Tag: moving

A to Z Challenge: Petra and Quinn

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Character sketches that are fictional but based on real people, like you and me.

They were interesting children. Quinn, the oldest, was used to doing the planning, as in what and where they would play. Petra didn’t mind being the follower, having a lot of the same likes and dislikes, but she also added her own creativity at times. Both of them spent most of their time around well behaved adults, which resulted in their own pretty good behavior. But they were kids. Sometimes they were a bit lazy, distracted, willful, and as such were considered normal.

Both of them were cared for by parents who didn’t spend a lot of time following fashion trends and were fine with them wearing whatever hand-me-down or thrift shop outfits were available. They grew up in the country where clothes didn’t stay clean long when playing out in the garden or the woods anyway. They were appropriately dressed for what they did at home and were quite happy, through ignorance mostly. Later, they would say to their mother “what were you thinking when you let me wear that? And you had to take a picture too!”

They had long, straight hair with bangs. Petra often had a rat’s nest in the back from bouncing her head on the back of her car seat or her favorite “rocking couch”. That was her preferred method of handling boredom or discomfort. Quinn was less patient and would tell someone when she had a problem, or better yet, think of a way to correct the situation. Quinn was usually the one to get in trouble, playing with car keys and losing them, carving her initials in the furniture. Petra lived quietly in big sister’s shadow. They never fought and seemed to have a compassionate regard for each other, rare in children.

They both had a fierce love of animals of all kinds. They loved kittens, dogs and especially horses. Petra even loved insects and befriended the ants that congregated in the bathroom sink around the toothpaste. The two girls would spend hours with their toy horses, making stalls out of cardboard and listing the names of all their steeds and their pedigrees. On family walks, they rode imaginary horses that often reared and took off on them. The point was that they had wonderful imaginations and to all appearances were enjoying their childhood.

But, as usually happens, things changed. The day they heard that the family was moving to the other side of the United States, they didn’t realize what that would mean. The adventure side of things was clear. They were going to be in a mid sized city with access to cultural events, new learning opportunities, a new house, maybe new friends close by. The loss side of the move was yet to come.

It reached the point of pain, on the day of the yard sale. They had been told that they could have money from the sale of some of their toys. But to see the furniture from their rooms out on the lawn, and being loaded into other people’s cars started to be a bit traumatic for them both. The farm would be left behind with its large yard, tree forts in the wood lot, the barn and hayloft, the kittens, and even the grandparents. THE GRANDPARENTS.

Quinn was trying to keep busy. At eight years old, she was the oldest and was in charge of selling the toys but the situation was beginning to weigh heavily on her. Especially when she looked at Petra. Petra, a 5 year old, was beyond focusing on the activity of the sale. She was sitting on her beloved “rocking couch”, repeatedly bouncing against it’s back with tears streaming down her cheeks. She was singing a sad, little goodbye song as the loveseat sized rocker creaked and groaned with her movement, it’s price tag taped to its arm. Clearly, a crisis was brewing…

That was the day that two little girls discovered their own personal super-hero. Someone came along who understood the impact a move was having on them and made the decision to lessen the trauma. The price tag got marked SOLD, and Grandma sat down between Petra and Quinn. They rocked together as they discussed how rocking couch could probably fit somewhere on the moving trailer. It wasn’t the first time Grandma came to their rescue, and it wouldn’t be the last either.

The Final Mess

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It’s not done till it’s all done. This is not a political post. There are other messes.

How many of us have never moved from one house, one location to another? Those few who have stayed put all their lives have not experienced the final mess. I have seen it multiple times. Maybe it’s possible to learn to avoid some of it’s aspects, but… no, I think there’s always a final bunch of weird stuff that turns into a plague at the end.

Sometimes I have gone room by room, trying to collect the most valuable items and making sure they are packed. That is not the hard part. As the “keep” boxes stack up and increase in number, I start looking for a way to sell the “not so important” stuff. That can take a while and is a skill, a real job actually. Then there is the stuff that can’t be sold and I beg my friends to take off my hands, followed by the stuff that I have to load up and donate or take to the landfill. When it goes to the landfill, I am paying for it to be taken off my hands.

