The Stage is Set, Sold!

March 11th the interior photography was taken of our home for a virtual walking tour on a real estate website. These first impression photos/videos are very important because most homes are viewed on the internet first, in person second. In the midst of everything else we have going on in preparation for moving, we’ve been busy shuffling furniture around in order to open up various rooms so potential buyers can see the space and picture their stuff. This is termed staging your home. I’ve been diligently pulling pictures off walls and stuff off shelves in order to depersonalize our home-sweet-home. Two bedrooms now have twin-sized faux beds instead of my office furniture in one and a gigantic queen sized bed in the other. It’s amazing what a few storage boxes, camp mattresses, and colorful bedding do to the look of a room. The dining table is set - dinner for four anyone? And the kitchen bar is set up for breakfast. How lovely!

With the stage finally set the virtual walk-thru went live Monday night, March 14, and on Tuesday we had 3 prospective buyers. One ended up dropping out due to their own contingencies and the other two buyers took on a bidding war. By Thursday, March 17, we had accepted an offer and it all became official on Friday. Sold! Yesterday the house inspection was done and tomorrow the septic and well inspections take place. Whew!

Since the beginning of the year, all of our energy seemed to build up to the staging of our home. Now that we are past that point and looking at a closing date of April 20, we are in a sort of limbo until we can finalize the inspection details. The main push is over. Once we agree on inspection issues we will begin to dismantle the staging and finalize the moving plan.

Staging is preparing for something. That something could be just about anything. For us it has been the sale of our home in order to travel more and be home-less. Once you set your sites on whatever it is you want to do, you can make it happen. You just need to open up the space around you in order to see it differently, and that's when you can allow for change to take place.

Sold photo courtesy of Sean MacEntee

Priorities

Our house will be listed for sale within the next week. With so many loose ends to take care of how do we prioritize when the day is full of priorities? How do we determine what is more important to do when everything is?

With our upcoming move to have no home and travel for awhile, we are in the throes of the last efforts to get rid of stuff we no longer need, and we are packing things we are keeping. With each item that leaves it is much easier to decide what goes and what is packed, and with each item that leaves we feel lighter and know we are headed in the right direction. We make almost daily trips to our 10 x 15-foot heated storage unit. Weekly we drop off car loads of stuff to our local charities, and send piles of garbage with our very helpful garbage guy and recycle guy. Our scanner and paper shredder are working overtime. If the weather is good, the priorities are outside in the yard; if it is raining, the priorities are inside. Setting daily priorities is the only way to stay sane and work together.

In the morning we discuss what we would like to accomplish for the day, we handle business matters and squeeze in a workout before we get on with packing, sorting, and hauling. As the day progresses we make adjustments to priorities as necessary. Come evening, we wrap up between 4 and 5 p.m. and before we go to bed we discuss how the next few days may play out. By morning, that can all change. We have fallen into a new daily routine crammed with priorities that would test anyone’s patience and ability to be flexible.

What’s important is knowing we can reprioritize and lay out the next few minutes or the rest of the day as necessary. By adjusting and going with the flow we get an amazing amount of priorities taken care of on any given day. And when all is said and done, we will have a lot less stuff, fewer priorities, and can pack patience and flexibility with us when we head out on the next chapter of our lives.

So how do we determine our priorities when everything is a priority? We talk about it and work as a team. After all, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together in the days ahead and being able to discuss things with patience and flexibility in mind will see us through-and a dash of humor wouldn’t hurt either!

