Hello fellow Steemians, my name is Alex. I’m a devoted husband to a wonderful woman, and proud father of a beautiful little boy and little girl. I live in Canada, around Montreal.

![IMG_20170827_111425.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmREgezAtL2Jb5MeiVj8DTuiDgi7WxgNZumFWwtKRKsWT4/IMG_20170827_111425.jpg)

I live within walking distance of a beautiful, navigable lake. It’s peaceful and quiet and I love it. I wish I could live even farther from the city.

My day job involves working for a very, very large corporation. I am lucky to work with the public and have a job I love, although it’s certainly challenging at times.

There are several aspects of my personality and my life than I feel it’s important to bring up as I introduce myself to you Steemians. These will govern what I post here.

The first thing is that I’m a writer. I have written professionally for the past 6 years. By professionally, I mean that I have done it for money. Someone paid me for my words. I have not written anything sexy, all of it was commercial. 

Translations, reviews, general content for websites of all kinds. That’s what I write. Now, I enjoy it and am grateful to the people who purchase my work, they allow me to do more for my family than my day job could ever let me.

That being said, I think that Steemit will be a powerful platform for me to write what I enjoy writing, and maybe one day, make a few bucks out of it. There is no rush. I write a lot, I will keep writing for money, and I’ll post here what I actually *want* to write about, and maybe someone will like it.

One of my greatest goals in life, besides raising my children right, is to write a novel. I hope to find the motivation to finally do it.

The second thing that governs my life, much against my will, is **stuff**.

Let me explain. My mother was a hoarder. I think I may have it in my genes as well, or at least that’s the way I was raised. The thing is, my mum was smart and organized, and collected nice things so during her life her hoarding was not apparent - too much.

It was only when she passed away that we realized the extent of her condition. 

My parents went from a big house to a smaller condo, put the extra stuff in storage. My grandparents passed away, all the stuff went into the warehouse. Other grandparents, same thing. Combined with my family’s general proclivity to hoarding, you’ve got a real problem.

Eight years ago, my father gave me the keys to the warehouse, and basically told me, here you go, it’s yours. 

For eight years I’ve been slowly trying to get rid of all this stuff. I have sold some on local classified sites, some of it on eBay, my favorite, but it’s slow going.

It needs to go faster. I feel weighed down by **stuff**. Ownership of things has a price, emotionally, and it weighs on your soul and on your freedom. I want to turn that stuff into cash, not just give it away, although I will if it doesn’t sell. 

I don’t want to one day give the keys to the warehouse to my son and daughter, and do to them what my father did to me.

Thank you for reading. I look forward to your comments and feedback, and I look forward to enjoying your posts.

Cheers,

Alex