moving

Progress Report

Fandango13 Comments

Two weeks and two days ago my wife and I moved into our new forever home. We have unboxed and unpacked about 90% of the boxes and have organized and put away most of our belongings, which means we’re getting close to the point where we can stop asking each other where we put the thingamajig or in what drawer the whatchamacallit is.

I would say it will take until the end of March before we have everything set up and running smoothly. We are having some custom closets installed today and tomorrow and my new home office desk is being delivered tomorrow, so I will have no excuse for putting off doing my taxes any longer.

But the big news is that we already sold our former home. It went on the market on March 5th and five days later we had an over-asking, all-cash offer with no contingencies. And six days later (today), we went to close of escrow. In other words, we sold our house and got paid just eleven days after we put it on the market. Woo Hoo!

I am sure that our house sold so quickly and for a premium price because of our private backyard oasis we created for that house.

I won’t lie. I am going to miss that backyard. The backyard in our new home is big and it’s nice. But if our previous backyard was a ten, our new backyard is a six. Maybe a seven at best. But then again, we are now only five minutes from our son, his wife, and our grandkids, so there is that.

I Ain’t Dead Yet…

Fandango17 Comments

Seriously, I am too old for this shit. It’s been eight days since we moved in to this house and we are still barely half way through unboxing things and figuring out where to put everything.

My wife keeps holding things up and asking me if we are ever going to use whatever it is again or should we just toss it. Most of the time my response is, “just toss it.”

I have barely been on WordPress over the past week. My FOWC with Fandango prompts, which are scheduled through mid-March, but other than that, I have spent little time here. I was hoping to read your posts and write some new ones of my own at night, but I am so exhausted by the time I get in bed, that I can’t keep my eyes open for more than a few minutes.

Bear with me for another week or two and eventually I promise that I will get back into the swing of things.

Sunday Poser — Buyer’s Remorse

Fandango10 Comments

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know:

Have you suffered from buyer’s remorse?

Sure, there have been times along the long path of my life when I suffered buyer’s remorse. In some cases it was because whatever I bought didn’t live up to my expectations (i.e., it wasn’t as advertised).

The only major purchase I made that gave me buyer’s remorse was when I bought a used 1959 Jaguar XK-150.

My most beloved car ever was a 1967 silver-blue Austin-Healey 3000 Mk III. I absolutely loved that car, but it was essentially a two-seater British Roadster. I had recently been promoted to a position at work that occasionally required me to shuttle people from place to place, so my boss told me I needed to buy a car that could comfortably accommodate four people.

If I had been more business savvy at the time, I would have told him to lease me a company car and would have kept my Healey. But I was naive, needed the job, and, with a broken heart, I sold my ‘67 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk III for $2,200.

(Just as an aside, I Googled “1967 Austin-Hraley 3000 Mk III” to see what they’re worth today. Try around 80 grand. What?)

Anyway, a few years went by and I felt I was in a position to maintain my practical car and to try to recapture the feeling of having a classic British Roadster, so I bought a used 1959 Jaguar XK150 for $2,300. 

This wasn’t my car, but it looked just like it.

It was drivable, but just barely. In the 3 years I owned it, it spent about 2 3/4 years in the shop of a self-proclaimed Jaguar mechanic who called himself “Jaguar Joe.” I probably paid Jaguar Joe more than I paid for the car in the first place, and he was never able to get it to run for more than a week or two at a time. I finally ended up just letting him keep the damn thing.

(Just as an aside, I Googled “1959 Jaguar XK 150 S Roadster” to see what they’re worth today. Try around 100+ grand. What?)

So, bottom line, between the cost to buy the Jaguar and what I paid Jaguar Joe in his unsuccessful attempts to make the vehicle road-worthy — all in my ill-fated effort to try to recapture a past feeling — buying that Jaguar gave me a serious case of buyer’s remorse.

Home-Worthy

As I mentioned here yesterday, my wife and I are moving into a new house this coming Friday that we purchased late last month. Our reasons for moving from our current house, a house we love with an oasis for a backyard and with lots of privacy and gorgeous views, are very logical and rational and on paper make perfect sense. But I do have concerns that down the road a bit we may scratch our heads and ask ourselves why the fuck we did this.

