Lots done, but so much to do

This weekend began with some lovely social time with a great friend, and then dinner with my wonderful neighbor. It was an auspicious beginning!

Saturday started off with a trip to a storage facility where I plan to rent a unit. The rest was spent sorting some books and papers from when my daughter was but a wee one. I also looked into scanning my photos so they can be more compactly stored (and taken with me abroad). Then I made lists of the things I plan to store and the things I plan to take with me. I talked with my parents and am excited that they plan to visit over Memorial Day as well as my brother and his family from Michigan at the same time. I will, of course, put them to work! Hooray for family!

Sunday provided an opportunity to do the grocery shopping and then researching some of those plastic vacuum packing bags. Then B & D came over to help me with some of the heavy things in my eaves storage. It was incredibly helpful as we pretty much cleared it out!! Now it’s all sitting in a bedroom and my living room and in need of sorting. It was unbelievably gratifying to get all that stuff out of storage even if I do have a mess in my living room to deal with. My work is cut out for me!

Tomorrow a guy arrives to start repairing the rotten wood on the outside of my house.  If the weather cooperates he should be ready to start painting by Wednesday. Then I’ll get it inspected. Things are proceeding quickly!

Weekend again!

I think that leaving is beginning to sink in and yet I am not inspired to get the packing and purging done. It was a busy week and I think the abundant pollen wiped me out because I just wanted to find a place to put my feet up, rest my head, and shut my eyes each day after school. I find myself wanting to spend as much time as possible with friends and family before I leave for this adventure. 

That said, I spent much of the weekend finally finishing report cards. As part of a fund raiser the 4th grade teachers auctioned off a trip to a Durham Bulls game and we cashed that in on Saturday. It was gorgeous weather and we had a great time! Sunday was the CROP walk on another beautiful day. It was wonderful!

Meanwhile, on Tuesday I signed with a realtor to sell my house! I have a few things to do first, of course, but I feel hopeful I will be able to sell it. While this is exciting I struggle with feeling guilty about robbing my children of their home place, but I comfort myself with my daughter’s words, “Home is where you are, Mom.” However, I do need to get on the stick with getting stuff carted out of the house. The son will be home soon and he has agreed to help when he can. I need his muscle! Then once school is out I can really get down to business.

Another BIG step

After a breathtaking hot air balloon ride to start this day, I drove home from Asheville and packed up my cat to take to a friend’s house, which is to become her new home. Then I came home and am surprised by how much I miss her already. It is comforting to know that I know where to find her for a visit. I just feel all over the place emotionally today and probably should have waited to write this until I had some sleep. I just wanted to get this down to acknowledge the continuing progress. I think she’ll be happy in her new home. 

Big decisions

I have decided to sell my house!! I sign with a realtor on Tuesday! I will have to rely on the hospitality of friends (as will my son) when I am in town. I do hope to eventually buy a townhouse or something after I return from my sojourn abroad, but for the meantime I will be homeless. Now let’s pray it sells in a timely matter, but not before I’m ready.

I have begun sorting through some of the things in storage. Shockingly, I found things from my childhood, as well as from my children’s childhood. It sure makes this a more difficult task when one is sentimental. I’m trying to breed that out of me. 🙂 

I am trying again this weekend to do the hot air balloon ride, so I’m off to Asheville again in the morning. I look forward to new trying some new venues for food as well as this big adventure of balloon flight! I will take pictures, and am dedicated to making this blog a more visual thing as well as text. A friend has challenged me to consider making a documentary of this experience! Hmm. 

Tonight, instead of my usual fall-asleep-on-the-couch-after-a-glass-of-wine-Friday, I went to a world premiere of … well, it’s really hard to explain… puppet show to the Rite of Spring. It was pretty mind-blowing and incredibly creative (got some ideas for teaching drama in Kuwait!). Fun to see some old friends too. Now I need to go pack for Asheville and the hot air balloon. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Attic and Eaves

It’s my spring break and I was supposed to go on a hot air balloon ride Sunday morning. It was cancelled and rescheduled for Monday. Monday was also cancelled so I’m back up to Asheville in two weeks. That means I had a wonderful time going for walks and hanging out with my daughter. I even got to read to her preschool class! They were great! 

I’ve also had some realtors walk through my house to help me decide whether I can sell or should rent.  Still no decision made but I feel like I have a direction in which to head. So now I’ve begun going through things… I went through most of the attic as noted in my previous post.  Then tonight I spent about an hour going through the eaves storage with a good friend. I decided it would make sense to pull the stuff out of the eaves and sort it in a more comfortable and well lit atmosphere. The living room is now host to about 1/4 of the stuff. I will need more muscle to get some of the things down, but I can at least start sorting the stuff that’s down.  It’s a dirty, dusty endeavor. Little by little I am making progress.