Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Partial Progress
We have made a moderate amount of progress in establishing order in our new home. We have placed some furniture in the main living area:
However, most of the rooms look more like this right now:
We both survived our first day of commuting to the Twin Cities from Wisconsin, and thoroughly enjoyed the rush of returning to our driveway at the end of our respective days, regardless the lateness of the hour.
Comical Adversity
Yesterday dawned with us feeling a heightened anxiety, anticipating the accomplishment of finally signing closing documents. We had been in this position twice before. We were told that everything was in place and prepared to proceed. That was good to hear, but that’s also what they said the other times. It failed, now, to offer much in the way of comfort.
Both Cyndie and I had needed to negotiate additional time off work to be available for Tuesday’s signing. If it didn’t happen then, we would be in an extremely difficult situation, having pushed the graciousness of our employers as far as we were comfortable pushing.
Finally, around the ten-o’clock hour, we started receiving messages about the closing on the sale of our home in Eden Prairie. Our interests were being represented by our realtor, in our absence. Once that process was over, we just needed a document to be sent to the title company and lender for our Beldenville home.
We puttered with small chores, and then took our daily walk, under gray, misting skies. When we received word of the required documents being sent, it was beginning to feel as if this essential accomplishment was within reach. We gathered up everything we figured we could possibly need, including Cyndie’s laptop computer, to provide contingency for any issue arising to foil our plan, and headed to the town of Ellsworth with plenty of time to spare.
This was the culmination of a very long process, starting most tangibly with our decision to list our house for sale last winter. That triggered a need to hire some contractors to fix drywall, repaint, and install fresh carpeting. Then came a summer-long period of showing the house to potential buyers. We had a quick flurry of activity for a week of purchase agreements at the beginning of September, leading, ultimately, to an agreed upon closing date of October 18.
An insane last-minute batch of delays had pushed that closing to 5-days later than it was supposed to happen, and led to some major hassles in many people’s lives. Now we were just a few miles away from finally getting it done, once and for all.
Since we had time, I pulled into a gas station to fuel up the vehicle. There was no display on the pump, so I searched and searched for the trick to bring it to life. Then a clerk came out of the store and reported that they couldn’t provide any fuel because the power just went out. A woman at the pump in front of us said she had just come from the grocery store and they were out of power. I looked around and noticed the stoplights were out. Someone hollered that the whole town was without power.
Really. The entire town of Ellsworth has lost power, just minutes before we were to finally close on our new property after a 5-day delay. Really?
Another practical joke from the universe? All we could do was laugh, but we wanted to cry. I had to make an effort not to cry.
Not knowing the extent of the problem, we headed to the title company office down the street. We were prepared to sit there, in the dark, no matter how long it took. Luckily, that small-town pluckiness forged ahead regardless. They moved us to someone’s desk near a window, and sent an employee home, where she would be able to print the one critical document we needed from her email, and then return before we were done signing all the other paperwork.
We have officially bought the farm, and we are calling it, Wintervale Ranch, with a nod to the farm in my family history by the name of Intervale Ranch, and our love for all things winter related, including our dogsled expedition to Wintergreen Lodge.
Believe it or not, we were almost done in by a squirrel. That’s the report that surfaced in a post by the Pierce County Herald [edited to break link to article because the online page expired. A squirrel was killed when it got into some electrical power station equipment, which cause the power outage].
Looping Loops
Cyndie and I are growing loopy over the topsy-turvy world of uncertainty we find ourselves trapped in lately.
None of our possessions have a known location, and we can’t keep straight where we have put anything down at any given moment.
Yesterday was supposed to be the day Cyndie started her new job, but we have been forced to push back our plans by two business days to finally accomplish the second step in our 3-step plan to transition from old house to new.
We have already finished the third step, which was to get our possessions moved into the new house. Now we need to go back and complete the second step: signing closing documents, finally making this all legal and proper.
Yesterday, we set out on our half-hour therapeutic walk, and just up the road, met our first neighbor as she was headed to put something in her mailbox. Her husband eventually wandered out and there we stood, on the side of the road, getting up to speed on all the neighborhood tales. It was one of those wonderful conversations that seems to have no end. A little bit like some of my posts… So, no sooner than we had shared one last parting ‘nice-to-meet-you’ to set off on our walk, we found ourselves back in the depths of neighborly gab. It was a treat!
We learned there had been a tornado that moved through the area two years ago, just behind our property, which took out one of their sheds from behind the barn. They said it was 30-years, to the day, after an earlier tornado took the same path.
Later in the day, Cyndie and I heard our first rumbles of thunder here. It sounded GREAT! I’m gonna love watching the weather from our new perch.