Who would have thought this little storage chest would have created a buying frenzy on the marketplace. I must have had it priced too low.

Lastly, there are the things that didn’t make it into any of the above categories – probably just hidden somewhere, or forgotten. This stuff is sitting on the floor, because all the furniture is gone. The boxes are all used and gone so there is nowhere for it to be packed. I’ve picked these items up a dozen times and not known what to do with them, and I still don’t know what to do with them. No one is around to want them, but they are good enough to cause guilt if put in the trash. They are the final mess.

I’m almost there with the project I’ve been working on – packing up a house for friends of mine. The last two days I listed big furniture on Facebook marketplace and spent most of both days answering questions, texting and meeting people as they came to pick things up.

The wise people bring pickup trucks, preferably empty, and a team of men. Other people, well, maybe being wise is optional. It will all fit in there somewhere.

This load… what can I say? Luckily they didn’t have far to go.

Since this has not been my own house, and I am uncertain what the final destination of some items should be, I am taking them home. My house is starting to look like their house, my garage like their garage. My closet smells like mothballs just like their closets did. I’m hoping if they remember something they still want, I’ll still have it here somewhere.

I wish I had been thinking more about writing as I was dealing with this house project. The April A to Z Challenge is coming up and I should have taken pictures of items through the alphabet as I was packing them. I’m sure I could have covered every letter. As it is, I will have to think of another theme.

Another Rich Experience

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I have often calculated the number of really interesting people I have known and am amazed at the variety, and the richness of these relationships. So before I post my screenshot of my exercise day I want to tell about The Sisters and what I am doing for them.

The Sisters: Susan, Michelle and Judith Madison are very special ladies!

All of us who know them just call them The Sisters, even though we know their names and how they are individuals, each in their own right. I think we call them that because their predominant impact is as a unit. Their story is fascinating and international in scope (and too big to tell here.) They are everywhere together and they depend on each other. They work together, they socialize together, they live together and back in August, they moved to Florida together. They had come to Wisconsin from Florida twenty years ago. They were tired of the cold and went back to where it was warm.

They bought a house on the east coast and filled a Penske truck with the furniture and household things they needed to set themselves up. They honestly thought they would be spending winters in Florida and summers in Wisconsin, so they left their northern house fully furnished and filled with twenty years of acquisitions (they like to shop…). Many of us had doubts about their ability to be snowbirds – Michelle is 94, Judith is in cancer treatment and Susan does not drive. As we thought, it has become overwhelmingly apparent that the northern house should be sold. This is where I get involved.

These ladies are dear friends of mine, and they need someone to pack up and store, donate, sell, or throw away all their “stuff”. It’s a complex job. When I moved two years ago, I was packing and disposing of my stuff for months before the move, and I still wasn’t fully ready. The realtor here is already showing their house and it would be best if it didn’t look quite so… well, occupied and full. Packing up for someone else is complicated. I have to consider the sentimental value of their belongings and balance that with the cost to transport things. Throw in the fact that their southern house is already full and they don’t need any of what’s up here in Wisconsin. It’s a four bedroom house and I’m averaging about half a room per day. And I’m out of boxes…

All this to say that I was there a good five hours today. I came back and made supper for the husband and myself, and then I remembered my exercise wasn’t done yet. Instead of walking on the treadmill for half an hour and one podcast, I had to do a full hour two podcast session to get my 10,000 steps. But I did it BECAUSE… I didn’t want to have to tell any of you guys that I messed up already. See, that’s how accountability works! Isn’t it cool? My legs really hurt.

There’s no date on this, but it really was today, no lie.

Introspection

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The world has gone a bit surreal, and I’m not quite sure where to place myself in it. Thirty one years ago I left Hayward, Wisconsin for life in Florida. It was a completely new life in every way. Now I am back, but again it is a new life in nearly every way. The actual “work”of moving is done so now I have time to think about what has happened. Introspection is a mixed blessing.

We arrived last night, like we have for many vacations over the years, after a long drive, suitcases in tow, with plans to catch up with family members and visit childhood haunts. The surreal part is that we won’t be packing up again in two weeks for the trip back to Florida. We will stay here and see the seasons change, make new friends, start new routines, and settle in. Instead of calling Mom every morning I will meet her in the kitchen as we get our first cup of coffee.  Instead of cleaning my own house and taking care of the oneacrewoods, I will be looking for ways to help others with their homes and yards.

