Spring Update

 

Haven’t posted at all during the past two weeks, but there’s a very important reason.

Hopper and family are moving!

We are in the process of selling the house and accepted an offer last night. The fruit of nearly 60 days of labor.

We invested mucho dinero into our home of 17 years to get it in sellable shape. Painters to slap a fresh coat of paint on all the interior walls, ceilings, and moldings; a contractor to raise the front walkway four inches to get up to code; a handyman to install clean new blinds on all the windows (sixteen of them). Me and Patch threw out old couches, tables, chairs, rugs, and an assorted mishmash of things unused in over a year over the course of twelve garbage pickups. I was honestly paranoid the trash men would boycott my house. The rule of thumb is: If it has no sentimental value and we haven’t used it in the past twelve months, it gets tossed!

We had a recommended professional jack-of-all-trades do some cosmetic work on the place, too. And me and the girls painted the deck for the first time in five years. Outside, we’ve clipped the hedges, kept the lawn manicured, ripped out a dying fir tree. Inside, the basement is now crammed with two dozen moving boxes, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel: we can probably get everything packed away in only a dozen more. We’ve paid for a professional packer to help us, and man oh man has she helped, serving not only as a packing expert unafraid to roll up her sleeves but also as a motivational coach keeping our spirits up.

I must admit I am sad, as are the girls, but it is the right thing to do. It was a starter home that we were unfortunately stuck in ten years too long. The house has lots of good memories – birthday parties, barbecues, throwing the football in the front yard, shoveling snow off the roof, reading books in just about every room, watching Super Bowls and must-see TV with the little ones. It also has bad memories - $$$ involuntarily spent on a new roof, a new furnace, a new bathroom, sleepless nights looking for work, the continued frustration of being defeated by the simplest task of home maintenance. But I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.

The old homestead, 2004-2021

The wife has already scoped out some potential new homes. Like the Jeffersons, we’re moving on up. Larger, newer, better. Spare bedroom, fireplace, office or gym or both, bigger back yard. I’m looking forward to the new digs (but not necessarily the stress of finding it, bidding on it, financing it, and moving in to it). I’m hoping and praying six months from now I’m back on an even keel.

So that’s why no blogging. The pressure of packing everything up, leaving spontaneously when the realtor calls with a potential buyer, managing my not-so-little little ones while the wife’s away for work. Keeping the place immaculate. Business has been busy, too, as I lost my assistant at work (he left to go to school to become a nurse). There’s always something, they say, and they’re right.

Most importantly, I haven’t really read much lately. It seems like I’ve been slogging through the Lensman paperback and my current WW2 tome, but that’s only because I can only find something like fifteen minutes a night to read, and that’s unacceptable. We lost our cozy living room (it’s been gutted to show its spaciousness and allow potential buyers to visualize their furniture in there) so the girls and I have been watching movies on the flatscreen in the master bedroom: Taken, Taken 2, The Boy, and Christine. The girls love their suspense and they love their Steven King.

More updates and musings on the horizon …