2025 -- Beginning to Tackle Too Much Accumulated Stuff

CAUTION  -- VERY LONG POST 

The new year, 2026, is here and I realized I had not made a single blog post for 2025.  It was not that we had not done anything.  For some reason I had been so caught up in trying to get tasks accomplished that blog posts were neglected.  Before I totally forget what happened this year, here is a quick review of some of the 2025 highlights.

Weird Weather.  We had a lot of strange weather.  Nothing was absolutely terrible for us, but still somewhat unbelievable now looking back on it.  

We had snow in January,

The winter wonderland we woke up to on January 10, 2025.

 major wind in May,  

Some of the wind damage as seen on May 19, 2025.

 and record high temperatures with almost no rain (0.08 in) in December. 

Five record high temperature days near Christmas.  (https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/near-record-warmth-for-christmas-2025-across-north-texas/3960074/)

 

Decluttering decades of accumulated possessions.  This year will be remembered primarily for beginning to address the massive amounts of stuff that have accumulated over the years.  Our 50th wedding anniversary is in 2026 and we have been in our current house for almost 45 years.  That is a lot of time to accumulate things!  Without the incentive to get rid of items when moving, we have tended to hang onto many items "just in case".  Needless to say, we have accumulated way too much.  It is time to get rid of some of it.

The beginning.  We started with the low hanging fruit---unused clothes and other random things went to local charities.  Used Wii games and the console went to GameStop.

The attic. The grand shoveling really got rolling with emptying out most of the attic.  We had actually recycled lots of boxes and old magazines some years ago, but it was now time to finish the job.  Unfortunately, we are no longer capable of safely carrying items up and down the attic ladder.  Enter Paul and Gwen to the rescue!!

Paul and Gwen arrived for the long Memorial Day weekend.  Despite the heat and dirt, they essentially emptied the attic.  What a collection of stuff, most decades old, that we now had in the garage.  

  

Some of the many things from the attic.

Wine tasting like no other.  Paul and Gwen also helped us clean out the bar of decades old wine.  Needless to say, all of it was well past its prime and nearly all of it was undrinkable.  They decided much of it tasted like "effervescent asphalt".  The wine was terrible, but we had great fun and we all laughed really hard. 

Part of the wine collection cleared out from the bar.  The bottles from Beaulieu Vineyards probably were from a family trip to northern California in 1988, Gwen's first trip to the west coast.

  

Paul directing this unusual wine tasting.

 

We also got to hear about Paul and Gwen's most recent trips, including lots about Pompeii.   

Hearing about the Pompeii adventures

Finding new homes for all of this stuff.  After Paul and Gwen left we got busy attacking the mountain of items from the attic now in the garage. Some of the things had not survived the heat in the attic or attack by critters and were therefore discarded.  However,  many other things were in pretty good shape once they were cleaned.  A lot of the toddler toys went to charity.  The bigger items like bicycles were not practical for us to haul to the drop off site, so we put them along the alley behind the back fence for anyone who wanted them. A large number of the things disappeared (e.g. small charcoal grill, golf bag pull carts, chest cooler) before I could get a picture.  

A subset of the items put out in the alley for the "trash fairy" or whoever wanted it. 

Everything went very quickly except the baby bed used by the Frog and his brother when they were little.  It no longer met national safety standards.  We also later added the high chair (solid wood and much too big for us to cart around) which my brothers and I had used when we were growing up.  One of the neighbors was excited to get it for when his grand kids visited.  

Antique School House Bell.  Although not in the attic, I still had the hand bell that came from the one room school house that my mother and her brothers had attended.  I contacted the historical society where they grew up and asked if they were interested in receiving it.  Yes, they would be delighted to get it.  It is now part of their collection of school items from the first half of the 1900's.  

Hand bell from the one room school house my mother attended

Treasures stored in boxes in the attic.  Next up were the many random things which were stored in boxes in the attic.  This included Little People, Barbies and much more.  Everything needed sorting and cleaning, but they were mostly in very good shape.

eBay Adventures Begin.  After some initial investigation, it became clear that many of the toys, all of which were "vintage" because of their age, were in demand on eBay.  I knew absolutely nothing about selling on eBay, but jumped in with Little People.  These were unsorted in one gigantic collection.  After some online research I found a fantastic site for vintage Fisher-Price toys (https://thisoldtoy.com/).  Using that site I identified the various sets and what went into each.  As it turned out, Gwen loved her toys and had taken great care of them.  Every one of the Little People sets was complete and in great shape once they were cleaned.  Most of these sold almost immediately.  