For months, this change from one life to another has seemed so far off and so slow in coming that it was hard to believe it would happen at all. “If you ever get here…” Mom would say. I would reassure her that the “challenge of the week” would be met and that we were making progress, but honestly, I had moments when I cried and felt like I couldn’t do it.  The most valuable thing I learned from it all is that I should not spend a lot of time looking at the large picture – it can be too daunting viewed as a whole. One day, one step at a time is all that I was designed for. Each small accomplishment should get its full measure of satisfaction and celebration. One by one the hurdles got crossed and now I am sitting at the end of the course wondering how I got here. Once again, the passage of Time has created a miracle, a change.

I learned about home improvement, about hiring painters and contractors and overseeing projects. I learned about getting medical and financial records in place and ready for a move. I learned about selling and buying trucks and what goes into the making of a good trailer. I learned I had friends. I learned that hard things become easier when I pray about them and decide to trust that I’ve been heard. I learned that some things must be waited for and are beyond my control. I learned that having even one concrete task that I can do is a comfort and a blessing – get busy and do it – then look for the next thing.

The house in Florida has not sold yet, but we joke around saying we are homeless, because the house is empty and our “things” are in storage. Instead I’m going to remember that my goal was to be with more of my family and that has come to be.  If “home” is where my people are, I’m not homeless. Instead, I’ve come home.

 

More to come, because this is going to be interesting, a new page. Just sayin’…

Truck/Trailer Girls

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I have learned so much during this move, and haven’t had time to write about any of it! Stay tuned for a full confession in the next few posts. 

Trucks and Trailers

I’ve had enough of them, but I dare not complain because there is more to come and I depend upon them. They are a part of moving. Graceful acceptance is in order.

I’ve totally lost track of how much I’ve recorded in my blog so this is a quick summary of events. I sold my car which reduced us to a one truck family. We traded that truck for a more roadworthy model and it is slightly smaller than the Silverado, but it’s still a truck. I am a truck girl for the time being.

The other truck in my life is the one that brings and takes away my PackRat container. It has been in our yard, struggling to turn around and get in position, four separate times now. The last time was last week when our fully loaded container left on its way to North Carolina. I had been packing it for three days with all those things that will someday go in an unfurnished house or apartment. According to instructions I was not to exceed 6,000 lbs. but it had been a long time since I had weighed any of my furniture or belongings (never). As I shoved the last heavy box of flatware over into a recliner, stuck high on a pile of book boxes and marble slabs, I had a bad feeling about the weight. I shut and bolted the door anyway because the driver had called and was only five minutes away from picking it up.

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This was how it looked on Day 2 of packing, before the real challenge began… And yes, marble slabs. Don’t ask.

I innocently asked the driver how they weighed the containers and he pointed to a scale gauge on the lift. His words, “we’ve been taking a lot of overweight loads lately but the limit is 8,000 lbs. because the lift can’t handle more than that.”  Honestly, I went inside to pray while he hooked it up and took the container up a few feet. God was listening – it was 8,000 lbs. and he gave me a thumbs up and took it away. I’m still marveling.

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There it goes, all 8,000 lbs. I can breathe again.

Don’t think our house was empty at this point. There were boxes and piles of objects unloaded from the furniture all over the house. All these things were destined for the nice, new 6×12 single axle trailer that we had just purchased to go behind our new used truck.  I don’t want anyone to think that I did all this container and trailer loading by myself. I did enough of it but had excellent help from several friends who know how to lift, carry, stack and tie. Because I am not at all superstitious, Friday the 13th, was my departure goal. We had been given some guidelines in gauging the weight on this trailer too which I forgot about until it was too late. I have to say it was another tightly packed box by the time we finished.

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The husband prepares to embark. It was raining.

We made it to North Carolina! Several large items in the trailer were for my daughter Julie who lives in Greensboro so the day after arriving I unpacked the trailer. With Julie’s help we reorganized and reloaded my trailer – and then unloaded and reorganized her trailer. She is even more of a truck/trailer girl than I am. Her trailer is twice the size of mine, so is her truck.

