the house was officially closed on yesterday afternoon.
we’re home-less at last!
the seafood celebration ensued last night, continues tonight after a road trip to find indian food in mobile, alabama, and will end in maryland style crabcakes tomorrow evening.
we meet with a realtor this week to discuss buying a home this summer in pensacola. :-)
saturday was the big pack & move day in cincinnati. thank goodness for dad, grace, helen, and two men and a truck! seems like it took forever, but it really didn’t – about four hours to load that huge monster up, a couple more going through the house and getting the final things put together, cleaned up, etc.
and then we did what was one of our favorite things to do at this house.
we sat on the porch. the weather was absolutely perfect for the move. sunny. cool. nice breeze. sitting on the porch has long been something we loved to do. the archway was a great conduit for breezes and sitting and relaxing was just what the dr. ordered.
it’s been such a long trip getting to this point – we started this trek to pensacola back in december of 2006 with a couple ideas scribbled on the back of a mexican restaurant placemat. some phone calls, trips, tests, interviews, and a lot of elbow grease on the house got us down here last july. getting the house sold has been the one biggest roadblock and now that it’s here… it’s kinda hard to believe.
we had offers to stay with friends
saturday night but we wanted to end it the way we started.
back in 2003 when we closed on the house, i had our futon and a plastic bag full of clean clothes and toothbrushes loaded in the back of a friend’s truck – we closed on it at 5 and at 6 we sat in the middle of the empty living room eating pizza and putting together our bed.
we spent the last night at the house going through it, remembering fun things done there, dusting off memories forgotten, rearranging what was left, cleaning up here and there, and then we crashed.
one feature of this house we’ve always enjoyed is the huge old rose bush sitting in the back of the house. it only blooms once a year and the date varies but when it blows, it blows big. hundreds of crimson explosions hit for two weeks, then become silent until the next year. when we left the house the previous week, the buds were out and we were certain that The Big Bang would happen before we came back to load the truck.
disappointment was the order of the day when we arrived and saw the buds still closed.
but that sunday morning as we were about to pull out at 7am, i took one last walk through the backyard. and there it was.
the beginning of the yearly ritual.
one bloom.
it was all we needed.
i took a few shots of it, gathered lise up at the front of the house and got one last scrunch picture together, went inside and cried for 10 minutes over fond memories and things lost, and then we pulled ourselves together.
it was a great ending to a long journey.
the above quote comes from jim rohn.
i’ll apply it to a small (but large) portion of the move / closing of the house in cincinnati.
while we were back in cincy two weeks ago to pack, it was clear we had a lot of stuff to move. in conversations while packing, however, we continued to pack and pack, throwing/giving away some stuff but for the most part, hanging on to things with a “one day we might wish we had this…” philosophy.
when i logged in to rent a penske truck, i went with the biggest i could get, figuring we’d not come close to filling a 26′ monster but that i’d rather have too much truck than too little. when we picked up said truck, i laughed out loud. when my dad came over to help with the move, he suggested i call and see if we could get the next smallest so as not to waste space / money / gas.
and four hours later, we were left looking at the back of this truck with still more things to put in there… and no room left to put it. literally. we had come to the end of this huge-ass truck and were in need of even more space.
and believe me, i’m not beating myself up or feeling excessively foolish, but i am disappointed in me. i’m disappointed in us. we have been living in pensacola for 10 months now without any of this stuff. we’ve gotten back to the simplified living that we needed to in order to survive. when we started packing that truck, i knew we were in trouble. here’s all the crap that we did not need being loaded into a $$-guzzling truck that would require almost $500 in gas to go 750 miles to be put in a storage space (costing us even more $$).
and while i spent the day saturday asking repeatedly, “where did we get all this shit?” and “where did all this stuff come from?” i already knew the answer.
we’re not hoarders. we do survive on simple things. much of this stuff we’d not used in years.
but when we bought that house, we told everyone who would listen: we’ve found The House and we’re never leaving it. we were determined to live and die in that house. we had 1500 square feet on the first and second floors. include the basement and it went up to 2500 square feet. lots of space. closets. rooms. things to fill. and did we fill ‘em!
and now i’m disappointed in myself because of all that stuff. it’s ridiculous and unnecessary.
when i went to rent the storage space today, i rented two. a 10×20 and a 10×10. we’re going to wade through all that crap over the next month and purge the unneeded junk and find folks down here who could use it.
to all our family and friends who helped us pack and move in cincy: i’m sorry you had to put up with all that. i’m even more sorry that things folks up there might have been able to use are now down here. we spent the day talking about being more disciplined in the future as we continue to try living as simply as we need to.
we’re in cincy finally loading the house into a truck and moving it all to pensacola. this is what i’ve noted:
lise and i took off thursday night to drive to cincinnati – the objective: pack the house up. we drove half way and spent the night at a hotel to relieve some of the stress. now, this is still a six hour drive, so to pass the time, we passed the ipod back and forth for the majority of the trip, each picking one song at a time. our resulting soundtrack:
joe satriani – come on baby
katie reider – show your love
dave matthews / tim reynolds – crash into me
david crosby / phil collins – hero
buddy miles – them changes
caedmon’s call – shifting sand
andy osenga – swing wide the glimmering gates
the band – up on cripple creek
alan parsons band – lost without you
alanis morissette – hand in my pocket
jethro tull – aqualung
john coltrane – say it (over and over again)
judas priest – electric eye
journey – any way you want it
ludacris – freedom of preach
luna halo – aliens
justin hayward / john lodge – when you wake up
monty python – lumberjack song
monty python – the penis song
monty python – always look on the bright side of life
chris deburgh – patricia the stripper
50 cent – my gun go off
zz top – sharp dressed man
rodney carrington – show them to me
roger waters – what god wants pt. 1
ray charles – drown in my own tears
neko case – margaret vs. pauline
mercyme – it’s my joy
led zeppelin – moby dick
jars of clay – flood
jim weider – prayer
audio adrenaline – walk on water
buddy guy – now you’re gone
brian setzer orchestra – winter wonderland
butch walker and the let’s go out tonights – hot girls in good moods
calexico – above the branch
cowboy junkies – to love is to bury
damien rice – the blower’s daughter
grateful dead – brokedown palace
kt tunstall – immune
keith jarrett trio – rider
neil young – rockin in the free world
an extra prize is given to the first person to guess what song lise fell asleep to, leaving scott to pick all of the rest of the tunes.
…but we’re still playing it cautious until the final i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.
the house has been sold, went through inspection, included an acceptable addendum, and now we’re waiting for the closing the last week of may.
we’ll be in cincinnati:
please do come over and hang out with us, help us pack, load the truck, eat some pizza, etc. we’d love to see you local cincy people again!
call / email / text with questions.
the buyers backed out of their contract with us to buy the house. needless to say this news comes with many emotions and concerns. too fresh to talk about coherently at this moment. more later.
the home inspection is completed. the addendum has been written and presented to us. we’re in negotiations but with a nervous buyer and a tapped-out seller… keep fingers crossed.
the question of the day(s) is:
how did the home inspection go on sunday and what have you heard from the buyer?
and the answer:
nothing yet. we’re on pins and needles.
i’m breaking out the wild turkey tonight so i can finally get some sleep. stuff tastes awful but it’s cheaper than nyquil.
huge billboard on I-65 in alabama, en route to pensacola.
hee hee – what are these people thinking?