The Long and Short of it

Moving day finally arrived....as in, time to put my sewing room together. The long arm sewing machine pieces have been residing in the corner of the tack room in the barn. We brought them over to the house, and unloaded them. 

Between the two of us we found another 8-10 cartons of craft supplies, and those came over to the new sewing room/studio, creation space, whatever I'm going to call it.  

Then I had the fun of unpacking, putting everything in its place, and assembling the long arm machine. 

We are finally getting there!

It's Moving Day!

Finally!!

At the end of July our garage began a Cinderella transformation to become at sewing studio for me. Today was our moving day! The transformation took just over 3 weeks, but it seems so much longer than that, because I've wanted this from the day we moved into our home!

The contractor brought his daughter and his right hand man to paint the room.

I began hauling things from the packed guest room to their new home.

I put together this Kallax IKEA storage system that I bought from a gal who was moving and wouldn't have room for it. Her loss, my gain! It's been stacked in pieces in the guest room for months.

It's hard to believe that everything in this picture (except the desk) was in our small guest room!

But wait....there's more!

S to the Fourth Power

Sifting

Sorting

Selling

Storing

That has been our work for more than a month as we cleared out the house we have in California. This was just a "sometimes" house, and because of Covid, we had not even seen it for well over a year. 

How can two people accumulate so much stuff in such a short time of ownership?! 

We sorted things into several piles:

Go to Florida

Store in California 

Sell

Give away

Throw away

Going into this I had a few options for selling some of our unwanted furniture: 

I found a company that will charge for the space your stuff takes up in their truck, then haul everything away. What can be sold is taken to a resale shop, and you get 50% of the selling price. What can't be sold is donated or tossed When I connected with them, sending pictures of everything we had to get rid of, they said I'd use almost an entire truck (obviously they have never seen me pack!!) and only offered to sell about 8 items of the 35+ I sent to them. Then, they added on the "disposal fee" which was more than the fee for the truck. Forget that!

Our realtor knew of a company that would buy your stuff for pennies on the dollar and pick it up for free. I had to submit pictures of everything, because they would not visit homes due to Covid. They agreed to buy my furnishings for $500, and pick it up for free. Hooray! Then, one of their workers got hurt and they stopped picking up furniture. Oh, no! (My words may have been were a bit stronger!

I connected with a few other companies that would pick up your "junk" for a fee. Three were willing to come, but not until several days after we had to be out. 

Thence began a marathon session of posting pictures and descriptions on FaceBook Market Place and Next Door...and answering hundreds of inquiries...and giving out directions...and hauling things to cars...and getting rid of things. It was an onerous task!

We took numerous loads of stuff to thrift stores, and began to cart what would fit in the rental car to storage, to friends or to family. We arranged for a Uhaul U-box to be delivered...and put everything destined for Florida in it, locked it up, and watched it get loaded onto the bed of a truck. It will be stored in Florida until we are ready for it to be delivered to our home. 

We contracted with "Ben the Mover" to help us. He brought a truck and two amazingly strong workers. They loaded all of the remaining furniture destined for storage - at some point we do intend to get a condo or a small home close to the kids - and they deftly packed the storage unit we had rented. 

They returned to the house and cleared out everything else. You know what I'm talking about! The old mattress, the extra packing paper and odd bits of bubble wrap and cardboard, furniture that just wouldn't sell, furniture that wasn't worth selling, and odd bits of this and that. When they left the house was empty. 

We camped in the driveway for two nights as we tidied up the yard and visited with the kids and grand kids, and then turned our wheels toward new adventures!

Moving Day

Or...

Things That Go Bump in the Night

We let the moving company know that we were ready.

We waited.

Anxiously.

Finally we received a call. 

Our belongings were going to be loaded on a van headed our way.

We were the last stop.

We waited.

Anxiously.

Finally the day arrived. By mid-day the van was outside our door and in a flurry of activity our furniture, our boxes, our bins, our tools, our stuff was being hauled into the house.

What a day. Even though we didn't physically carry everything into the house, we were exhausted.

