Silly little side notes

1. This weekend we cleared everything out of our PACKED shed... When I say packed I mean it - remember we went from big to leetle and from keepers to donaters. I'm pretty sure that hubs, A (nephews wife) and I all worked our butts off!

2. In said shed I found a box of stuff (well I found many boxes of stuff) but this one had all the stuff that I've been looking for the whole last year... Some examples: my birth certificate, marriage certificate, audio recording of moms voice, hundreds of dollars of gift cards, etc

3. It's fun having kids around sometimes - two boys can entertain themselves for hours with anything. Example 2 sponges... 6 year old called them tasers and they were playing cops and robbers. When 6 year old tasers 3 year old, 3 year old replies "you can't kill me I'm a zombie"

4- speaking of zombies hubs and I split up for Friday night. Thanks to the magic of gold star pricing he got to go see a zombie play (totally nothing I'd enjoy) with 3 of his friends and I went to mass hysteria with A. I'm sticking with I had a better time (A and I laughed until it literally hurt) but he came home with a goodie bag and a kazoo (3 year old said thanks)

5- I went to a yard sale this weekend but it wasn't your "typical" yard sale. The woman was clearing our her store and her store was Wiccan and full of crystals and books etc. I came home with a few cool gifts!

6- I made hubs the coolest take on tabbouleh last night. No bulgar so I used orzo, no olive oil so I used Italian dressing. But it had in it from my garden mint (orange mint technically), parsley, grape tomatoes, and cucumbers

+++what's you do this weekend? Are you a keeper or a donater?

It's all in finding what you want

This week I've been taking my nephew's wife to look at houses. I think I've mentioned before that my nephew lived in ohio and is military. With odds of him being deployed again fairly high his wife thought moving out here where she would have "a village" to help raise their 2 young boys was a good idea.

They still own a gorgeous home in Ohio and so they've been looking at mobile homes. We've gone to two different parks (chosen a clear winner park!), and toured a number of homes.

I've fallen in love with a couple (what can I say a year in Gregory has made me fall in love with little places & cozy nooks) and A has chosen some that she liked too! We've been on opposite views on some (though I shut my mouth and say nothing) but on Tuesday we found what looks like THE ONE! 3 bedrooms, 1000 square feet, new flooring, etc etc.

Now it's the coming to terms and agreeing

*isn't that pretty much everything in life? Find what you want, come to terms with it and agree with your decision

+++do you love house hunting? I do but it's also exhausting+++

Ode to Gregory part 1 -out with the old

Who is gregory you ask? My house, hubs and I named him after Gregory house MD... What? People name their cars - I can name my house!

It seems weird to write a love letter to my house, but I do a lot of weird things so why not add this to the list?

1 year and 1 day ago I moved from the only address I'd ever known to a smaller house across town. The reality of it was that it was a purely financial decision (well moving was - this house was kismet - we'd already decided on a town house). There was no way we could afford to keep "the big house" between the mortgage, taxes, utilities and upkeep we were falling deeper and deeper into debt (between $1000 and $1500 A MONTH). Hubs never would have suggested we sell it - it was after all the place I was born, fortunately for a VERY short time I saw an extremely frank psychiatrist who was like "regardless of money you will never heal in that house, add in that you can't afford it and it will kill you before you foreclose". I went home talked to hubs and within a week was getting the house ready for sale.

Selling it was --- hard? I was not worried about the building but the STUFF inside. We knew we would be downsizing and I was a packrat. The emotions of getting rid of things "that mom had _____" (bought, touched, or looked at) but slowly with the help of a stager that our realtor recommended we went through every last thing! We cleared our cluttered >2000 square foot house & painted and FINALLY put the beast up for sale. We priced it fairly (enough for us to find a town house in a town we would like - we had been pricing and looking at them and pay off our mortgage) and had an (accepted) offer within 4 days (really the first day but we couldn't formally accept because we had posted an open house for the weekend and we were obligated to have it).

Then it was the torture of inspections and title 5 and every other tedious thing that could go wrong! Ohhh roof that decides to leak and I have to repair? Check! Ohhh propane line I hit with the lawn mower for the first time ever and have to replace? Check... This list sadly goes on and on.

Meanwhile we were house hunting. But I think I'll leave that for part 2!

*****note all these pictures were taken AFTER staging - and all my stuff was in storage :-)

+++have you ever sold a house?+++

A different time a different place

So last night (as most nights) I woke up in the middle of the night. But this time when I woke up I heard the trickle of rain drops falling off the roof. And it occurred to me that I'm no longer afraid of the rain.

In my old house rain would scare me (deep snow too - that hasn't been tested here yet) I was certain that the roof would leak or cave in. I *think* this came from the house burning down once and seeing the flames come through the roof.

In the new house (how long is it the new house for?) I don't have those associations. For as much as I complain and dislike how much smaller this house is - its a safe haven. There are no bad memories (yet, I'm not foolish enough to believe non will happen) and there are no fears...

So i peacefully listened to the rain and allowed it to lull me back to sleep
It really is a different time and place

+++have you ever moved and had it change your outlook?+++