Needless to say I was hooked.  Selling on eBay has now become a hobby, at least until I get rid of the excess stuff we have accumulated, which is still a lot.  

Sesame Street characters.  These are all the 1970's style--all plastic with smallish heads.

 

Farm set with mooing barn door.  Unlike many other farm sets offered on eBay, all of the animals still had their ears!  Great job, Gwen.

Daycare/pre-school

 Barbies.  Next up was the large collection of Barbies and Barbie clothes.  Like the Little People, these were mostly in one big collection.  Most of the dolls did not have clothes on and there were many more outfits than dolls.  The Barbies, and especially their hair, were pretty grimy.  The internet came to the rescue again both in terms of how to clean them and how to identify them.  It was a multi-week project, but I figured out which Barbies were which and what clothes and accessories had come with each one.  Not everything was still there, but a surprising amount was. 

Barbies with their original clothing.  Not shown is a large collection of additional outfits and a Barbie storage box.

Tyco truck set.  One of the more interesting challenges was a Tyco truck set.  At first we were not sure that anything still worked.  The trucks did not respond when placed on the powered track next to the controls, but we could see power was getting to the track with a volt-ohm meter.  Thanks to a wonderful website on these sets (https://tycous1trucking.com/), I found out how to clean the track (sandpaper for the rails, followed by Dawn soap and water) and how to check the gears in the interior of the trucks.  I had to replace the gears on one of the trucks, but the website had instructions as well as links to someone selling replacement gears generated with a 3D printer.  The result was a newly restored, fully functional set that sold on eBay in only a few days.  More importantly, I had a blast over a multi-week period working to restore it. 

 

Other toys.  This just scratches the surface of the many toys that I posted and eventually sold on eBay.  I am still amazed there is a market for old McDonald's Happy Meals toys or ViewMasters.  

Random McDonald's Happy Meal Toys from the 80's

ViewMaster and reels for Dukes of Hazard, ET, and Smurfette

In addition to attic items, there were many stuffed toys that had been stored inside.  There was very little demand for many of these, so most of those went to charity after cleaning.  The notable exception was anything associated with the Muppets.  Muppets items of all kinds remain in demand.

Vintage Kermit the Frog Dress Up Reporter Stuffed Doll

 

Much to my surprise, a vintage Dallas Cowboys stuffed toy turned out to be a much sought after (and hence moderately valuable) doll by a creator/artist that had produced similar dolls for multiple teams.   

Kamar Vintage 1980s Plush Dallas Cowboys Doll

 

By this time I had improved my studio for taking the pictures needed for the eBay postings. 

Studio for taking pictures

Selling Silver and all his associated accessories.  While cleaning and posting of the various toys continued, we began the work in earnest on our next major project to pare down accumulated possessions--selling Silver, our 2007 Lazy Daze RV.  

Although we had not put many miles on him (he still had less than 10,000 miles), we had many great adventures in Silver going to multiple locations in Texas and the southwest.  We had loved using him. 

Silver in Palo Duro Canyon, August 2007.  This was Silver's maiden voyage coming home after picking him up at the factory in California.  We had made multiple stops along the way.  He is hooked up to power and water here, but we stayed multiple nights in a no hook-up site at the Grand Canyon.  That wonderful roomy somewhat secluded site at GCNP was made possible by Silver's great boondocking capabilities.

 

Unfortunately traffic has gotten much worse and handling all of the various chores associated with running and maintaining an RV have become more than we wanted to continue doing.  

Unfortunately selling him was not straightforward.  Most RV dealers would have given us essentially nothing for an 18 year old RV.  In fact, according to their websites, it appeared most RV dealers would not even consider a rig that old.  That is probably understandable since most RVs fall apart long before they are 18 years old.  However this was a Lazy Daze, which was made to last.  We knew Lazy Daze still had a significant cult following, especially among former LD owners.  We therefore set out to get him presentable and ready to sell directly to a new owner rather than trying to go through a dealer.  That turned into a massive multi-part and many month project.  

First was unloading all of Silver's contents.  Silver was a self-contained home away from home.  Except for perishables and water, he was basically ready to go at anytime as soon as we loaded our clothes and camera equipment. We therefore had to unload and get rid of bedding, towels, dishes, pots and pans, kitchen utensils, toaster, Weber grill, all kinds of tools, compressor for pumping up the tires, laundry baskets, cleaning tools and supplies, etc. etc.  It does not sound like much, but it was many carloads.  I did not think to take a picture, but our dining room was completely full once we got things home.  Fortunately, with my newly acquired eBay experience, I listed many of these things on eBay and most sold very quickly.  

