A New Beginning

Dear patient reader,

I know that a few of you have missed my infrequent ramblings and have requested that I return to my keyboard post-haste. When I left you, my boat was last seen leaning against a slender palm and I was looking forward to a bit of a getaway with the mister for a visit with the kids and grandkids. That all went very well, thanks for asking. But by design my world was turned upside down and inside out. Having time to relax and reflect helped the mister and me to come to a conclusion: It was time to put our home up for sale and move across country.

I’ll not bore you with every sordid detail….and trust me, it was sordid. But here is the digest version: Upon returning from our vacation we called a realtor and started down the path of selling the home that we had custom-built nearly 20 years ago. Custom as in every last door knob, toilet and floor tile was chosen by us. That roof? Mine. That dormer? Mine. That brickwork? Mine. All mine. It would be untruthful if I were to say it was an easy choice to make. It wasn’t. But it was time. We wanted to move on to the next phase of our lives and an integral part of that was owning a home and not being owned by a home. What do I mean by that? We owned a home that was far too many square feet, 3 stories and we had acreage. Last time I checked, the clock isn’t running in reverse and I didn’t want to spend the time or money to continue doing the maintenance that house deserves and requires. She served us well and we loved her dearly but the romance was over.

We put our home on the market in early April and it sold in 10 days with multiple offers. In the meanwhile, we traveled to the Southwest to look at homes in earnest. We wanted to be able to take one last look at the area to solidify the nebulous plan that we had in our heads. We had no intention of buying a home during that trip but we did. We were smitten. We loved the neighborhood, the house and the view. The house needed LOTS of tweaking to make it ours, but it had great bones and a wonderful vibe.

Now if you will remember, I had worked on purging and cleaning for quite some time. It certainly made it easier to stage my house when the time came to market it (besides the fact that I didn’t need all that crap). Upon returning home from our house hunting trip; we began selling, donating and purging with a vengeance! My dear sister even made a return trip to help me sort through a ton of things and even pack up a few fragile and special items. In the end, I opted to have the moving company pack my things and I am SO glad that I did. We would have spent a bazillion dollars in packing materials and who knows how many days, weeks and hours it would have taken us??!! It took the moving company crew of 4 ladies two full days to pack everything plus five men 2 more days to load the truck and finish packing. Whew!

Remember my craft room? Crazy to see it reduced to a stack of boxes.

My kitchen didn’t look much better. While I was sad to leave, it was also a huge sense of relief. I was ready to take the next step and ready for some adventure! However, things moved a bit too quickly for the mister. Not that he wasn’t on board or didn’t want to go, but he still had a few more months to work before he could retire. I took his things, his car and his dog and headed west while he stayed in Tennessee. Poor man.

As it worked out, he ended up staying behind from June until October. I drove across country with Charlie and a friend who was willing to lend a hand. I had to wait for about 10 days for my things to be delivered to my new home, but that was my choice. I wanted to clean the carpets and everything else prior to the delivery. I was able to accomplish that, plus having the locks changed, setting up pool maintenance, insect control and several other things. Like sleep. I was tired and I knew that the next phase wasn’t going to be any easier. Bless my dear friends from California who showed up the night before the moving truck. We had a relaxed dinner, some fun and a good night’s rest. The next morning when the semi arrived we were ready!

This company did a fantastic job and I was so impressed how easy they really made the process. Having my friends available helped too! I directed the movers on where to place the boxes and the friends wasted no time in unpacking and unpacking and unpacking.

I was amazed at how much we got done in the span of just a few days. By the end of day 10, I was 95% unpacked with things in their proper homes and just in time for my husband to visit. Funny how he timed that….. We are now quite settled in, but still working on painting, changing light fixtures and upgrading the house. It has been a crazy, busy, rollercoaster ride for the past 9 months but we are so grateful to be here!