Neighborly Benefits
It is another weekend, and I am not visiting our new farm or driving to the lake. I am working at the day-job on a Saturday, again. I am not home, sorting my things, packing the keepers and giving away the rest. I am earning the wage that will help pay our new mortgage, so I guess I’m contributing in that way. It doesn’t feel the same.
Not that I really want to pack. It is a necessary evil. But it feels like the right thing to be doing. Pretty much everything else is done. I need to do some research to investigate the service providers we will want to have, but the real tangible task lying before us is, packing things into boxes. Each day that passes, in which I don’t pack, is lost. I see it as, “pay me now, or pay me later.” I prefer to pay in advance.
Even though I am not packing, there is still progress being made. Much of the credit goes to Cyndie, but I am lending moral support toward her efforts. Last night we hosted dinner for our next-door neighbors. Of course, that meant more opportunity to give away books. But, Cyndie didn’t stop there. Oh, no. There were four little girls attending, and they were prime targets for a wide range of items that were recently discovered in the depths of our storage spaces. There were some toys, puzzles, and miscellaneous kid-friendly stuff, but most importantly, there were dolls.
It is a wonderful treat to see the things we have stored for years, now being brought back to life, in the faces of people on the receiving end. They are helping us greatly by agreeing to take what we don’t intend to keep. It is a mutually beneficial transaction, for sure. The excitement of young girls was icing on the cake for us, last night.
It was great to spend the time with the neighbors. Unfortunately, in the routine of our usual daily lives, we make little more than passing contact. Now that we are moving, there was reason to make extra effort for a get-together. Seems silly to have waited until we are moving, to give them this additional level of attention.
Makes me think we should put in similar energy, much sooner, to meet and greet our new neighbors after we settle into our new place.
Faux Privacy
I have heard it said that I reveal things in my writing here that might be better kept private. Possibly.
Lately, Cyndie and I have experienced a pretty heavy dose of the perception that “Big Brother” is watching, with our activity selling and buying homes. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any privacy.
Long ago I accepted the use of Google’s email service, knowing full-well that my correspondence would be mined for information to use to target the advertising that would appear on my screen. Being the frugal sort, I willingly accepted it as a reality I could exchange for an email service I didn’t need to pay for. I am lucky, in that my eyes rarely stray to the part of the window that displays the ingeniously selected links of advertisers. They are almost always transparent to me during my email activity.
Not long after we listed our house for sale, the junk mail coming to our postal mailbox began to include cards and flyers from moving companies. Yesterday, our cable company sent a notice informing us how to transfer our services seamlessly to our new address. Hmm. We haven’t reported our plans to the cable company yet.
Going through the loan approval process was very revealing, in terms of how much others know about us. The credit bureaus knew more about us than we did about ourselves.
I think concerns about my privacy took the biggest hit when my briefcase, phone, checkbook, iPod, and wallet were stolen out of my car. More than ever before, that was the moment I felt that I no longer controlled information about myself. I created all new accounts, and life went on for me.
I don’t really have anything to hide. That makes a lack of privacy a bit easier to accept. It is a bit startling to one day see the entirety of Google’s list of search terms I have ever used, pop up on screen. “Did I really type those words in a search?” If I did, I did.
When the world finally finds out every little truth about me, I won’t feel like a victim of character assassination. The result will be more a function of character suicide. I am what I am.
Reverse Order
It took some time, but there is now a “Sold” placard added to our realty sign in the yard, bringing some formality to our status. It is official.
Each day that goes by, in which I don’t take on some task related to preparation for our move, feels like a lost opportunity. Luckily, last night I was able to take advantage of the big work that Cyndie has been doing in our library. She went through most of the books on the shelves and sorted them into keepers and giveaways. I invited friend, Gary, over for dinner and we urged him to help us out by taking some books home with him. Mission accomplished.
Gary and I got to hear some of Cyndie’s latest stories of connecting with horses. She has been taking some lessons in dressage at a stable that is new to her. Yesterday she took advantage of an opportunity to spend some time making first contact with a few of the many horses at this place. Turns out, there were plenty of interested talkers.