One of our two Travasak sleeping bags for RVs and boats.  Used Travasaks in good shape are highly sought after since the company had gone out of business.

 

Unbreakable Melamine dish set that lived in Silver.

  

The set of pans that packed down into a very small space.   

  

1/2 inch torque wrench that lived in one of Silver's service bays in case we needed to change a tire.  Fortunately we never did, at least not until after we sold this wrench (another one of the misadventures trying to get him ready to sell). 

Shipping challenges.  Shipping items to the buyers on eBay, both toys and Silver items, led to a whole set of separate adventures.  This was primarily to find appropriate shipping boxes.  Used Amazon boxes worked great for some items, but we did not have all sizes.  The US Post Office, our primary shipper, is not a good source of boxes.  Even UPS or Federal Express rarely had the boxes we needed and would have charged a large amount for custom-made boxes.  Many boxes are available online, but buying online usually would have required buying in quantity even when we only needed a single box.

There were exceptions.  We did find a 24"x18"x18" large moving box at Lowe's which was a perfect fit for the the two Travasaks.

We were at first not so lucky in finding other odd size boxes.  Eventually we stumbled upon Boxes4U (https://boxes4u.com/) in Plano.  They mostly sell in bulk, but have a thriving walk-in business where they will sell individual boxes.  It was a moderately long drive that I did not want to do often, but showing up with my long list of needed various size boxes was well worth the trip.

Even theoretically finding a box that would work did not make very heavy items practical to ship.  Federal Express easily handled the large box containing the Travasaks for a moderately reasonable rate since it was only 20 pounds.  However the Weber grill was much heavier.  Many many people contacted us about the grill but were turned off by the high shipping cost. We were finally able to sell it to someone as a pick-up item.  Problem solved. 

Silver dead in the water at the storage unit.  Emptying out Silver was a long process, but in many ways was the easy step.  He needed a variety of work done, much of it due to him having sat idol for a long time.  The truck battery had a trickle charger that got its power from the house batteries.  Unfortunately, even though the house batteries were plugged into an outlet at the storage unit, they were often not being charged.  We later learned the storage unit company may have been having trouble with their power. All of these problems meant the truck battery had become discharged and was totally dead when we tried to move Silver for his annual state inspection in August.  

Punch list of items to get Silver ready to sell.  Taking care of the truck battery started a long list of repairs and what became weekly and sometimes almost daily work on Silver over a multi-month period.

• New truck battery.  After jumping the truck battery, we limped to a local shop we knew worked on large vehicles.  We got both a new battery and his annual state inspection before his registration expired at the end of August.
• Initial cleaning.  We drove Silver to the do-it-yourself RV wash in Corinth to give him a bath.  He had been stored under cover, but a steady wind through the site had deposited lots of dirt.  The wash only helped a little  The roof was still black and the outside mirrors appeared to be permanently disfigured.  Maybe it would have to be good enough.
• New house batteries.  Since they had been discharged too long, the house batteries would no longer hold a charge.  Unlike the last time we got house batteries, BatteriesPlus would no longer install them.  They were too heavy for us to buy and install ourselves.  Fortunately, after a lot of searching online, we found an RV repair company, JBRV Mobile RV Repair in Ponder, who would install them at our storage unit. 
• Rebuilt electric generator--new carburetor and new fuel pump.  While working on various issues we discovered the electric generator would no longer start.  The RV repair person said he did not work on generators, but gave us the name of someone who did.  The generator repairman came to the storage unit and diagnosed the problem---old gas and long periods of disuse had gunked up the insides of the generator.  He sent me to the nearby O'Reilly Auto Parts for two bottles of  Sea Foam Engine Additive which we immediately added to the gasoline tank.  While that was going on he replaced the carburetor in the generator.  He also discovered that the fuel pump in the generator also needed to be replaced, which he ordered and returned a week later to install.  Once these repairs were made, he was adamant that we needed to run the generator at least 30-40 minutes every week until we completely used up all of the old gas.  
• New tires.  Silver's existing tires still had plenty of tread and looked nearly new, but were old enough to no longer be safe  That is particularly true for such a heavy vehicle.  In any case, having out of date tires would likely have been a deal breaker when trying to sell him.  We therefore took him across the street to Discount Tire and got six tires installed and a new spare.
• Flat tire.  Only a few days after they were installed we were getting ready to do something and discovered that one of Silver's new tires was completely flat.  We called CoachNet, our roadside assistance service for RVs.  We had subscribed to CoachNet since first getting Silver 18 years ago, but had never used them until now.  They sent someone out to the storage unit to change the tire.
• Back to Discount Tire.  Discount Tire checked out the flat tire and decided the valve stem cap had been over tightened, allowing it to leak.  Did not know that could happen but at least it was now holding air as the spare.
• New toilet seat.  While running the generator at least once a week, I worked through doing a deep cleaning of Silver's entire interior as well as some work on the outside.  Everything was going great until I went to put down the toilet seat after cleaning the toilet and the seat came off in my hands.  The plastic connectors that hold the seat to the body of the toilet had disintegrated.  Fortunately that was a relatively easy fix we could do ourselves after finding a new seat at Lowe's.
• Inspection and exterior cleaning.   It was now early November, usually the beginning of the worst time of year to sell an RV.  By this time we were getting frustrated with all of the remedial work needed and the time it was taking.  I was still concerned we might be missing something important which would cause a problem with closing a potential sale.  I did an online search and found multiple nearby certified RV inspectors.  We contracted with one of them.  After dropping Silver off at his house, he would do the "preparing to use" inspection which is less extensive, does not include a written report, and is therefore less expensive than a full "preparing to sell" inspection.  To inspect the outside and particularly the roof, he first needed to wash Silver.  Needless to say, he did a FANTASTIC job.  After a day and a half of work, multiple washings, multiple waxings, and special attention to restore the integrity of the mirrors and windows, he had Silver looking like new!