Maybe it’s because we are in the phase of the process where we are going through all of our belongings, deciding what to move with us, what to leave behind, and what to toss. And we have to look forward to the actual physical moves of our stuff to the new place, figuring out where everything goes, unboxing everything and putting it all where it belongs. And then getting used to living our day to day life in a very nice house with a very nice yard, but not one with a beautiful oasis of a backyard with million dollar views.

I am hoping that if I am ever asked if I have buyer’s remorse about buying that house and selling this one, my answer will be an unequivocal “no.”

I am going to leave myself a task for the end of August of this year to write a post with my answer to that question.

Writer’s Workshop — Multiple Choices

Fandango6 Comments

For his Writer’s Workshop this week, John Holton gives us six writing prompts and we are tasked with choosing one of the prompts (or as many as we want) and writing a post that addresses that (or those) prompts.

I am having a hard time choosing which of John’s six prompts to go with today.

I could go with any one other than #5, which is to write an opinion post called “Fruitcake is unfairly maligned,” but I couldn’t choose that topic because I hate fruitcake and think it can’t be maligned enough.

I’ve moved around a lot, so I could go with #3 about moving from one place to another, but I’ve already posted about that a number of times before on my blog.

Or I could choose #6 about how my body has changed as I’ve gotten older, but my poor, old, aching back hurts so much these days that writing about that would be too depressing.

And then there is prompt #1, to write a post based on the word “gym,” but to be honest with you, I havent been to the gym for years and I feel kind of guilty about that.

That leaves me with #2, write a post in exactly 10 sentences and #4, which asks if I refuse to watch a filmmaker’s or actor’s movies, or buy someone’s music or books, because of their personal bad behavior?

Well, I’ve already written 6 sentences before this one, which means if I write three more after this one, I’ll satisfy the 10-sentence prompt, and if I answer #4 about whether I can separate the person from his or her work, then I will have written about two of the six prompts, right?

So, my answer to #4 is that even though my wife refuses to watch a Woody Allen movie, anything with Kevin Spacey appearing in it, or any film directed by Roman Polanski, I, on the other hand, can separate the artist from the art and continue to watch a film, read a book, or listen to a song by an actor, an author, or a musician, respectively, despite what despicable behavior they exhibited in real life.

Except for Pee Wee Herman, a children’s television and movie star, who was nicked for masturbating in public in a movie theater.

That’s a bridge too far even for me.


Badge by Patty,  http://anothercookieplease.com

Image generated by WordPress AI.

One-Liner Wednesday — About Moving

FandangoLeave a comment

662387B3-CE49-4EAE-9465-0BFC34E557AD

If we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet.

Blogger and author Rachel Wolchin

I saw this quote last week after we had physically moved from the city to the suburbs and I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed. I was tired to the point of exhaustion at what seemed like the daunting task of turning our new house into our new home and I thought about how nice it would be to be rooted to something permanently.

But I think we are over the hump and things are finally starting to settle down and life is beginning to become normal again. Different, yes, but normal nonetheless.

And I’m happy that I do have feet and not roots.

Written for this week’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt from Linda G. Hill. Drawing by Peresmeh at Getty Images.

SoCS — I’m Sorry

FandangoLeave a comment

D999728F-92D8-467A-9BAD-17506BFA2C44I really thought the worst part would be the packing and the physical moving. That got accomplished and my wife and I spent our first night in our new house on Wednesday night. It was a late night and I didn’t get much sleep…maybe four hours…that first night.

But I was wrong about the packing and the physical moving being the worst part. It’s the unpacking and figuring out where things are (i.e., in which boxes) and then deciding where to put all of the unpacked things (i.e.,  organizing), that has been the worst part. And then breaking up all of the empty cardboard boxes and creating bundles of neatly folded packing paper the movers used to wrap almost everything they placed in all those boxes is nuts. I can’t even fit my car into the garage because it’s full of cardboard and paper. And after two days, we’re barely half way done.

