The List of Fun Things

Faith and I are still living the Suite Life of Zack and Cody - Thief River Falls Edition.  The hotel is full of Eagles this week.  Not the birds.  Not the band.  Actually I had to ask what an Eagle is.  It’s kind of like an Elk I guess.  The breakfast room was full of them this morning and what Eagles appear to be is happy old men who eat donuts.

Every day we come up with things to do to get out of here.  On Monday we checked out a furniture store, got groceries and looked for a walking trail.  Tuesday I met the movers at the new house where the seller let us unload all of our stuff into the garage.  That took all day long because the truck had to park on the street and the poor guys had to carry everything up the driveway which is about 50 yards long.

I wandered around the yard a lot that day and measured rooms inside and made plans for furniture placement.  Also, I need to figure out how to get one of those HGTV shows to come and help us completely reconfigure the layout of the house.  I’ll happily take a sledgehammer to a wall on national television if someone will come take charge.

Yesterday Faith and I wandered around through some of the shops and came up with a list of things I think I’m going to like about living in a small town in Northern Minnesota:

1) Giving directions to my house will involve saying, “Go past Dee’s Kitchen which is now Biff’s Kitchen and then turn right by Erl’s Bait Shop.”

2) When you go to spend more money than you thought possible on a lawn mower, the guy who owns the shop is your next door neighbor so you get a good discount and he offers to hold it - no deposit necessary - until the end of the month.

3)  The fact that driving across town takes 8 minutes which includes time for getting lost for a few blocks.

4)  That a few blocks is the most I can get lost.

5) These signs everywhere.  I don’t know what they mean yet, but I find them entertaining.

6)  So far, the hottest it has gotten is 84 degrees.  This while my friends in Lincoln are enduring 100+.  I feel fortunate.

Check with me again in February.

7)  Grand Forks is 80 minutes away and it has everything I need shopping wise.  Last night while Faith was at dance for four hours, Rich and I explored and went out to dinner.  I found everything I could get in Lincoln.

8)  Strangely, there is a Mexican restaurant here that has better food than I could get in Lincoln.  It rivals some of the Mexican restaurants in Denver.  This makes me very, very happy because the other restaurant offerings are a smidgen disappointing.

9)  The trolls.  All around town, different businesses have wooden trolls sitting out front.  Some are male, some are female and they’re all different.  I didn’t want to take pictures and look like a tourist, but Faith snuck a shot of this guy:

They’re kind of fun.

There’s probably also a list of things I’m not going to enjoy about living here but I have the feeling the time for that list will be mid-winter when I do all my best whining.  In the meantime, I think I’ll head for the library and try the pie shop we passed yesterday.

The Living Situation

When Rich went to Minnesota at the end of April to start his new job, the company put him into a two bedroom apartment.  They have several of these that they lease just for these situations.  He came home back to Lincoln for a week to attend recital and graduation and then he and Faith returned to Minnesota.  I’m not sure what Faith did all day in the apartment by herself but I’d guess it involved a lot of Netflix.  Oh! And she tried out for a new dance studio that week and got a spot on their highest team which was exciting.

Meanwhile, Hayden and I were in Lincoln finishing up closing the house, supervising the movers and he went to New Student Enrollment at UNL.  He’s so excited to start college in the fall - it’s fun to see.  On Thursday morning we got up early enough to make sure Hayden’s mattress made it to the curb before the garbage men arrived.  (Teenage boy + smelly dog + 6 years = a mattress not worth moving.) Then we put the cats into carriers and headed north.

And headed north.

And headed north.

At the end of a excruciatingly long day, we made it through five states and arrived … home? That’s weird but true.  

I live in Minnesota.

Probably I will say that about 800 more times before it sound right, but it’s a fact.  But while I know what town I live in, we are currently homeless.  We can’t close on our new house until the end of the month.  Until then, Rich and Hayden are still in the apartment, but cats aren’t allowed there so Faith and I are in a hotel.

