Where did we get all of this. . .

. . . stuff? Do we really need it? Who really got all the money we spent on it? And why is it so damn heavy, anyway?

These are some of the questions my fiance, Charlie, and I asked ourselves last week as we prepared move from Virginia to Austin, Texas for Charlie's new job. We gave away or donated at least a third of our possessions and still managed to fill a 14-foot moving truck. Well, there is nothing like packing and moving everything you own 1500 miles across the country in August—to freakin' Texas (it's hot here, did you know?) and in the middle of a heat wave—to make a girl  reevaluate her consumer habits and her relationship to stuff.

Moving also made both Charlie and me realize that, even though we did have a few favorite local spots, we mostly patronized a lot of chain stores and restaurants in Virginia. Whenever we went to one, we knew, before we even walked in the door,exactly what they were selling: the same stuff we could get at one of their many other convenient locations across the country. So when we left our town in Virginis, we both felt we had missed out a lot of what made it unique.

We don't want that to happen in Austin. We're really excited to be here and we heard that Austinites are really into supporting locally-owned businesses, so we are challenging ourselves to do the same. For one year, we are going to try to patronize only locally owned businesses (owned or headquartered within 100 miles of Austin, or wherever we happen to travel.) Thrift stores (of which Austin has many,) local classifieds and local and state government services are in, too.

We'd like to learn to live a simpler,  more sustainable lifestyle. Plus, when our friends and family come out here to visit us (hint, hint), we'd  like to be able to show them what makes Austin unique and feed them some good food they can't get back home!

Do we think all of this will be easy? Not a chance. Will it be fun? I hope so! If nothing else, we should learn a lot about Austin and about buying local - certainly more than if we simply head for the nearest big-box store when we need something for the house, or to Chipotle or Taco Bell for a burrito fix (we're in Texas, for crying out loud, I think we can do better than that here, don't you?!) And perhaps we'll have some interesting adventures (and probably misadventures) to record for your amusement.

We are total Austin newbies though and we can use all the help learning to buy local that we can get. So if you are familiar with Austin and have advice (like, say, where to get the best vegetarian burrito in town!) please leave a comment or email me. We'd love to hear from you!