Countdown - Week 3

We have accomplished so much that my anxiety has begun to decrease. Now, that is truly amazing! Whoohoo! I almost feel like I am on a roller coaster ride; I hopped was thrown on the wild ride in May when we returned from Florida. I felt the pressure as we climbed up to the peak of the ride. Ching-Ching-Ching-Ching. (Can you feel it?!) Now I have reached the peak. I am teetering at the top. The car is about to make the plunge. When it does, it will move on its own free will. There is nothing controlling the free fall....  the car will turn, it will climb, it will loop the loop! It is exhilarating. It is exciting. It is scary as Hell!

This week:

• the dumpster was delivered. The driver was amazing. He was able to maneuver within inches of trees, gates, fence posts, oh... and me! We have the dumpster for two weeks and at the end of that time our house should almost be ready to go on the market! We are getting close!

• the new dishwasher came and was installed. We discovered that our original dishwasher was never installed correctly. There was no "air brake" in the hose and that allowed water to run back into the dishwasher when we ran the disposal. No wonder the dishwasher always smelled stunk!

• we fired our realtor! When we started this adventure, back in May, we interviewed three different realtors. We selected one based on her enthusiasm for selling our house and for helping us get it done. She has been very distant. All of our dealings with her have been initiated by us. We still hadn't signed a contract and she hadn't pushed to get that done. So.... we begin again.
• I sold both of my saddles. My Tucker went to Texas and I will drop the military police saddle off to a visitor who will be here from Nebraska for a wedding. As I brushed out the saddle pads and girths, Haffie hairs began to fly around. Of course, I was thinking that some of the hairs were Pippin hairs, and I couldn't help but equate the hairs flying around to releasing the ashes of our beloved to the wind. Oh, how I miss that naughty boy!

Shane has finished packing the Tucker.
I took a picture to send to Paige, the saddle's new owner.

Paige sent me a picture of her daughter sitting on the new saddle .
Her horse seems to think the saddle fits just fine!

• It's really, really, real. Our estate sale is listed online. 
• We had movers move things. I met them at my dad's place. They moved some pieces out to their truck.  They moved some pieces from one room to another at Dad's. Furniture was moved into our home and other pieces went out to the barn. We moved some pieces from one place to another in our house. I have things that won't be included in the sale in our bedroom. I have chairs in the bathtub, a bench in front of it and other things are hanging out in the bathroom as well. There is more in the closet. We have extra furniture in rooms that already had their full complement of furniture. 

• The TCS folks have been here pricing and staging. Every horizontal surface is filled with crap wonderful treasures for someone to buy. We are struggling with finding counter space to make sandwiches! I still have some areas that need to be sorted as we keep moving junk and piling it up. I am hoping it all sells and is gone!!

• The sales people want the nicest things in the dining room, the overflow of that in the kitchen and the everyday stuff in the pantry. I spent a few hours in the kitchen and pantry rearranging things. So the kitchen no looks like this:

• The sod is doing well. Of course, we are giving it plenty of water, which means it is growing like a weed. It is a small patch of grass and I find that I have to empty the grass catcher three times in one mowing! It was time to mow the grass again so I did that in-between trips to and from the barn and down and up from the basement.
• Mr. Dreamy hopped a plane for California. I'll write more about that next week.... maybe!

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!

Escapee

Gypsy! Gypseeee! Come back. Y'aren't sposed
to be on the other side of the fence.

But there are all kinds of wonderful

things to smell over here. Look, this

is where the coyotes were howling

last night. Come on, Tucker. Come

smell with me. Come run with me. 

I can't come with you. I can't fit under the gate. I'm

a big hot shot. Come back before Mrs. Owner 

sees you. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

Will you stop yapping? I found something 
really nifty. Oh look, there are two pieces.

I'll bring them both and we can share. 

Even though you can't get under the

gate you can still have a special treat!

What did you find? Hurry back. I wanna see the

treat. What is it? What is it? What is it?

Ta da! Isn't this the best thing you have

seen? I found some hairy bones. They 
smell wonderful! Mmm-mm-GOOD!

Holy cow.... er, Holy Deer! You found deer legs. 

You are right. These are the best, even if the fuzz
tickles my tongue. But, I do kinda feel sorry 

about the deer. I like chasing them, maybe

even more than chewing on their bones.

PS from Mrs. Owner: The next day the skull came back with Gypsy. The gate has now been blocked!

Countdown - Week 5

I mentioned that my son and DIL purchased a house and moved. What I didn't share was the amazing timeline for this major life change!

