knitting librarian

We’re moving in about 8 weeks—ACK! and really need to get rid of a lot of extraneous stuff. I’m a collector and a saver and, frankly, a clutterbug. In the next two months it’s our goal to get rid of all of the old clothes that don’t fit, the stuff we don’t need (infant toys, infant boy clothes, infant girl clothes, etc.) and move to the new homestead with a minimum of stuff so there’s less to keep in its place.

I love this idea in theory. In practice, it’s hard to start and it’s hard to let go. I’ll donate lots to American Rescue Workers and offer some on Freecycle™ but there’s also things that really just need to go in the trash. I’m not sure what to try and resell and what to try and list on eBay. I guess as long as I get the cost of listing plus the cost of shipping, I’m better off than when it was sitting in my house collecting dust.

I’m avoiding bagging things now, so I really do need to stop typing and start packing. Marcia at Are We There Yet mentioned recently that her goal was to eliminate three bags of stuff per week from her home. I think I could do this between now and moving day and not make a noticeable dent in the stuff I need to release, but I’m going to start with the idea of three bags a week and see where that gets us.

I spent most of the day sleeping off my migraine. I don’t have much to report or blog. Apparently they were short subs again today. Unfortunately, that means the library was closed at the start of the day and it probably means that classes that were scheduled didn’t get to come. We’ll have to try and reschedule them for next week I suppose. I can’t beat myself up over it, but I sure do hate to let down teachers and keep students from getting their work done!

On the bright side, a conversation with one of the owners at Brookside indicates that the house should be ready for a final walk through the second or third week of January. I need to make daycare arrangements for Zoe so that we’re on track for the change. I hope it won’t be a problem!

Today, we closed on the house I’ve owned for nearly 15 years. I bought it when I was 24 and single and earning about $25,000 a year.

It’s tiny. It’s too tiny for four people, but we didn’t have a lot of choice after 5 years of paying two mortgages (on the house here and the one in SC after John and I got married.) The best thing I can say about this place at this point in my life is owning it and not being able to sell it 8 years ago meant that when John was able to find a job here, we moved back this direction rather than risk being in SC with two mortgages and one job. (At the time, his company was laying people off, although he managed to avoid that fate.)

We moved back here with a one year old and it was small but it wasn’t terrible. Then we got a German Shepherd. Then we got a potty trained three year old and a pregnant me. Now there are four of us and it’s definitely crowded, but until the end of September, we were still paying off the loss we sold the SC house at so we wouldn’t have two mortgages for 10 years!

After a lot of hard work and big financial changes, we are building a house not far from my new place of work. It’s supposed to be finished no later than March 12th and possibly as early as January. We’ve even got a small hope that we might be in it near Christmas because so much has happened in the last few weeks. They’re ready to drywall next week!

So, between now and then, we’re renting from the buyer. He’s planning to use it as a rental property anyhow, so he’s glad to have it rented for now and he’ll begin doing improvements to make it more rentable in the coming months. It definitely needs carpeted and painted. He plans to re-roof, put in replacement windows, and vinyl siding soon from what he’s said. Those things won’t get more value out of the house for us, so it wasn’t worth the investment—especially with money we didn’t have at the time.

We really can’t wait to move! AJ said to us over and over tonight, “Won’t it be exciting to be in our new house?” It sure will!

The builders are making good progress with the house so far. They almost completed siding—the far right side still needs siding, but the rest is done at this point. There are still two more shutters to be put on the window by the front door. All in all, we’re very pleased with the progress and with how the house looks. It’s funny though how different it looks depending on whether it’s bright and sunny or cloudy. The house really pops in bright sunlight, but when it’s cloudy it just kind of fades into the background.

Today, we double-checked that the well is far enough from the sand mound septic system—it is, just barely. The measurements in the family room also make us sure that we’ll be in good shape with the sectional we saw yesterday, so we’re happy about that. This week will be a big one: they’re supposed to be working on the sandmound, delivering and starting work on the drywall, doing the rough grade for the yard, and backfilling the foundation. On Friday, we got a hint that the house may be ready as early as January which is really exciting. We’d love to be in for the holidays, but there’s very little chance of that. Even so, moving early in the new year will be a big help to us as far as cutting our oil bills here. We really can’t wait to get moved into the new place.

Friday I’m closing on this house, so we’ll be ready to start making some purchases of furniture and appliances when we can. We just need to decide exactly what it is that we need, want and can do without. Of course, John says we need another HDtv before we move. I could probably pass on that, but I have a feeling we’ll end up doing it anyhow.

So, it seems that if Sarah Palin had been my momma, she would have named me Rankle Hiway. Jealous? You can find out what she’d call you too! I wonder if the Rankle Hiway was one of the earmarks they lobbied for?

Tomorrow they’re installing our basement walls. Our property has gone from wooded to ready for the ground floor in a week’s time. Amazing!