Wow. I Lost Myself

Whew. For a minute there, I thought I had lost contact with this site forever. I'm sure my former blogger friends were sure I had completely checked out.

I have no excuse for my absence. It's been a crazy couple of years with some great stuff and some devastating stuff.

But I'm still alive. As is my big brother, Rumbles, who stopped blogging about the same time as I did.

I don't know if I can catch you all up again. Well if anyone still looks to see if I ever update here, that is.

I'll just start with a story from late last year.

Bob and I had been thinking about downsizing up north here for a couple of years. Last fall we decided we would move to a model home that would be available this coming October. Then one morning we had a long unexpected discussion and thought financially it would be better just to move permanently to Florida and travel during the summer months. We were all set, announced our decision to our family and friends. After a couple months, Bob began to backtrack.

Bob had difficulty making a final decision, but usually after two months he is set. Not so much this time. I gave him some time. Finally about February we had another long discussion about the move. He was nervous he would get too bored in the six months when the snow birds go home in Florida (Bob+boredom= major problems). I told him that as long as he agreed to travel now without complaining, I was fine with not moving to Florida full time.

So we go back home and found the builder who insisted on the handshake deal on the model home reneged on her word to us (twice). We got home on a Monday, saw her on Wednesday, when she acted very odd and on Thursday called us and said she had sold the model.

Which was a complete blessing in disguise. The model we looked at was what we used to call a duplex, now they have all kinds of fancy names for it. For the most part I liked it, but there was no privacy, no curb appeal and a boring master bath and closet.

So off we went looking for something else.

And we found it. A cute ranch that was free standing with a lot on a pond and one we could pick out all the options ourselves.

In the meantime, I had been getting our house ready to sell. We live on a country road with an acre and 1/4. There is an amazing amount of days and weeks we have spent planting shrubs, flowers and trees. Bob and his dad installed crown moulding in the two story entry and the great room along with fluting in the doorways. About 14 years ago we gutted the kitchen and added a gorgeous sun room. We have treated this house like it was our baby.

Every room has been decorated at least twice in the 26 years we have lived here and we have loved this place where we raised Bob's two girls and watched our grandchildren run through the yard.

So, to cut it short, on our 27th anniversary, we listed out house with a great old friend on mine. She had a professional photographer come to our house. The listing went live at 11 am on 5/11. About 11:30, we got the first request for showing at 2. Fifteen minutes later the second request for 3. By the end of the day, we had 5 showings and 3 offers, two above asking price.

We signed the second offer.

We had been told the housing market was crazy, but I didn't think that would apply to our house and our part of Indy. I was wrong.

We closed on Tuesday. But we will stay in the house until an apartment is available on June 29th.

It's a crazy time. Been packing up. giving away, throwing away 26 years worth of memories. I'll share the pictures the photographer took. They were so perfect we considered not selling. LOL.

I'm going to miss this place.