk about the paths that we all choose to take and why it is so important to appreciate personal choice.
First, let me direct …

So, how are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions? Yeah, me too.  They started going south when the weather was still cold, and here we are at the end of summer already.
Do we just cross them off the list and say we’ll do better next year?  Give up all together?
One thing I learned during the 3-day Novel Contest was that you can sustain even a very big effort if you put a boundary around …

Before you ask how you can get infected with the happiness bug, you should also know that unhappiness, obesity, and cigarette smoking are contagious as well.
In fact, it seems as if we never left high school.  Who you hang out with matters, and the lifestyle they live will greatly impact yours (and vice versa).  And it’s not only your close friends but the friends of those friends that matter.  Your entire social network impacts your …

If you like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite Valley, you can’t miss Black Canyon National Park in Western Colorado.
Black Canyon is so deep that the Gunnison River loses more elevation in 48 miles than the Mississippi River does from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. The river drops an average of 96 feet per mile, and up to 480 feet in one 2-mile stretch.  At the the highest elevation (Warner Point), the gorge is 2,772 …

Have you heard of No Impact Man (Colin Beavan)?  This is the guy who convinced his family to try living one year without making an negative environmental impact.  This meant no electricity, no television, no trash, and no motorized transportation (including elevators and escalators).  He wrote a blog and a book about the experience (subtitled “The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and …

Have you been to a national park lately?  Sometimes we overlook these vacation destinations as we head toward locations with better advertising budgets, like Las Vegas, the beach, or a cruise.
We’ve just spent a few days in Colorado and took some time to tour 2 different national parks (stay tuned for detailed posts with pictures).  Both were breathtaking in different ways, and we could enjoy them as either drives, hikes, or a combination of the …

I have wanted to write a novel since I was 8 years old.  Quick math tells me that was 30 years ago.  In the last 30 years, guess how many novels I have written?
If you guessed zero, you would be right.  If you guessed higher than that, I thank you for your optimism about my work ethic and hate to disappoint you.
Ever since we decided to redesign our lives and take this trip around the …

Do you reserve your explorations for the 1-2 weeks per year you actually leave town? Consider changing that mindset to regularly see new things in your own backyard.
No, I’m not talking about an I’m-broke-so-I-can’t-go-anywhere staycation. I’m talking about cultivating the curious attitude from your travels into your daily life.
People will travel halfway around the world to see a culture that is likely living in an area of their own city.
Have you been to your …

Q: Where can you see whales, deer, farm animals, and a camel within minutes of each other?
A: San Juan Island, off the coast of Washington and just a stone’s throw from British Columbia
We spent 3 days in this isolated paradise and didn’t want to come back.  I can see why the owner of our cabin leaves out real estate guides for guests – you cannot visit without wanting to move here.
San Juan Island History
San Juan …

Do you start dreading going back to work the minute you leave on vacation?  Does the thought of all those emails and tasks piling up prevent you from enjoying your time off?
Most people do struggle with this, and many seek to resolve it by keeping up with email and work while on vacation.  Hey, whatever works for you (but it doesn’t sound like much of a vacation).
We just got back from 72 hours of disconnected …

You know how you get together with a friend and you don’t have any really big stories to tell about your life but you have about a hundred little ones?  And how much fun it is catching up with each other over the small things?
Well, that’s how I’m feeling these days.  Several thoughts below that are not quite big enough for a blog post and not quite small enough for Twitter.  So we’re going to …

Today marks 400 days until we leave on our trip around the world.  Yes, it sounds like a ridiculously long time away to be marking as a milestone, but I just love to count down to events.  Plus, when you consider I started the countdown when there were over 700 days to go you will realize I am a bit obsessed.
Counting down is how I have marked big occasions throughout my life.  It started when …