That night, after unpacking a fair bit of our stuff, we slept in our own bed, in our new home.... listening to strange sounds and seeing different lights. Other than campground living, we have never lived "on top" of other folks... and here we have people all around. It is a strange feeling, but in some ways, it is a safe feeling. I walked the dogs (who were also a bit anxious and confused) around the neighborhood that night and I didn't even need a flashlight because of the streetlights... another new phenomenon for me! At 4:00 AM I heard a neighbor start his motorbike... or something with a small engine. It idled and idled. Geesh! It's Saturday morning. Who gets up that early? Who starts an engine and lets it run? The engine stopped. Then it began again. Finally I had to look. I went downstairs and opened the front door to peek out into the street. The sound stopped. I pulled in my head and shut the door. The sound resumed. I opened the door again, and again the sound stopped. But, I could hear our sprinkler system running. That's when I realized that the rumble I thought was an engine was caused by the vibration of water pipes for our irrigation system... and the sound evidently travels through the walls of our bedroom. OK, so we won't water our plants at that time any longer!

The next few days were a flurry of shuffling boxes, unpacking boxes, flattening boxes, filling boxes with packing paper, trying to find space for everything, hooking up cables, finding light bulbs, etc.

While all of this was happening the fires were burning in Sonoma County. The fires were 30 miles from our new home, but smoke and ash still filled the air, irritated our eyes and made it difficult for Mr. Dreamy to breathe. So, we changed our plans a bit. We decided to head to Florida earlier, before the grand baby is born, and I would fly back to spend some time with the new mom, our son and their children. So... off we go. New adventures await.

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

its a Done Deal

It must be a dream!
The papers have all been signed. The money has been wired to our account. We no longer are home owners. It is a very strange feeling, but I’m thinking it might grow on me! This afternoon we came back to the motorhome and I had the chance to do something I have not done in weeks. I sat down and relaxed. Truly relaxed. I had nothing to do: no packing, no cleaning, no sorting, no gardening. Nothing. What an unusual feeling. Closing day was about as nerve wracking as they come. After the last week of getting a new roof, having the roofers damage the hot tub cover and a solar light and then having the movers come, then cleaners and carpet folks, and the walk through with the new owner, I thought things would slow down and we could sail into closing. It was not meant to be. We went back to the house one more time in the morning before closing. We had some bits of this and that to collect, some garbage and some things that could be given to charity. We had to sweep out the garage and take my car up to storage. Mr. Dreamy stepped inside to wash his hands and discovered we had no water. None. Zip. Zero. He called the well people and their two crews were already out on jobs, far out, but they would call when a crew could come. After fretting and pacing, and fretting some more we received a call, they had pulled a crew off of one job to attend to our problem. The crew would arrive in 20 minutes. Hallelujah! We might make the 1:30 closing after all. It turns out that the bladder in the pressure tank had finally given up the ghost. (It had been acting up recently, cycling on and off at more frequent intervals.) A new tank was on its way, and while waiting the 30 minutes for it to arrive the guys drained the old tank… the bladder had collapsed over the drain so they had no recourse but drill holes to release the 40 gallons of water! Within a short period of time the new tank was in place and water was flowing throughout our house. Phew! We made it to closing and that proceeded without a hitch. We are now homeless. Perhaps in a more positive way I could say we are “full-timers”. Onward…keeping the wheels between the lines.

3 - 2 - 1.... Lift Off

We have two one nights left in our house. Two One nights! Our decor consists of boxes, rug pads and a bit of furniture. There are still some things to pack, but we did pay for the moving company to pack some of our stuff. I think they are getting a good deal as I continued to pack up things after the estimate - you might say it became an obsession!

Tomorrow Today we must get everything on the motorhome that we plan to carry with us. If it doesn't fit we need to be able to go to plan B and have it go in the moving van, store it and collect it later.

As far as "what's next?", we have all but 2 days accounted for from Monday, August 21 until Monday, October 1. We have reservations at a number of campgrounds north and a bit east of Oakland. We also signed up for a Fantasy RV Tour Rally in the San Francisco area. It was a "while we are there" sort of thing!

Mr. Dreamy pulled all of the liquor out of the cabinet. That cabinet is kinda like the fridge. Things get pushed to the back and forgotten. He sorted good stuff and not-so-good stuff. This morning, a helluva time to do this, we opened questionable bottles of wine, took a taste and poured them down the drain.