It took half the day to determine any signing of closing documents wasn’t going to happen until Tuesday (today!!), so by the time we knew we were free to run errands, it was getting late. We made it to our new bank to make some deposits and get cash, then made a run to hardware and home improvement stores for things piling up on our shopping list.
This really got me spinning. There is so much for us to do, it is hard to figure out where to start. Of course, I like to start at a beginning, (any beginning!) , and proceed in a sequence. Cyndie likes to start everything at once and proceed in every direction, simultaneously. Shopping with her is a real trip for me.
I ended up bringing home things I was considering should probably be on my ‘future wants’ list, but hadn’t even begun shopping for. At the same time, we knocked off a few valuable items that we can put into service immediately, like a set-back thermostat, new shower head, push brooms, boot mats for our entry ways, and anti-fatigue pads for the kitchen floor.
To Cyndie’s credit, I was able to forestall a couple other uncertain decisions until we are able to spend a bit more time to be sure what we want. I do wield some calming influence on the shopping front.
By the time we headed home, it was dark, and I almost got us stuck in a looping round-about. Then I entered a turn lane, one turn too soon, and quickly ran out of pavement, making a last minute correction with too much speed. It was past dinner hour and I was loopy from too much shopping and too many days of disorientation.
We hope to get the last (previously, second), most critical step, wrapped up today. That will give me a solid beginning to plot my next step(s) toward our new orientation on our “Wintervale Ranch.”
Dinner Out
We ate out last night.
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I used to think that I hate to pack. Now I have learned that the real bugaboo is unpacking! It is almost enough to make me like packing, at least, in comparison. Yesterday, while attempting to break down boxes and collect all of the paper and bubble wrap into a bag, I discovered two items that didn’t get taken out of the boxes.
The question that comes to mind is, did I find the only two items that were overlooked, or are these just the ones I caught of the variety of other somethings that were missed?
We accumulated all these boxes and the packing material over time, so it never seemed like a large amount. Now, all at once, I am stacking the collection of boxes and piling up a huge mound of paper and bubble wrap. It is a mountain, and there are still plenty of boxes in the house that haven’t been emptied. It is an insane amount.
Luckily, I didn’t have to carry all these boxes onto, or off of, the moving truck. Me thinks that was money well spent.
Very Strange
I am struggling with the unsettling feeling of being in our new place without having successfully executed the closings on either property. It gave me dreams last night that we were back in our old house, but then suddenly remembered that we had invited the buyers to take possession.
I have so many things deserving attention all at once, that I am going to make this a short post, and get to work.
It is all good! The views out our bedroom windows when we wake up are spectacular! The scenes out our front porch windows, when we have breakfast in the morning, are even more thrilling! It will be better still, when we actually have food to eat for breakfast. Cyndie is going to the grocery store for the first time this morning.
We are in a very wonderful place. I can’t wait for the moment when it will no longer feel strange to be here. I expect that getting documents signed will go a long way toward alleviating that strange feeling.
Step Three!
Step three of our 3-part plan is simple, and incredibly complicated. It is all in how you look at it.
The simple version is to get all of our possessions unloaded from the truck. Done!
The complication comes when you factor in where all the stuff went, and what needs to be done to put it all in order. Yikes! We’ve got our work cut out for us.
It was absolutely thrilling to see that long trailer being backed up the length of driveway. Each step of this transition has been big, but this one was HUGE!
The drama that remains unresolved is that we have yet to officially close. It is only by the gracious generosity of our sellers that we were able to unload our possessions from the moving truck and take possession before we actually closed. We learned yesterday afternoon that the closings would continue to be delayed until next Monday or Tuesday, but that everything was in order and able to proceed. It is a pall that clouds an otherwise superb experience.
We were informed that our buyers were now in a situation similar to ours, in that they had become stuck between properties and were homeless. Cyndie and I didn’t hesitate to pass along the generosity that has been shown to us, authorizing our buyers to take possession of our old house in EP immediately. We are thrilled to be able to do so, and know exactly what they are going through.
Now we are trying to learn which switch controls what light fixture, and struggling to remember where we have set things down, because nothing has a permanent location yet. It has been a very long time since I needed to get used to a new living environment. I’m noticing a tendency to try to put things in a location that in some way mirrors the arrangement of things in the living environment we just left. Old habits, you know.
I consider step three now complete. I’m going to frame it as getting everything off the truck. The move is completed. The moving in still requires some time to accomplish.
Unidentified Obstruction
Happy day-after-closings day! Yahoo! Except… we only sorta half-closed on each property.
There are a lot of people involved and affected by closing the sale of a home. There are even more than a lot, when closing on the sale of two homes.