When we first decided to take this trip a year ago, we didn’t know anyone who had done it.  Oh sure, there were famous travelers like Tim Ferriss and Rolf Potts, but not anyone we actually knew or could relate to.
We started our blog partly because we couldn’t find the information we needed to plan such a big trip.  That statement seems really funny to me now because we have virtually and literally met dozens …

Making the decision to leave your job and career is daunting.  It requires you to face a some significant issues head on: money, pride, security, opinions of others, uncertainty, and fear.  I admit that making the decision to step off your career path and head in a new direction is not for everyone and certainly not to be taken lightly.  However, I hope my story helps give you pause to consider the possibility.
First, a …

Okay, I get the irony here. I’m posting a video about us *not* watching television.  But getting past that, you’ll see that we’ve made some good changes in the last 6 weeks:

Learning Spanish with lessons every night
More time to read
Increased exercise – mainly hiking and walking
More and better sleep at night
A busier social life

There are a few things we are worried about as we end summer and start moving into fall, which is the rainy …

Imagine there was a movie made about your life.  Not the life you already have, but the life you have just started.
Well guess what?  I just saw my movie!
Julie & Julia is the story of the blogger who spent a year cooking Julia Child’s recipes and writing about them in her blog.  Along the way, she grew as a person, deepened her relationships, and even gained more confidence in herself.  And she learned to cook!
Now, …

Have you ever thought of combining your favorite causes and your free time into one great vacation?
Last week at the Vacation Matters Summit in Seattle, Bonnie Michaels spoke about this method of vacationing and why she an her husband enjoy it so much.  Bonnie is a life coach based in Chicago and is a spokeswoman for the Take Back Your Time project.
Besides meeting people from all over the world who share your passions, you get …

Can you believe we’ve been blogging here for almost a year? In that time we have covered a lot of ground, and new readers to the blog might need a little help finding the information they need.
We developed a Beginner’s Guide page for both new readers and longtime readers who may want to refresh on a particular topic. I’ve also made a video for the page, so we are back on schedule with …

Oh my gosh!  This is so unexpected…and I didn’t even write a speech!  First of all, I’d like to thank my mom…
Excuse me for a moment.  I was in Academy Award mode and picturing myself as I would look if I had a stylist.  The reason for my daydreaming?  I was just given the Superior Scribbler Award by one of my favorite bloggers, Angela Barton at My Year Without Spending.
The award was started by The …

Are you feeling a little fenced in lately?  Need to break free and establish a little more freedom to go after your big dreams (or even your small dreams, like a day without checking email)?  Read on for a  list of great articles and websites I’ve found recently on the subject of FREEDOM.

Leo at Zen Habits is ready to kill his email, and he shows you how to do it, too.  And believe me, you …

One of the first things you notice when traveling is that the food is different.  It doesn’t matter if you are overseas or just in another part of the States.  And when you love something, you can’t imagine why other people don’t love it, too.
People in Pennsylvania like a big breakfast with scrapple, and anyone not from that area would cringe if it was served to them.  Same goes for fluffernutters in Massachusetts, cheese curds …

This week I’ve been traveling in New Mexico visiting my family.  I grew up here, though I haven’t lived here for several years.  In the time that I’ve been gone, there has been an oil boom and bust (the main industry), the addition of a casino and a uranium enrichment plant, and more construction and beautification than this little town has seen in at least my lifetime.
You’d think I would fit right back in.  And …

REI is a fun place to go shopping if your idea of a good time is anywhere outdoors.  We have the flagship REI store here in Seattle, so we recently took an afternoon trip to try on backpacks.  Because we had signed up for the REI newsletter, we also had a handy 15% off coupon if we found something we liked.
When you go to REI, you get a sales associate with some outdoor experience.  Our …

As a veteran traveler and someone about to get rid of everything to travel around the world, I’ve got some opinions about what is really necessary for a trip.
Most people don’t travel as light as I do, and that’s okay.  But there are a lot of people who travel with so much stuff that it actually gets in the way of them – and their traveling companions – having a good time.
Unless you have your …