It’s not a bad life.  We have a pool and a hot tub.  We can get up and go work out and then wander in to grab breakfast.  The maid cleans our room.

Things could be worse, but I’m sure that after three weeks we will be very glad to get into a house and have our own space.  We took the kids by the house we are purchasing yesterday.  I myself have only seen it once before and I wasn’t really thinking we were going to buy it when we went through so I didn’t look all that closely.  It was good to go through it again so I can start thinking about what projects we need to tackle first.

The project list?  It’s long.  Really, really long.  Longer than I remembered.  But the lot the house is on … oh my goodness.  I think I’m going to spend a lot of time on my boat dock (no we don’t have a boat).

And staring at my new view. And lving in denial about the project list which will be pretty easy to do with this kind of scenery.

That’s my backyard lawn abutting the river bank there.  How fun is that?

And then one day it will get cold out.  Really, really cold out and THEN I shall think about this list.  That is when the whining will begin in earnest.

I’m sure you’re looking forward to that.

The Goodbye Month

A few weeks back, I told my sister that “I know the next few weeks are full of special moments that will make wonderful memories but right now it all seems too hard and I wish I were on the other side of it.”

I was right.  There were wonderful moments, but they came at the cost of saying goodbye to some things we hate to lose.

I started with saying goodbye to my job.  My bubbly, extroverted boss planned a farewell lunch for the day I left and I made her cancel it because it was too sad and I hate crying in front of people.  So we kept it simple and I left an hour early because I just couldn’t keep a straight face any more.  I liked that job.  Working for the University was a great experience.  I learned a lot and grew my skills and really couldn’t have asked for better coworkers.

But goodbye to that.  

Then we said goodbye to Faith’s dance studio and recitals.

Anyone who has read here for very long knows just how hard that was.  We loved that studio and LOVED recital.

But goodbye to backstage fun.

And goodbye to being a backstage helper - though truthfully, Faith doesn’t need my help anymore.  I just went because I like it.

And goodbye to posing in costumes on our front lawn - a tradition I will sorely miss.

We definitely shed some tears that weekend.

When it was over, our realtor called to tell us that our buyer had backed out, which was not my favorite news.  We scrambled and got everything show ready again and put the house on the market the next day.  Thankfully, we got an offer the first week and under contract again.

Please oh please oh please oh please let this one stick.

The house stress was not good, but helped distract from the sadness although, I can tell you one person who was not sad about this next goodbye:  Hayden

Because he finally got to say goodbye to school.  A day he’s been looking forward to since 2002.He was so happy to be done, that I couldn’t even really be sad about it.  Which doesn’t mean I didn’t tear up as he crossed the stage.  I did.  But it was a mixture of happy and sad tears.

The day after graduation, Rich and Faith said goodbye and headed for Minnesota.  They’re in an apartment while Rich starts his new job and Faith gets settled into some new activities.  So that graduation picture kills me, because it’s the last picture taken of our family in front of this house.  The house where I raised my babies and we lived our life for fifteen years.  Every room is full of memories.

But it’s just a house and a house is not home.  Where your people are is home.  Where your heart is - that’s home.  So in a few days, when Hayden and I and the cats get there, home will be in Minnesota.  Don’t get me started on the fact that Reagan won’t be there.  I can’t even type that sentence without the screen getting blurry.

If you’d like to join me in watching a blurry screen, here’s video of Faith’s final solo.  This is from dress rehearsal, so she wasn’t doing her performance level best, but … well she’s just lovely.  And while I really pushed for something upbeat and happy, she instead chose the saddest possible song - an edited version of Rivers and Roads by The Head and The Heart.  

Okay, the movers are here loading up today so I need to quit blubbering and get on with it!

Distractions and Decisions

Things are going … smoothly.

Is it weird that that makes me nervous?

Probably.  I’m trying to just roll with it though.  The only issues are with the moving company but I hear it’s quite common to have issues with moving companies so I can deal with that.