Should I be suspicious about the one that wanted to come home with her? Especially when the owner wandered by and mentioned the horse was for sale?
At the rate things are going, we could end up with a horse before we even have the farm.
Dizzying Times
Time is moving at the very same speed that it always does, and just like so many times before, it seems to be moving really slow and incredibly fast, all at the same time. Blink. Blink.
I found a list of things to do in preparation of moving. It starts with tasks 4 to 6 weeks out. According to that list, we are doing pretty well so far. I think we will be just fine, if we continue to make progress at the rate which Cyndie is proceeding at lately. It is a good thing she is between jobs right now, because she is making full-time work out of uprooting items that have been stationary for most of the 25 years we have lived in this house.
I’m feeling a bit lost, due to an unbelievable amount of simultaneous deadlines hitting at the day-job and exceeding our capacity, which is taking every spare moment and energy that I have of late. I would much prefer to be working at home with Cyndie to prepare for our move.
It is making time move fast for me. Then I think about how much I want to get to our new property, and time seems to be moving very slow. So, I think about the preparations we need to do before moving day, and time seems to move really fast again.
It makes me dizzy. Imagine that!
Evening
.
.
evening darkness
settles in gradually
early in September
late in the summer
and the sound of little girls
playing together in their yard
bouncing on the trampoline
planning, plotting
joyfully giggling together
vanishes
in a blink
replaced by the familiar
nonstop chorus of crickets
an occasional car
and the distant drumming
of the high school marching band
practicing this week’s routine
.
.
.
Addendum Addressed
It is done. All of the issues that were identified by our buyer’s inspection of the EP house have now been addressed. We are ready to go. Well, only in respect to those details. There is still the issue of preparing the entirety of our possessions to be picked up by a moving company and transported to Wisconsin.
Yesterday, while I was stuck working at the day-job, Cyndie took on the massive effort to move all the things that had been stashed into the crawl space in the basement, out onto the floor of the finished section. She needed to make room for the worker installing a radon gas mitigation system. I hope the ugly contraption will give the new owners peace of mind.
There are boxes and furniture and 25 years of stuff filling the rest of the basement. All the things we stashed out of sight to stage the house for showing. I no longer need to live in the mode of “leave no trace” in my own home. Now I need to pull out every last thing and weigh the question of whether it is worth paying to move it in order to have with us at the farm.
The distance between the two locations is long enough that we won’t be making a variety of miscellaneous trips back and forth, where we could haul odds and ends on our own. We will be paying a moving company to carry most everything and load it into their truck for the single trip to the farm. Then we need to know where we want each piece to go, because they will carry it off again. My degenerating disks leave me limited in carrying capacity.
We will be taking the large flat-screen television and our computer equipment ourselves, and probably storing them with friends or family, until the time is available to move them to the new house. Maybe I should consider the probability I will be off-line for a spell in October.
For each item that gets addressed, two more pop up.
I welcome them all. Our destination makes the effort well worth it.
Feeling Fall
There is no denying the sense of a change of season around here. The hours of daylight are noticeably shrinking. The dew point temperature has dropped, adding a fresh feeling to the decline of summer’s heat. It is my favorite time of year. It ushers in my favorite season: winter. I am obviously excited about the prospect of spending it on our new farm.
I’m dashing off to spend this beautiful Saturday morning toiling away at the day-job. I loath the overtime that requires my precious weekend hours, but that job has new significance for us right now, in that it is what qualified us for the loan to purchase the farm. I am grateful for the employment. That doesn’t mean I have to like working Saturdays, though.
Did I point out that there are a lot of maple trees on the farm? The sellers mentioned that they used to be tapped for syrup. Would we? You never know.
Mental Exercise
I’m feeling a bit of withdrawal from not being able to visit the farm property for the last 4 days. It is really energizing to me when I am even in the vicinity where it is located. I miss it.
I forgot what it is like to find the place you want to buy, and then not be able to have it for weeks or months. I don’t actually recall how long we had to wait to close on our Eden Prairie property. That was 25 years ago.
The waiting for our move to Beldenville is going to be quite an exercise of discipline and patience.
Here are some peeks at the stables in the barn, and the tractor we are considering…