What remains for us (me, the husband, the truck and trailer) is the 18 hours of driving to our destination in Wisconsin. Gonna be such fun, right? We are going to be very familiar with each other by the time we’re done… just sayin’.

Journal: June 27, 2018

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My mind is overwhelmed. It is the night before the husband’s retirement celebration and I am nervously trying to think through all his medical concerns. I know I will be asked tomorrow about how he is faring and what news we have. It is complicated.

The doctor we talked to today spoke so fast and jumped from one topic to another without explaining the relationship. I had to go home and google the condition to understand much of what he was saying. It was like he was on speed or something. The short of it is that the husband does have a type of heart failure, but not the kind that’s caused by a weak heart muscle. It is the kind where the muscle can’t relax. It is stiffened, and that can be causally related to hypertension (which he has) or sleep apnea (which I think he has) or a few other things like A fib (which he doesn’t have). It can be managed by treating the symptoms. He is already doing that as well as he can.

That is not to say that he doesn’t have the other condition (NPH), but the consensus is that he should be seen for that diagnosis at Mayo Clinic when we go up north. If he has NPH, he will need the specialists they have there. My head is swimming from being on the internet all evening looking at sleep apnea home tests and CPAP machines and applications for an appointment at the Clinic. I don’t even want to figure out how these things are going to fit in the schedule of the next two weeks before I’d like us to be heading out. It’s too much.

Both daughters have their tickets for the family reunion. People are posting their plans to attend. I am just hoping to be there and not in a hospital somewhere with the husband. We talk daily with my mom and I can tell she is a bit skeptical and wonders if we can pull this off. I’m trusting my master planner has it all figured out, and I’m going to be okay with the circumstances, as he arranges them. I think I appear calm, generally, but the fact that I keep going to the refrigerator, or the cookie can is evidence of what is under the surface. Food doesn’t exactly help how I feel but I crave it anyway.

There doesn’t seem to be much time between trips these days. Trips taking the husband to work, trips to the doctor’s office, trips to Good Will, trips to the store. The good thing about having only one vehicle is that the husband and I are together a lot, coming and going places. We are talking in a different way, or rather about different things than usual. Instead of him talking about fans and ventilation (thumbs down in my book) we talk about how he feels about retirement, and the preparations for moving and other stuff I find interesting and necessary. This is a good thing.

 

 

Who Will I Be Next?

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There’s nothing like moving to help you think about who you are, who you really are.

For years as a young mother, living in a rural area, I was responsible for growing a lot of our food and preserving it for use during our snowy, winter climate. I learned a lot about gardening, had my own rototiller, and a root cellar. I was baking bread with flour which I ground with my wheat grinder. I was making sauerkraut in stoneware crocks and canning tomatoes, green beans, beets, applesauce – lots of fruits and vegetables. I had a raspberry patch and made jam. I enjoyed that lifestyle so much. I loved being that person, even though it entailed a good bit of work. It was about 8 years of my life, thirty years ago.

Since then I have occasionally tried to garden but it felt more like raising produce for insects (or whoever it was who ate it before I got there to harvest). One year I canned tomatoes because the farms here in Florida were practically giving them away – they didn’t have workers to pick them. My Wisconsin persona brought jars, equipment, a pressure canner and expectations to my new home and they have been largely unused since then. I have kept them on a shelf in the garage. I have avoided making decisions that needed to be made.

Who am I now? Even more important, who am I likely to be in the future? It’s not that I don’t still like the thought of gardening, or of having good food put up for the winter. It’s that moving has made me decide not to be a person defined by “my stuff”. It felt empowering to put the jars in the recycling bin, knowing that they could be replaced pretty easily up north, if needed. The person I am is one who adapts to the reasonable default, whatever that is going to be.

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All those perfectly good, jars and lids – somehow doesn’t seem right…

Another similar moment (I know, two in one day!!) came in the course of taking the husband to work. He has been dreading closing up his office, making decisions about his boxes of books and papers. He has spoken of it several times so I offered to help him. We took a small table and I arranged all his books where his coworkers could look them over and help themselves. I went through his periodicals and we decided to pitch all but the last year’s magazines.