• May 15: bid put in on the house
• May 16: bid accepted
• May 19: closing
• June 5: packers arrive at their condo
• June 6: movers load up and deliver furniture and boxes, the family spends the night at their new home.
• June 8: unpackers attack the mountain of boxes AND.... mom and dad arrive.
• June 9: unpackers complete their work.
• June 10: son and DIL host a 2nd Birthday party for Alexis, inviting 12 family and friends.
• June 15: their condo goes "live" on the market, with fresh paint, new carpet and staged furniture. 

Wow! What a crazy schedule they endured! Oh, and they still kept working - some days from home, but others at their offices. Amazing! Things move a bit faster in San Francisco!

And, on the home front this week:

• I caulked around the basement windows where the old caulking had cracked.
• I finished sorting through everything but the basement, garage and our closet. - oh, and the barns. But, a lot of that is Mr. Dreamy's stuff and he has to make decisions on that.  I have "Sell" and "Not for Sale" Post-its everywhere! Soon we will have price tags on our belongings!

• The baseboards in the basement were painted. 
• I rearranged the storage area in the basement, consolidating the "keep" items in one corner and dragging out items for the Estate Sale folks who spent hours laying things out and pricing. Of course I found boxes that we had packed years ago that were never opened. What surprises and treasures were discovered therein! Here is one of those treasures!

• Once I had shelves cleared I rearranged them to make more room in the storage room for the sale. 
• Mr. Dreamy flew to Florida to check on our property, progress on the pavers, and to celebrate his mother's 95th Birthday with family.

It takes a lot of help to blow out a lot of candles!

• Volunteers for "The Son & Reins Ranch", the equine therapy program run by our housesitter (and whose extra horses we keep on our property) spent about 4 hours doing chores. They stretched some of the fencing wires, and restapled where needed. They took down some mesh fencing that one of their horses had bent beyond description trying to get to the greener grass on the other side of the fence. They power washed stall mats and reinstalled them. The mowed the round pen and trimmed a bit under fencing and around the barn. And they power washed the front and side of the barn. Wow! They accomplished a lot!
• I took 5 bags of clothing to the Salvation Army, and I have bagged more garbage than I am allowed to put out for collection. We will be getting a dumpster closer to the sale date, so I guess it will have to wait until then.
• I printed out any information I had about my dad's art and some of our own, and taped it on the pictures.

• I packed 17 boxes and moved those, and others, out to the big barn. The pile is growing bigger!

• I made three trips to my dad's to bring paintings and stuff back to the house .... or was it only two? Or maybe it was four?!

The theme song for this week is....

But let's change the words a bit....

When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be

Sorting, packing, and hauling a box or two.

When I go out, yeah I know I'm gonna be

Moving things around like a moving crew.

In the evening , well I know I'm gonna be

Hunting in this mess for the corkscrew.

And if I find it, yeah I know I'm gonna be

Enjoying a glass of wine, or maybe two!

For I have walked 10,000 steps

And I might have walked 10,000 more

And I've climbed the steps at least 20 times

No wonder I'm so gosh darned sore!

Doing the packing, doing the packing

I'm packing, packing, packing all day long. 

Doing the packing, doing the packing

With all of this work at least I will be strong!

Au Revoir

After 17 days in France it was time to head home, leave the dream, and get to work. The sun was coming up in Bordeaux as our plane taxied out for take off.

From the plane I could see the Garonne River. The River Royale is docked on the river almost in the center of picture. I am thinking that some people on board were still sound asleep!

This is the confluence of the Garonne and the Dordogne Rivers. 

We were on both of them. 

Soon the jet climbed above the clouds and I put my seat back to try to get some sleep on our way to Amsterdam where we would catch the flight overseas. It was a long, long day, leaving the ship at 4:00 AM in Bordeaux (8 PM the previous day in Colorado) and arriving home at 2:00 PM in Denver (10 PM in Paris). The dream vacation was definitely over!

La Cité du Vin

As our ship returned to Bordeaux we saw this strange looking building on the southern end of the city. This is a museum dedicated to wine. The City of Wine.... Bordeaux! We hopped on the tram and went down to experience the museum.

And "experience" is the operative word. The museum designers created numerous ways to engage the visitors in hands-on experiences. 

This area was all about detecting odors. Each dome housed something that had a unique odor. Each had a brass bell to sniff the air as you pumped a perfume-like ball. In this manner you could hone your nose for detecting specific odors in a wine, such as floral or citrus. An important aspect of enjoying wine is detecting the "notes" from smelling the wine. 

Another display challenged visitors to select the color of a wine based on a description of the wine. The cylinders of different wine colors reacted to one's touch as questions asked you to select the appropriate wine color. Red wines get lighter in color as they age and white wines become more golden.

I was fascinated by this area of the museum. The tables had projected images on them which showed information about different topics. The projection was also touch sensitive. You could select to learn more about a vineyard, a wine, or history of wine making simply by passing your hand through the light beam. Each station had several different options you could select and videos of wine experts would appear. They tell you about an aspect of wine making. Visitors have head phones and they are cued into your language. So... I'd hear the description in English, but the fellow next to me might hear it in Spanish. 