We tossed 20 or so empty bottles into the roofer's dumpster. Someone may wonder about our roofers! (But, maybe they should wonder since they damaged our hot tub cover and a solar light at our entry!)

Our "To Do" lists include taking stuff to a charity (towels and blankets went to the Humane Society today), taking papers to be shredded (we had a truck come to shred 5 boxes of papers.... but found more!), getting the Mini to storage (and maybe storing a few things with her), and lots of other last minute stuff that I haven't thought of yet!

This is totally unbelievable!

Fortnight

Two weeks from today we will be pulling into a campground in Napa, CA. Oh. My! We will be "there". I have had to look back at the calendar several times to count the days to see if this could possibly be true! I have a funny feeling that 14 days is going to go by faster than I can imagine.

There is little left for me to do. Ha! What a joke! I don't have to pack any more, as the company we hired will finish that and load everything on a truck on the 21st. But, I have a few other things to attend to..... just a few!

I've sorted most everything and I've begun to take things out to the motorhome. We will be carrying more than we usually do, so finding a space for everything and keeping everything in its place will be a challenge.

I'm to the point where I don't know what to do with much of what is left. Even though I've been sifting and sorting, there is still a lot of junk: pens, paper clips, note pads, scissors, cleaning products, aerosol paint, boxes of screws, old computers....

We have been keeping up with the yard work. It has been a challenge since we have had so many afternoon rains the grass has been growing like crazy. Weeds are going mad, too, but I haven't gotten into the gardens to take care of those recently. Well, except in the vegetable garden. It is the prettiest garden I have every had... and it is so orderly! I fertilized a few weeks ago and the plants have responded beautifully. My spaghetti squash is loving life on a trellis... but I'm running out of space! My pole beans like their trellis too, but they want to grow higher! The leaves on my squash plants are twice the size of dinner plates, and we are enjoying squash. Sadly, the wind from yesterday's storm broke the stem of three squash plants that had grown together into one huge stem. That's alright, we have more!

I put a few more things on Craig's List. I guess we will bundle up anything that is left on our "clean up" day, and take it to charity... or to the dump. There are things we can't list until the end, like our shop vac and lawn mowers. However, the new owner has mentioned he would like to know how much we want for our tractor and riding mower, so maybe we won't have to get rid of them.

We have a rug cleaning company coming to take out our wool rugs for cleaning. We have another insurance adjuster coming to check the roof. We are scheduled to have a new roof installed, maybe even by the end of the week if we can get an adjuster to come earlier. I have arranged for storage for my car, and we need to take it up to the facility later this week, we both have Doctor and Dentist appointments and we have friends to visit and hug good-bye. Yes, I think the next 14 days will be a blur!

I Like to Move It

Welcome to the "I Like to Move It" exercise and weight loss program!



If I made a video to this music it would show me carrying boxes to the right, then carrying boxes to the left, all in time to the music.

I Like to move it, move it. 

Some shots would show me reaching up to shelves to get things off, and then bending down to put them in packing cartons. Repeat. 

I Like to move it, move it.

Climb up the stairs, carrying a box. Climb down the stairs, carrying another. 

I Like to move it, move it.

Pick the box up. Put the box down. Pick up another box. Twist to the right. Lift it high. Put it down. 

I Like to move it, move it.

Getting ready to sell the house and move has had some unintended outcomes. Our belongings are not the only things that have been downsized!

May 27, 2017

July 11, 2017

Since the July pictures I've lost a few more pounds. In total I've lost almost 20 pounds!

But to be honest... I don't like to move it! I am tired of moving it! I HATE to move it. I can't wait until this move is complete!

Countdown - Week 4

Life is getting pretty crazy  exciting around here. The Estate Sale folks have been putting things on display, and bringing in extra tables to display more items. We shift items from one room to another, and then sometimes shift them back. My pots and pans have moved - other essential cooking items will move, at least for the sale. We need the cabinet space for items we want people to buy. 

In addition to getting ready for the Estate Sale we:

• called container moving companies to get an idea of the costs we will be facing. It's a bit hard to get quotes when we aren't exactly sure where we want to land!
• the side light windows for our front door were installed. The plastic trim on the original windows was broken in several areas and that trim is not available on its own. The trim and window come as a single unit. 
• The painter came to paint the exterior and interior of the sidelight windows. He also painted the inside of the front door and one side of three other interior doors that for some reason were never painted. He also worked on a corner in the basement that showed some problems with peeling due to previous moisture, and he touched up an area on the back door. And the charge for all of this??? $60. I feel guilty!