Right now we have a number of belongings in storage so that our house looks like people don’t really live here.  Reagan has assisted that illusion by making off with a number of things for her apartment.  Hayden and I helped her move from one apartment to another over the weekend and it took THREE trips with the U-Haul.  Three.  For a 19 year old.  19 year olds should be able to fit everything they own in the back of a pick up truck, not own three couches and an entire set of solid cherry antique bedroom furniture.

Reagan has benefited from generous hand me-downs which is nice, but I told her she needs to stay put until graduation.

My last day of work is Friday which is something I decided a month ago when I was eyeball deep in decision making and feeling overwhelmed.  Now I feel a little silly, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself next week but it’s all said and done so I guess I’ll figure something out.

Like maybe planning Hayden’s graduation?

Not that there’s much to plan.  Two years ago as the final guests were leaving Reagan’s graduation party, I flopped down into a chair, looked Hayden in the eye and said, “I will pay you what you would make in gifts, to NOT have a party when you graduate.”

He smiled a greedy, gleeful grin and has held me to it.  We will attend his ceremony and then go out to dinner and call it good.  It feels a little sad and anti-climactic but he is thrilled with not having to make small talk with people for hours and, given everything that’s going on, it’s probably all for the best.

So Reagan is moved, Hayden is graduating and Faith is getting ready for her last dance recital.

Which I don’t actually want to talk about just yet because last year when her best friend had her last recital I sobbed.  Little did I know that we’d be in the same spot a year later.  It’s not going to be pretty folks.  Well, it will be pretty because it’s a recital full of costumes and make up and lovely dancers, but I’m guessing that my reaction won’t be pretty.

True fact:  I am un ugly crier.  Of which there will be much evidence in upcoming weeks.  For today though, I’m avoiding that line of thinking.  Here is a fun distraction:  our new house needs to be painted because I’m not a big fan of the faded blue it currently is.  Yesterday I used a “paint visualizer” to try out some new colors.

Here’s the original shot of the back of the house which I used because the front is mostly brick.

Here it is in “Plantation Moss”:

In “Incognito”:

“Light Sage”:

And finally, “Steeple Gray”:

What do you think?  Keep in mind that this is the long view of it, which can be seen from the homes across the river.I sure do wish that actual painting were as easy as virtual painting!

Bought and Sold

Although it’s been a long while since I’ve dabbled in real estate, I do know this:  No deal is complete until closing.  Between the bid and the closing date, any number of things can go awry.  Finances can fall through, appraisals can be low, people can change their minds … there are quite a few possible scenarios to keep you up at night.

So I am saying the following with fingers crossed while knocking on wood:

Yesterday we bought a house.

And then a few hours later?

We sold a house.

It was crazy.  For the past three weeks, every waking hour I haven’t been at work, I have been consumed with getting our house ready to sell.  Making repairs, packing things to take to storage, painting, cleaning … it’s been exhausting.  Even with the help of paid professionals and my expert cleaner friend Christine, I feel like I’ve been going non-stop.  So I was super excited when, at 3:30 yesterday, the realtor showed up to take pictures because I was finally DONE.  And I was all set to share those pictures with you today, but then at 4:30 she showed the house to a couple who insisted on seeing it before it went on the market.

I guess they liked it, because they made a great offer which we accepted.

Isn’t that the craziest thing?  The market around here is an optimal sellers’ market, but still!  We didn’t even put a sign in the yard.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Rich finally came to terms with the seller of the property we wanted.  It is also a sellers’ market there so that was a tricky but both sides gave a little and we have the ball rolling.

If you’re thinking that this is all going just a little bit too smoothly, I am in agreement with you.  It’s making me nervous.  But for today I’m just going to revel in having nothing to do. 

Because tomorrow I get to help Reagan move into a new apartment.

Sigh.

It was nice while it lasted.

I’ll leave you with some shots of the property in Minnesota.  The inside of the house will need some revising to suit us (I’m sure the people who are buying our house are saying the same thing) but the outside of this place? It’s just about perfect.