This "grape vine" was another interactive area that had iPad-like devices with information about grapes, vines, vineyards, etc. Most of the leaves also had information to share. Visitors point the box of their listening device at the leaf and would then hear a story, a question, or some sort of information. 

Each "wine bottle" had additional interactive displays that addressed different sorts of wine in the region.

There were also several cute videos throughout the museum that addressed the history of wine in general, information about the Bordeaux wines and other background information.

And, like all great venues, the exit was through a gift shop. However, this gift shop was like none you've ever seen before. It was wine... all wine! A large circular room with wines from all over the world.

Oh.... and did I neglect to mention your admission includes a taste of wine?! The top floor of the building is a wine tasting room with glass windows and a balcony offering a beautiful view of the Garonne River, the city of Bordeaux and the surrounding countryside. 

Countdown - Week 6

My blood pressure has been really high. I know it is stress, and I'm not dealing with everything that goes along with the move very well. I think the hardest part is that I was raised to "finish what you start". I can hear my dad telling me that, over and over, and over.... with the move, there isn't a way to finish each task at this time. I can't pack everything in any one room because we need things to live with or for showing the house. Yet, we are having an estate sale before the house goes on the market and we have to make sure that things we want to keep are removed. Evidently, it is driving me crazy!! Everything is incomplete. There is mess everywhere I look. Even Mr. Dreamy has mentioned increased stress levels - and that just isn't his style.

And, speaking of incomplete, this "Week 6" has been interrupted by a wonderful trip to San Francisco. Our sweet little Alexis turned 2 and long ago we had made arrangements to visit. We had our reservations for the B & B near our son's condo in the Mission District long ago. Then, our son and DIL bought a house! Closed on the house! And moved into the house! So, we cancelled our reservations at the B & B and we stayed chez son & DIL! (I think they may have their own high levels of stress!)

So, here's what we accomplished half one week, and half the next:

• I met with the estate sale folks at my dad's place. They took pictures of the things we will be bringing over here to sell. We created a calendar for the next few weeks showing when they will be here for pricing, etc. They stopped by our house again and we planned where they will set up their tables and the basic traffic patterns through the house and yard.
• I was supposed to meet with a mover, but his estimator did not show up. Harrumph! I called another and got a price. The estate sale folks are going to get me another name.
• We had another estimate for painting. It was very reasonable. So, Mr. Dreamy bought the paint and the painter began painting. What a relief not to have to do all of that. When we arrived home we drove into a home with a freshly painted garage door, newly painted porches and a gleaming picket fence. Wow!
• We Dreamers began researching and writing up information about some of the fine art in my Dad's collection that will be going up for sale so we can share that information with potential buyers. We still need to get an appraiser here. 
• I packed a few more boxes. I am up to a total of 32. In addition,  I packed 8 boxes at my dad's place, and carefully bundled 8 paintings, and brought them over to our place and unpacked them for the sale. In addition, I carried out two large garbage bags of bedding. We finally cleared a place in the big barn to stack boxes, and I moved most of the packed boxes to that storage area. 
• We hired the painter to patch the ceiling in the basement where the plumber needed access to fix our leak. He also painted the ceiling and put in the baseboards.
• Our pool table found a new home. I advertised it on a "Free in Parker" FaceBook page and within minutes had a taker. I am so thrilled that Trey got in their first. He deserves the table. His dad came over with him and we took the table apart, carried it upstairs piece by piece and loaded it into Dad's truck. Trey (23 yo) shared with me that he played a lot of pool when he was younger as he spent a lot of time in the hospital. He was so excited to get the table. Dad shared that Trey was born with Short Gut Syndrome and his parents were counseled to "pull the plug" and let him die. Trey was a fighter. He's seen so much hardship, but for now, is doing well. I'm glad!
• Sod was finally put in place in the front yard. It looks great! I took leftover pieces and patched them into the back yard. I seeded bare spots where I didn't have sod. 

From this:

To this:

• The landscape folks also put mulch around all of the trees and in some of the gardens. I planted a few more bedding plants here and there. 
• The painter had a friend who was able to replace the missing stones on our fireplace. I hate to admit that one of my friends and I both scavenged construction areas for left over pieces of fake stone to replace the missing pieces. 
• I took the doors off the shelving units in the living room to make it easier to display items for the sale. After the sale we will need to take them down and move them out. This is all getting scary. It is really happening!

Things are slowly coming together. I am feeling a bit more confident that it will all happen, and I'm able to sleep without waking at 3 or 4 AM running through lists of things that need to be completed. So, here it is, Father's Day, and I'm fretting over "finish what you start"!!!