Our newly painted front door and side lights

• our new sod showed some areas of damage. It was a patchwork of green and gold. It appeared that some of the rolls were dried out on one side so we had beautiful green lawn on one side of some of the pieces of sod, and dried out grass on the other side. Ramon went down to his supplier, who suggested we hadn't watered correctly ... until he saw the pictures that Ramon had taken. Ramon returned later in the day and replaced the dried out pieces with fresh green sod.  
• the Estate Sale company had an appraiser come by to evaluate some of the finer paintings and pieces of furniture we will have in the sale. Some of the pieces may be offered in an online auction as well as for purchase on site. She will send a report to help the pricers decide the best price point for these items. 
• We Dreamers tackled the garage. Shelf by shelf. Foot by foot. It is slowly taking shape. It seems to have gotten worse... but one has to consider that we used to park two cars in here, and now all of the stuff that was crammed on shelves and hanging on the walls is more organized and it is not 4 layers deep!  I took all of our gardening tools and lawn and garden supplements down to the barn, as well as all planting pots. Some things were dispersed to the basement and others were set aside to go to the RV barn where they will end up in Florida or packed for wherever.

Yesterday....

... and today. 

Slowly more floor space is appearing!

• I packed an additional 10 boxes, and the guys (Mr. Dreamy and Littler Dreamy) packed some of their own... but they didn't count them!) and carted most of them out to the big barn. Mr. Dreamy took some out using the truck. As I have always done, he left the gate open to the pasture while he was shifting boxes (we are stacking boxes by the back door of the RV barn which opens up onto the pasture). Madam Zoe took it upon herself to finally enjoy the greener (ha ha - we are so dry, most of our grass is turning yellow) grass on the other side of the fence. She kept avoiding him when he tried to get her back. When I returned from visiting my dad I grabbed the newspaper that had recently been delivered and threatened her with that! She quickly trotted back through the gate!!
• I planted some petunias & snapdragons that have been begging to be planted for weeks. Some are in this bed in the back, the others are along the walk in the front. Our day lilies are looking fabulous! 

• We went shopping for dishwashers. Wouldn't you know, our current one kept tripping the breaker, something was not quite right. A newer, less fancy model, will be installed next week. 

The house is a wreck. It's a bit tough living in such chaos... and this spoken by one who's house was always a mess! Neatness is not my thing, but this is insane!

Countdown - Week 9

The house looks a bit different this week!

After visiting several estate sales last week we decided that we didn't care for the sales that were selling everything. Nice furniture and nice objects seemed to get lost in the clutter of crap. So, once we return from our trips we will have Saturday moving sales. Each week we can add more to the tables for the next week. Then, when we do have an estate sale only the better items will remain. The moving sales will also clear up space for the nicer items to reside when the house is staged. So, as I have been cleaning out and sorting items I have also been pricing some of them.

This week's accomplishments include:

• Another landscape guy came by to give us an estimate. The estimate includes doing all of the stuff I normally do in the spring as well as adding some rock and a lot of mulch. In addition we are getting estimates for removing 20 Russian Elms which are all in different stages of dying or trying to grow new shoots, as well as for putting in sod in the front lawn area.
• A friend and her husband came by to look at the house. They wanted to consider the house before we were under contract with a realtor, but decided they didn't want the acreage. 
• Our friends found some fake rock to replace a missing piece on our fireplace. Now we just need to adhere them. 
• An electrician came by to look at the scope of the job. We have hired him and he replaced a bathroom fan, put some wires in a conduit to meet code and fixed a four-way switch we could never figure out. It turns out one of the switches was bad and another was wired incorrectly. 
• Mr. Dreamy bought a ballast and new bulbs for a fixture that has been on less than half power in our closet for months. It turns out, all it needed was new bulbs!
• Our furnace and A/C was inspected and a capacitor was replaced.
• We had a presentation by the final realtor, and now need to decide which we want to use.
• We Dreamers counted door knobs, and counted door knobs again, and a third time... and kept coming up with different numbers. Mr. Dreamy is replacing the shiny brass door knobs with dark bronze knobs to update the house. He is painting the hinges to match. 