Silver cleaned up well and did not look like an 18 year old RV

• New propane, CO, and smoke detectors.  The inspector did discover that the various safety detectors were past their normal operating lifetime.  After getting those at the hardware store, we took them with us to pick up Silver and the inspector helped us install some of them.
• New toilet seal.  Also the toilet would no longer hold water and hence needed a new seal.  To replace Silver's style seal required removing the entire toilet, something beyond our capability.  I ordered the seal from Amazon and made an appointment with the JBRV to come out and replace it.  Their first available time slot was a couple of weeks out.  Little did we know then that we were fortunate to get it squeezed in as soon as we did. 

Plan for selling Silver.   It was now early November.  Silver was finally looking great and, with the exception of the new toilet seal which was scheduled for replacement, it seemed all of the punch list items which we were going to address were finished.  Our plan was then to finally post him for sale as follows. 

1. Post ads on two Lazy Daze websites (Lazy Daze Buyers & Sellers Page and Lazy Daze Premier Buyers and Sellers group) and the Lazy Daze Owners' Group webpage.  All of these had lots of Lazy Daze RVs for sale, many of which had been listed for months.  It did allow us to get Silver's info to people who already knew about Lazy Daze RVs.  It also gave us information on current asking prices. 
2. Given the time of year, we did not expect Silver to sell quickly.  We planned to list him on one of the national RV sales websites such as RV Trader (www.rvtrader.com) after the first of the year. 

Placing the ad.  I decided to put together my own webpage, 2007lazydaze.blogspot.com.   This meant the number of pictures would not be limited and I could also include a lot more things like the list of standard features on a 2007 Lazy Daze RV.

On the morning of November 11 I activated my website with Silver's info and posted info and links on the three Lazy Daze sites.  

I started getting texts just after we went to bed that night, but did not look at them in detail until the next morning.  After responding to the texts and talking on the phone to the interested party, she made an offer for Silver.  After multiple additional messages and calls back and forth, we accepted her offer and worked out when she would arrive the following week with her two dogs in a rental car to pick up Silver and drive him home to Florida.

That is exactly what happened.  She arrived on 11/19 (albeit only hours after the toilet seal was replaced) and liked what she saw.  The wire transfer was done the following morning.  We transferred the title and signed the bill of sale.  As of November 20, Silver now had a new owner.   She and her two dogs set off through the rain in Silver for a visit with friends at Lake Texoma before the drive back to Florida.

  

Mar, Silver's new owner

 

"Hey, Mom, let's go!"  The pups were ready for their trip back to Florida

It was a little sad to see Silver go, but we were amazed at how quickly he had sold once he was listed.  Even if this deal had fallen through, three other people called while the sale was pending to express their interest.  It was a lot of hard work getting to this point, but it had a very happy ending.

Christmas 2025.   The year was quickly coming to an end, but there was still one more major event.  Paul and Gwen arrived for Christmas.  As always it is wonderful to spend time with them.  It was fun to hear about their recent trips to Scotland and Germany.   

Christmas dinner 2025

 

A major part of their time here was spent planning for possible upcoming trips to Costa Rico and to Peru.  It was exciting to be with them and talk about these possible new adventures.  We look forward to hearing trip reports when they return, but that will be for future blogs.

No trip reports from us this year, but 2025 was still a very busy year.  Now on to 2026......