Making the decision to travel around the world was, for us, a wonderfully liberating experience.  Betsy has done a lot of wonderful writing on how we reached that moment and feelings since then.  For me, the morning after started with a litany of questions and mountains of research possibilities.
After taking a couple days just to explore all the possibilities, I set down to the task of identifying the big questions we would need to tackle. …

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post comes from Bethany North, an avid exerciser who responded to my request for help on the topic of exercising with your mate.
I have to confess that I have definitely been on both sides of the coin from not wanting to exercise at all to being totally obsessed about exercise to finally integrating it into my lifestyle in a natural and balanced way.  It is wonderful to be active on a …

The more I think about our big trip, the more I worry about my physical shape. Not in the self-esteem-challenged, superficial way I have for the last 38 years, but in the sense that I won’t be able to do everything we want if I don’t get in better condition.
Just carrying a backpack as we transition from one place to the next will be a physical burden, not to mention plans like hiking up the …

I am a Planner and not just in the sense that I love to plan. In truth I honest to goodness (who talks this way?) have the title Product Planner for software company here in the Seattle area. They actually pay me for the opportunity to look 3-5 years out and determine what functionality and strategy we need in order to meet the market needs. For a person that loves to plan, this is a …

Today I told my boss that I would be quitting my job next year to travel around the world.  WOW, I feel more liberated than I could have expected.  He was incredibly supportive and happy that I gave him 15 months of notice.  Given that I just got a new role with more responsibility on Monday I would say he took it extremely well. In truth, he was amazingly supportive and I am fortunate to …

A few of you have emailed me about putting the decluttering advice from earlier this year into an ebook, and last week I finally got around to finishing it. (See how productive I can be without cable?)

Those of you who have known me for years know that decluttering is a new skill for me. As a matter of fact, I was packrat and “shopping for the fun of it” kind of person until 2006. So …

You may remember our TV-Free Tuesday post where we attempted to give it up one night per week to do more meaningful things, like learn Spanish and pursue hobbies.
Well, that didn’t work out so well. We began changing the dates of TV-free Tuesday to coincide with nights we already had plans out, so we weren’t really accomplishing anything. So we made the decision to go cold turkey (after the US Open, of course).
Since then I’ve …

Today is the Gay Pride parade and celebration in Seattle, and Mr. Betsy and I will be attending with some very good friends. I’m pretty sure my “opposite marriage” will remain secure as we celebrate life and love with good friends who currently don’t have the same rights as we do.  Not even the right to name a little ole blog “Married with Luggage.”
But this isn’t a political post (much).
This post is about all the …

Editor’s Note: This is part 6 in a 10-part series on Sex and Intimacy. Click here to read from the beginning.
Raise your hand if you like to do it with the lights on.
Yeah, me either.
Oh sure, I have and do, but it is not my preference.  You see, I suffer from a lack of physical self-confidence.  You can blame the media, gender stereotypes, or the extra pounds my 30s have brought me, but it doesn’t …

Editor’s Note: This is part 5 in a 10-part series on Sex and Intimacy. Click here to read from the beginning.
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
Believe it or not, I have the answer. The normal amount of sex in a relationship is (drum roll, please)…whatever works for you and your partner.
Seriously.
So stop stressing about whether you are doing it as much as “everyone else” or “what you used to.” The only opinion that matters in …

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series on sex and intimacy in your relationship.
Did that title get you revved up for a Monday morning, or did you just groan and wish we’d move on to something more relevant to your life, like decluttering?
Emotions run high in both directions when you talk about sex and intimacy in a relationship. There are those who have given up on intimacy because of work, kids, or apathy, …

Do you feel a sense of dread when a friend or family member comes to visit?
Thoughts start racing through your head over where they will sleep, how you will get things organized in time, and hoping they will not judge you for being so cluttered.  If you are any kind of packrat, the guest bedroom is usually the first place you start storing things.
I used to be that way, too.
This weekend my nephew came to …