• Our son came by to help me move the Christmas tree and the sofa. But, when Mr. Dreamy went to GoodWill and the Salvation Army, they refused to take the tree. I guess it will go in the "Free" pile at our moving sales.
• Our weather took a turn for the worse. Rain was forecast for Thursday, along with falling temperatures on Friday and Saturday.... and snow. The replacement of some areas of broken concrete had to be postponed until next week. 

• I scattered grass seed and wild flower seed in different areas of the yard before the snow came, capitalizing on the moisture it will bring. 
• We continued to clean up the basement so we can get carpet installed. These are panoramic pictures of the largest part of the basement.

Last week

This week

• I've begun packing a few cartons, some designated for Florida and the remainder for California... or wherever. On the last move I found it helpful to create lists for each carton on the computer and tape them to the outside of each numbered carton. Inventory and a packing list!
• I put some exercise equipment on Craig's List. It would be nice to get those pieces out of the basement. (The treadmill, bicycle and elliptical machines don't show in the pictures of the basement, they are in a nook behind me.)

We have an RV rally with friends beginning on July 7. I am so hoping we can have the house go on the market that weekend. It would be so much easier if we were gone and didn't have to deal with day to day clean up and dog hair removal!!

Other things going on this week:

The snow made a lot more work, and now a lot more mess for me. The old horse, Malachi, (pictured above) is ostracized by the herd. I take him out to feed him extra goodies, and when I went to put him in, he ran away from the gate. He was clearly telling me he'd rather stay under the porch than chance being stuck out of the run-in in the wind and snow. He was shivering, so I blanketed him and let him stay. The next day he had ripped open his heel. He has continuing issues with that one heel. It was bleeding. He was clearly uncomfortable. So, Mr. Dreamy and I went down to the ranch supply store to get dressings and more food. We had burned through a lot during the storm and colder weather.

Our trip into town for supplies. Roads were only wet despite all the snow.

I barricaded the door between the stall and run-in by screwing some boards across the doorway and put Malachi in there, where I cleaned, dressed and wrapped his boo-boo. The dressing stayed in place. I had to remove it the next day after he was out in the snow.

Now that the sun came up and it warmed up a tad, snow is melting and the paddock is pure mud. Evidently Ladybug doesn't care for mud, she pleaded with me to let her out into the yard!

 The other huge event for the week was that Carol, my Dad's caregiver, dropped the bomb on us that she had a full-time job and would need to leave. She agreed to stay on for a reasonable amount of time while we found someone else or another agency. Finding caregivers who will put up with Judy, my stepmother, has been problematic. Judy is anal about how things should be done and I guess she screeches at caregivers if she doesn't like the way the do something. Carol had a great way of putting up with all that. For example, one day Carol was making jello and Judy, peering over her shoulder, said, "that's not the way I do it." Instead of entering into a set-to about it, Carol merely handed her the spoon and said, "Here, you finish it then." We have gone through so many caregivers in the last three years I can't even begin to count them. And, in most cases, I feel certain it's Judy's behavior that drives them away. They all say how much they like my dad, leaving the other side of the equation blank. So, damn, here we go again. Judy will get so uptight, people will come in and go because they can't put up with her, she will be even more critical as Carol has been amazing. While talking about options it was mentioned that perhaps it was time for Dad to go to Mill Vista, the assisted living and nursing facility on the campus of their current independent living apartment. Judy put her back up immediately, but Carol suggested they go look at it, and she could be there to observe and question care. Off they trotted, and came back with positive vibes. Judy took me over to see the facility and the room they picked out for Dad. We began the steps that would be necessary to move Dad to that facility. We all agreed that he would get great care there and Judy can stay by his side as much as she wants. This would also be a nice transition for Judy. First, she'd have less work at home, and with her shoulder injury that would be a good thing. Second, she could begin living all by herself again. No Dad. No caregivers. But, Dad would be there and she could visit him. It wouldn't be as much of a shock to her system as if he died. The plus is that Dad will have care 24 hours a day instead of 10 hours. So, I trotted back home. About 2 hours later I received a message from Carol. Apparently Judy had contacted a former caregiver, who is now in management, and she came by to visit. They began talking of Judy hiring another former caregiver and paying her under the table. What???!!! No. No. No! That's not going to happen! When I talked with Judy, about another subject, she told me of her thoughts. I told her of mine. For the time being things are still in motion for Dad to go to the facility. We'll see how the drama unfolds this coming week!