If any step of the process gets disrupted for any reason, the number of people needing to communicate with each other is dizzying.
Late in the day on Wednesday, we suddenly learned that the lender to the buyers of our EP home would be unable to close the following morning, as previously scheduled. Cyndie’s amazing ability to think quickly triggered her into action to find a secondary way to cover the down payment on our Wisconsin home, in hopes of keeping that subsequent transaction on schedule.
With that plan in mind, we met yesterday morning with the closing agent and our realtor to pre-sign documents for the sale of our EP home, and establish power of attorney for our realtor to represent us in concluding the closing process once our buyers are finally ready. That was to allow us to proceed to Wisconsin for the second closing appointment, for the purchase of our new home.
While en route, we received a call that there was a flaw with our plan. If we hadn’t officially closed on the sale of our old home, our liability of the 1st mortgage wouldn’t show as paid off, and would cause us to no longer qualify for the loan from our new mortgage company.
That triggered a new barrage of phone calls, back and forth, between 5 or 6 parties involved, each message causing impact on multiple other parties… It becomes rather catastrophic, very fast. Quick-thinking agents with the best of intentions, worked frantically to help us succeed, coming up with potential options, but the more convoluted the path became, the more documents it would require to verify the authenticity of transactions.
The demands were simply impossible to satisfy in the short time available that remained. By the time we identified the stalemate we were ultimately facing, we were sitting in limbo in the parking lot of our new credit union, partway between the home we were leaving, and the one we were hoping to arrive at. We were homeless.
News came through that the sellers of our new home were going to enact the same pre-signing for their sale, as we had done for our sale, earlier that same day. Cyndie and I decided to complete our trip to that town, present them with the gift we had put together for them, and demonstrate that we were ready, and willing, but just not able on that day. Hopefully, we’ll have it all worked out by the end of today.
We knew this was an ambitious plan, but, oy! We had high hopes because everything appeared to have fallen into place. So much for a clean and simple second step.
Step Two
For any of you who have felt that our story of the last couple months seemed too good to be true, hang in there with me. It’s not over, ’til it’s over.
Yesterday was supposed to be a bit of a chance to catch our breath between steps, but it ended up bringing new challenges. The dream is being disrupted a bit at the last minute. That’s what dreams do. We’ll follow along, with a couple of backup plans in our pocket.
I am exhausted, having popped awake at way too early an hour yesterday morning, due to sleeping in a temporary bed for the interim. Cyndie is doubly exhausted, dealing with over twice what I am right now.
Step two will be an interesting day.
Step One
Well, we got the first part out of the way. The old house is empty. That was quite a day. The truck showed up bright and early, and they pretty much worked straight through to around 6 p.m. carrying a few precious pieces of furniture, and way too many boxes of crap. They pretty much filled the trailer up. We have accumulated too much stuff, no doubt about it. Take away my uncluttering badge, now. I have not earned one.
With a little luck, today’s experience will encourage us to be more aware, but I fear the added space of our new home may foil my dreams of becoming clutter-free. I know that it influenced some of my packing decisions regarding what to discard and what to take with me. I might find a use for the stuff, and I will have plenty of places to store things.
It has me thinking of the photo book by Peter Menzel, “Material World,” where he captured portraits of families around the world, posing with most of their possessions placed strategically around them. I shudder to think what our portrait would look like.
One humorous moment yesterday was when the movers popped out the front door with a dresser on their dolly, obviously laboring. One of the guys pulled open a drawer to see if we had left it full of clothes. It was empty. They were surprised at how heavy it was. My comment was, “They don’t make ’em like they used to!”
My siblings will appreciate that it was the dresser from our parents’ bedroom set.
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Today, we will do a final clean-up of the old property, and make a purchase of a device to give us a mobile internet connection that we will test on our new property for a couple of weeks.
Tomorrow will be step two: the closings.
Last Night
Having tons of fun. Wish you were here!
Last night was our LAST NIGHT of sleeping in our home of 25 years. It was a little weird. We have dismantled everything to such a degree that it hardly feels like our place anymore. We had originally planned to sleep at Cyndie’s parent’s house, but we had just enough things left to do that we decided to go one more night in the old bedroom. With everything packed up, I had no clock displaying the time on the ceiling!
We are doing a bang-up job of preparing for the movers. They are scheduled to arrive this morning, and we are working to be as ready as possible in hope of allowing everything to go super saamoooooth. Why not expect the best possible outcome?
Yesterday, we got the flat screen television down from the wall and moved to Cyndie’s parent’s house. We drained the washing machine and unhooked water lines. By the end of today, the house should be empty.
If I can find where I put my camera, I’ll try to take some pictures.
Here we go!…