It’s probably harder for someone who has had a long career doing what they were educated to do. They really become defined by their job. I think the husband’s books, his physics notes from college (yellowed, with bugs, and copious dust), his work memos from eons ago, and bits and pieces of ventilation equipment were defining him to a great extent. He left the room and I took care of some of it for him (dumpster) but I’m not saying exactly what because he reads this too.  If he can actually remember something he needs from it all I will go dumpster diving and look for it. I’m betting there will not be a need.

Now we are freer than we were, but not as free as we will finally be in a couple weeks. We will be free to adapt and be who we really are in our new circumstances. For me, the job will be easier without the canning jars along for the ride, just sayin’…

A to Z: Selling Our House (Letter S)

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Today’s S sign features the words SLOW, SPEED and SENIORS. I’m feeling all three in different ways…

S for Staging

I have looked at a lot of houses for sale. To my knowledge, not one was ever staged. I always felt that it was up to me to imagine my own things in the spaces, ignore other people’s furnishings, and make the appropriate decisions. I don’t think I ever turned away from a place because it wasn’t cleaned. I know how to clean. Nevertheless, staging has become a “thing” in selling real estate, thank you HGTV.

A staged house is decorated tastefully, with interesting furniture (which you might like better than your own), cute throw pillows (dented “just so”), a smell like your mother just baked cookies in the kitchen and, of course, you will want to move right in. The psychology of selling has gone into high gear, for sure.

Lindsay the designer (back on letter D) made an initial visit to my house, which was full of our things and made suggestions as to what we should remove, what we should leave. Since then I have realized that I’m moving. I have tried to get rid of things that I don’t want to keep and store. I have packed our belongings to the point of making life uncomfortable. My house is now staged with cardboard boxes and no furniture that would appeal to anyone. Ooops.

Lindsay did not get to see the rental house because it was full of renters and a big dog. But now it is empty except for a glass top table and four chairs with no seat cushions. I wouldn’t exactly call that staged either.

So, I’m wondering. Do I really have to rent nearly two houses worth of furniture here? Staging is getting a little scary. You see, I don’t have a warehouse full of couches, tables and decorations that I can choose and have a crew transport to my location and put in place. Don’t forget the fresh flowers and the bowl of fruit, please. I’m wondering where I’m going to hide all these boxes.  I could put them in the container from Pack Rat, except that container can’t appear in the outside pictures, so it has to go away.  But it also has to come back for whatever furniture I do have in my house. Logistically, I’m a little confused.

There you have it. Staging is wonderful but will someone please appear and buy my houses before I have to do it? Please?

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The perfectly staged living room in which no one has lived ever (probably). 

A to Z: Selling Our House (Letter J)

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Tomorrow will be another busy day, scrubbing grout in between grocery shopping and a trip to the airport to pick up my cousin. I’m posting early so I won’t forget and be late. 

Junk is a J word

As I consider PAYING to store things during our move, I look at my possessions with a different perspective. I cannot afford to box up and store anything that I consider junk. But the definition of junk is very subjective – kind of like beauty being in the eye of the beholder.  You’ve heard it before, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure. There is a reason almost every house has a junk drawer – true?

I may not be in my next home, one that I will be required to furnish, for months. When that time comes will I have a place for the collections, knick knacks, throw pillows, books, etc… that I have now? I can’t count on that. It might be much better to wait and see, and furnish a new place with things that fit in its spaces. So having adopted this sane way of looking at paring down, why does it all fall apart when I go up in the attic and find this…

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Look at those precious little pig faces, and the rooster and hen. I love the little clear glass pitcher too. I love it all.

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That white vase is so unusual, and the blue and brass Delft vases could be valuable, couldn’t they?

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This vase has always made me happy. I have to keep it. It won’t take up much space in storage (rationalize much? yes).

I just can’t help hanging on to precious, unique things, even if all I ever do is look at them. Like my chickens (or maybe they are roosters), whose heads are salt and pepper shakers and bodies are cream and sugar servers. Or my funny little vases that have a Delft label. They are either things I’ve had passed down from family or things I’ve miraculously come across in a garage sale for almost nothing! Definitely meant to have a forever home with me, I’m thinking.