Checklist photo courtesy of e3Learning

Love and Horse Chestnuts

From a seed a mighty trunk may grow ~ Aeschylus

As my husband, Dennis, went off to jury duty recently, I got to thinking back to one of my courthouse visits. After I walked through security, the officer pointed to the scanner screen and very nicely asked me, "What's the round object in the bottom of your purse?" I wasn’t sure what he was talking about so I riffled through my little purse and began to smile. I pulled out a very smooth, shiny horse chestnut (some may know them as buckeyes). I said, “You’re probably wondering why I have this in my purse?” He raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. I explained that it came from Volunteer Park in Seattle where my husband and I went on our first date and where we had gotten married many years ago. I went on to say that my husband picked it up under one of the numerous horse chestnut trees in the park, cleaned it off, and gave it to me as we were wandering about on one of our visits. I even mentioned that when I run across the chestnut in my purse, it reminds me of how much he loves me. The security officer smiled and said that he had never seen a horse chestnut come through the scanner before, and that it was something he would not forget.

It may be a scent, a taste, a song, a feeling, or the sight of a chestnut that captures a surprise memory of long ago-like when I run into the love I have rolling around in the bottom of my purse. This surprise memory not only reminds me of how much my husband loves me, but how much our love has grown through the years. Yes, a mighty trunk has grown. While I have forgotten how long ago I received that little gem of a chestnut, I have never forgotten the sentiment behind it and cherish that sentiment each time the surprise memory comes to mind.

Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) photo courtesy of Plant Image Library

The Next Phase

Over the last few years my husband, Dennis, and I have been slowly moving towards making a major change in our lives. Having been homebodies at the piece of paradise we reside at currently, we are now traveling more and would like to take more time to do even more traveling. Last year you followed my posts on downsizing, this year we are making the move. After twenty-two years in our current home, we will be selling it and moving on to the next phase of our lives. But here’s the catch, we are not buying a house or condominium to move into, and we are not buying a motorhome! As a matter of fact, we are only keeping what fits in a few travel bags and a 10 by 15-foot storage unit. In other words, in the next phase of our lives we will be home-less, so to speak!

Are we excited? Most definitely. Scared? Absolutely not. Worried about the future? What’s to worry about? In case you are worried for us, don’t be. We’ll take our time and cross each bridge as it comes. We look forward to not having to catch-up on our home and yard after every trip. We look forward to having less, much less, to maintain and concern ourselves with. We look forward to seeing more of the world. And most of all, we look forward to just being.

With everything we have been doing to prepare for selling, it has been difficult to post regularly. But I will do my best to keep you up-to-date on our activities as we strive to move towards the next phase. Once we sell and move out, you’ll be able to follow us as we travel. It is what it is happens to be a guiding principle for both of us and we will need to fall back on this guiding principle as we hit the unpredictable road of travel. And for those who are not quite sure about the direction we are taking, we may have been homebodies in the past, but our recent travels have guided us to the realization that home is wherever we are.

Land and suitcases photo courtesy of Jenifer Corrêa

Time for a Change

Last year my word or theme for the year was simplicity. Simplicity was a struggle for me as it seemed the universe had its own idea and decided to throw complicated my way. But I held fast to my word as it reminded me to look for simplicity in the complicated. In this way I was able to gain small but significant improvements in my outlook on the complicated. Simplicity guided me to break down what was seemingly complicated into something more manageable. While simplicity was a challenge, it was preparing me for 2016, the year of change.

Change can definitely be complicated and challenging, but with change comes hopefulness and optimism. I feel all my previous words or themes have led me to this point, this year of change. Even saying the word brings me joy because I know change is meant for me this year. I will be challenging myself through the changes I will embark on throughout 2016. With this change my path forward will be wide open with nothing holding me back. Change will refine, revise, reshape, and redesign my future.

I will not only welcome change, I will embrace it, envelop it, support it, and embody it. With such a powerful word for the year I probably do not need to remind myself of it, but I will in order to infuse it into each and every day of 2016. As I begin each day I will renew and refresh my word by whispering it as I wake, hear it speak to me as I go about my day, and watch it fade from my lips as I fall asleep at night.

The last time I was this excited about my word/theme was when it all began with the year of me (which happened to last 3 years by the way). What will your word/theme be for 2016? What will refine, revise, reshape, and redesign you? Follow me on a challenging year of change and feel the hopefulness and optimism change can be.

Change photo information not available.