Oh, I forgot to mention tasks like getting my cable, internet, and WiFi services up and running. And then attaching my doorbell camera and Nest thermostats to the WiFi. Yikes.

At night I think about all that still must get done, so sleep has been restless at best. The truth is, I’m exhausted. And I haven’t had time to be on WordPress for the past two days. Not even to look at my stats or to read you comments on my advanced-scheduled posts.

And for that I really apologize. I think it will be at least another week before things will settle down enough for me to get back in action.

But the good news is that I also haven’t had time to watch any cable news shows or even the late night political comics. I’m sure I haven’t missed much, right? There’s not much going on these days, is there?

Anyway, I’m sorry for all of your comments that I haven’t had time to read and respond to and for missing so many of your great posts. But I’ll be back soon.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where she has asked us to use “pack” or “unpack” in our posts.

Five Lines or Less — Manifest Destiny

FandangoLeave a comment

6AD88B82-7A79-4EAC-A9C9-2D2ACCE6BAD4I’m moving into a new home next week.

It will be the 17th home I’ve lived in.

Not counting dorms, apartments, and other temporary housing.

Three with my parents, two on my own, nine with my wife and kids, and three as empty nesters with my wife.

It seems that my life’s personal Manifest Destiny has been to live in many homes.

5 linesWritten for the Friday Five Lines or Less prompt from Patricia’s Place. The idea is to write a story or poem of five lines or less. This week’s word is “destiny.”

Please Bear With Me

FandangoLeave a comment

Dear friends,

4F6571AC-D5A4-4773-81D2-095330481DE3As of yesterday at around noon my time, my wife and I became the proud (?) owners of two homes — the one we are currently living in and the one we’re moving to in about two weeks.

Earlier today I was at our new house way out in the suburbs awaiting some tradespeople that I needed to meet with before we move in. While I was waiting for them to show up, I was looking out of my backdoor, which is actually an oversized sliding glass door, admiring the view. It was a clear morning, and, because our new house is situated near the top of a hill, I could see for miles. It’s quite a different view than we have from our home in the city, which is basically the side of the apartment building behind our house.

But I digress. We have about 10 days to get our belongings all packed up (i.e., our shit together) before the movers show up to empty our current place and move our stuff to the new place. And then, in about a month, after some painting, minor repairs that need attention, and staging, our existing house will be going on the market.

I’m hoping that it will sell within a few weeks and that we’ll close within 30 days of the sale, or about two-and-a-half to three months from now. I don’t relish the idea of paying insurance and utilities on two homes for much longer than that. But, as they say, what will be will be.

Finally, I want to apologize to those of you I follow. With all that’s on my plate right now, I haven’t had sufficient time to go through my reader and read many of your posts. Nor have I been as prolific as I usually am when it comes to publishing my own posts. I’m hoping that within a few weeks of the actual move, we’ll be settled in enough that I can resume reading and posting at my traditional superhuman pace. Until then, please bear with me.

Best regards,

Fandango

Written for Ragtag Daily Prompt (looking out of my back door), and Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (clear).

You Belong In The City

FandangoLeave a comment

55579248-5C20-45E9-BD52-772259318475Wow, the timing of Jim Adam’s Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Music Challenge couldn’t be more prescient. Jim focused on a song by Glenn Frey, the late singer and cofounder of The Eagles, “You Belong In The City.” Is Jim trying to tell me something with that choice of song?

Earlier today I wrote a post announcing that my wife and I are moving out of the city and into the ‘burbs to be physically closer to my son and his wife, who are expecting their first child.

It’s been at least two decades since my family has lived outside of a “real” city (i.e., one with NFL, MLB, and NBA teams). We lived in the suburbs when our kids were younger so that they could go to the best public schools. But when they went off to college, my wife and I, as empty nesters, took up residence in an urban environment.

But now, with our first grandchild on the way and with grandparenting duties in the offing, we are heading out of the city and into the suburbs.

So, Jim, if by choosing the song “You Belong In The City” for this weeks music challenge, you were trying to send me a message, you’re too late. It’s pretty much a done deal. If anything bad happens to me out yonder, I’m blaming you for waiting so long to say something.