So day is done. Week by week we move forward, a little bit at a time, just like eating the proverbial elephant!

A Box Talks

Hello. I am Baylor. Baylor U-Haul. I am a box, just in case you couldn't tell.

I am tired.... so very tired. I have been doing my job for a long time, and I've been doing it well. If you read on, I'll tell you my story and you'll understand.

I was born in the southeast. Made from pulp wood of pine trees and some recycled cardboard and paper. I was stamped out of a huge roll of corrugated paper. I went through the printer. That was where I got my identity as a U-Haul. I joined the rest of the U-Haul clan. We were bundled together and shipped to our first home, the U-Haul store in South Carolina. I am proud to be a U-Haul. There are many in our family and we can be found living in many places. I stand tall and proud because I belong. I belong to a huge family. One day I discovered that I was going to get a job. This would be my first job. I was taken away with some of my brothers and sisters and we were put to work. It is fulfilling to be working. I was opened up, taped together (that tickles a bit) and filled with belongings. My job was to protect those belongings. I was hoisted and jostled and lugged from here to there. One of the belongings was in an awkward position. At first it was just a bit irritating, but it rubbed and poked and dented me a bit. I traveled in the back of a truck from my first home in South Carolina to a place called Colorado. I can't tell you too much about the trip because it was dark in the back of the truck and I couldn't see much. But, I was with my brothers and sisters and we quietly talked; recalling our experiences, discussing our contents and dreaming about the future. When we arrived in the place called Colorado we were taken to different rooms. Some of my brothers and sisters went to a place called storage. They didn't have much of a job. They just had to sit on a shelf holding the belongings. I was emptied. That was a deflating experience. No more belongings to protect. My tape was ripped off. Ouch! That hurt. It took some of my sensitive skin with it. I was stacked with some other boxes; strangers from the Lowe's family and some from the Home Depot family. We waited together, shivering through the cold nights in a place called garage. 

Several months later we were picked up, as a group, tossed in the back of the pickup and went for a ride. You won't believe this, but we were back in SC where we started from. I enjoyed the feel of the humidity, even though I felt a bit sodden. I was taped together again. I felt whole! Belongings were once again put in me and I was on another trip to that place called Colorado. 

Upon our arrival my belongings were removed, leaving me with that empty feeling. Again, my tape was ripped off and I was flattened. 

I found out I had another moving job later that year. This time I was loaned to a house nearby. I carried their belongings safely to a new location and again I was flattened and returned to my Colorado home. A few months after that I was taken to yet another Colorado home to move Mr. Dad's things. This move was different because the truck time was so short. I was filled and emptied, and filled and emptied several times. All of that moving around, being stacked and sorted, being picked up and pushed around left me a bit tattered, but I still proudly carried belongings safely from one place to another. That's my job and I'm proud to do it. 

So, now, I've brought you up to the present. I have been pressed back into service. Once again I was opened and taped. I'm not as strong as I used to be. I need a bit more tape to support my weakened joints. I still stand proud, but I pooch out on the sides a bit. I have a few small tears and crumpled flaps and corners. But I am back, doing what I was born to do. Over the past week I have made a number of trips from one home to another. I am filled with belongings and emptied. Then I make the trek back to the place where I get filled with belongings again... and then emptied. It is satisfying to be doing a job and doing it well. I am probably one of the older boxes on the job, but I can still keep up with the younger guys. I have a history and can proudly recall the jobs I have completed satisfactorily. I don't know how many more jobs I can fulfill. There will come a time when I can no longer work. Perhaps my seams will become so weakened from tape being removed numerous times, or maybe one of my flaps will tear off, or, I shudder at the thought, what if a side seam rips, spilling my contents on the ground? But, that is then and this is now. I'm just about to head out the door, back into the truck and down to the other house to get loaded again. Life is good!