Rootless Relocation, Part 11: My New Permanent Temporary Home

Permanent temporary?

It's permanent temporary because I only plan to be here in New Mexico for one year, two years tops. I've taken to telling people that I'm into r-e-a-l-l-y slow travel. Not this slow, but slow.


Moving in

Here's a photo of all of my worldly goods, carried here with me in my car.

All my worldly goods

It took me about ten minutes to move in. No beer, no pizza. I did pop a diet Coke when I finished. Oh, and that's the dining room (or breakfast room, if you prefer).


A permanent temporary home for what remains of my classic, paperback sci fi? 

This great apartment has a beautiful built-in bookcase in the den. Who would have thought there'd be a place for my remaining library of paperback classic sci fi?!  

I'll continue my release-to-the-wild project, but in the meantime, I'm happy they have a comfortable and lovely spot to hang out.

Which brings me to .... 

I'm going to have to accumulate some stuff again.

Like: 

• Bed(s)
• Broom, mop, vacuum cleaner
• Coffee maker
• Bed linens
• At least one table
• Some real chairs (not just the two camp chairs I have)
• Microwave? 

A TV is not in the plan.  

The apartment is so great and I feel that nesting urge to buy cool stuff to make everything "perfect." 

I have a dilemma: How do I balance a desire for a personal environment that gives me sensory pleasure with a desire for practical asceticism?

And what thought process do I want to use when buying more stuff?

• Buy new?
• Buy used? 
• Get from a place such as freecycle? 
• Combination of the above? 

I'm naturally a frugal person, so that's a key driver in which direction I go, but do I also want to espouse any particular philosophy about where I get my stuff? For example, some people only get used stuff. Or only get free stuff. And so on.

Fortunately, Alamogordo has more thrift shops per capita than perhaps any town I've seen, so theoretically, I should be able to find some cool used stuff.

Alamogordo also has an active freecycle presence. (I learned about freecycle from my daughter.)

Until I figure some of this out, I'll be sleeping on the floor. 


Connected

I got connected to the internet the day after I moved in.