Then there is my blue glass collection. I love blue. And my John Deere collection which bears witness to my farm girl soul – it’s all boxed up, ready for transport. It’s not junk when I see it and think about giving it away. So then, how is it that some of these things have been put away in the attic for years and I didn’t even remember I had them? Would that be the definition of “junk”, stuff you don’t miss enough to know that you miss it? Maybe.

I have found things that I hope will be someone else’s treasure. In fact, I make such frequent trips to the donation center that I drive to one farther away where they won’t recognize me. But I’m hoping that someday I’ll enjoy unpacking the things I’ve kept and finding just the right place for them.

This moving process is useful in that it has helped me limit those collections to a reasonable number. Best of all, I think I’m really going to avoid that last-minute frustration of throwing all those left over things in a box because I don’t have time to thoughtfully sort through them.

Do you have precious junk? Would you put it in a box and pay to store it?

 

Dealing with it (termites)

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Encountering the twists and turns of life is an inescapable part of being alive, of sticking around, of aging, of “dealing” with it. I’ve been dealing with it all day, “it” being my own restlessness first, then the selling of property that has been kind of a millstone around our necks for years, add in the rain and wind outside, a couple of difficult emotional relationship dialogues, and preparation for the fumigation of our house starting Friday morning. I feel old and numb.

But I’m not going to cry. Instead, I’m going to write about our termites.

I discovered them when I was in the storage room looking for things to give away. Some boxes next to a wall were covered in termite evidence, looking a little like a pile of pepper. When the inspector came he found the tiny holes in the wall where the termites had been pushing out their tiny balls of … poop, feces, whatever you want to call it. One small corner of one small room has only one HUGE remedy.

Our property consists of two houses designed for generational living, connected by an enclosed breezeway. We have no generations willing to live with us at present so we rent out the other house, and use the breezeway for storage. The wall that the other house shares with the breezeway is where the termites live. Or maybe it’s only one of the places they live because they hide and generally chew very quietly so there’s no way of knowing where else they are. They are dry wood termites and eat very slowly, but having discovered them we had to do something. We are thinking of putting our house on the market and an inspection would undoubtedly reveal their presence. They are not a positive selling point.

The big (HUGE) remedy is fumigation. Do you know what that is? It’s a unbelievably large tent that will cover both houses and garages. It’s made with tarps held together with supersized clothespins and held in place at the bottom with weights. It holds in deadly gas that is pumped in and left for 24 hours. It’s a gas chamber for everything living inside. The workers have to be so careful that no people or animals are in the house that if there is one door, one closet, one chest, one refrigerator that they can’t open and check, then they can’t continue the procedure. Once ready, the whole house is locked up so no one can get inside. When it’s over, no one is allowed inside until tests show that the gas is gone (and I’m kind of wondering where it goes? And why are we not worried about that?)

My job today, and probably tomorrow, is readying the house, mostly the kitchen. All food that is not factory sealed in glass, plastic bottles or metal cans has to be double bagged with special bags provided to us, or removed from the house.

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It’s a mess here, no kidding.

I suppose this is a blessing in disguise, kind of a dry run for packing to move.   As the minutes turned into hours today, it really did help to give the job that redeeming feature.  At first reckon, I could imagine filling three bags from the cupboards, another two for things in the freezer, one for the refrigerator and maybe one for medicines and vitamins. I was only wrong by about a dozen bags. I’m not done yet either.

Oh my goodness, I decided to throw away the yucky protein powder from five years ago and the slightly rancid smelling flour.  I combined the three partial boxes of salt, the two bags of sugar and the multiple boxes of tea and hot chocolate. I threw away the jar of candy sprinkles (where did it come from?) and the half melted 50th birthday candle. No one is going to be fifty again in my remaining cake baking years. It’s strange how I keep finding more food too, in strange places. I can’t even talk about it.

What if I forget the candy bar in my back pack and it harbors deadly gas and I find and eat it next month and die? Yeah, what if? See why I’m a little restless today?

But I have one more day to deal with it – tomorrow, well, that’s after we go to the husband’s early morning doctor appointment, and after we sign papers with the realtor, and after I find a place for the husband and I and the cat to go live for three days while the termites are being gassed. Life… just sayin’.