Monday, January 28, 2019

Are You Moved Yet?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We Reds have been chatting amongst ourselves about moving these past few weeks because Rhys and John have recently bought a house in Arizona and have been going through all the attending pains (while Rhys is, if I recall correctly, working to finish five books. I may be wrong about the number, but it's still something insane.)

It's been making me think about my own housing situation and plans. When Ross died, lots of people asked me if I was going to sell our 200 year old house out in the country. Truthfully, the two of us had discussed it in the context of growing old together - should we move closer in to Portland, where we wouldn't have to worry about driving everywhere? Should we plan on certain renovations to the old house, to enable us to "age in place?" Or should we take a lesson from Lucy and her husband John, and winter in glorious Key West? (Ross REALLY liked that third option.)

Once widowed, I decided to NOT make any plans for a while. I committed to staying in place during Youngest's undergraduate years, giving her the chance to come back home every summer and every holiday if she wanted. But there's another aspect to my decision - I HATE the idea of moving. Not "leaving my home" - the whole process of moving.

In the past four years, I've helped at least two friends sort, toss, pack and clean houses to ready for the big move. I dog-sat another friend's pup for almost two months when a job change required her to move asap, and Ross and I hosted friends for a few weeks when their house sold SO fast, they didn't have a replacement selected to move into!

Then there's the period before putting you old house on the market. Your real estate agent will tell you every flaw you've lived with for 10, 20, 30 years has to be fixed. You'll patch, paint, hire an electrician and a carpenter, and then, just when everything is perfect... it's time to list the house. Where's the sense in that?

If you're in the early years of expanding your space and your family, you'll find yourself in a larger home with one sofa and two chairs that look like doll furniture in your new living room. At the opposite end, when you're empty nesters downsizing, you have to figure out how to get rid of the accumulation of twenty-five or thirty years of child-rearing. (I admit, there can be an upside to this - when my parents downsized to a couples-friendly condo, my mom got rid of almost every piece of "kids-can't-wreck-this" furniture, and bought herself beautiful new pieces for every room in the new place. Which had pale fawn wall-to-wall carpeting. Talk about NOT kid-proof!)

The more I think about the sheer grunt work involved in moving, the more staying put begins to appeal. What say you, Reds?


LUCY BURDETTE: You get no argument from me--moving is a beast! When John and I married and I sold my little single girl cottage, it took weeks and weeks of carting stuff in our cars. And more weeks of borrowing a van and trundling a lot more junk to the Salvation Army and Goodwill. 

Our last move was a lot closer, but ditto all the stuff. Plus the moving van fell into the hole where the natural gas tank had just been placed. And then I was depressed for a year--even though the new place was glorious. John's explanation for this was that I have a deep taproot. Moving disturbs the root, no matter how careful you are....






HALLIE EPHRON: My tap root must go all the way to China. I moved into this house 40+ years ago from a 2-bedroom apartment and we're still here. I dream about moving and I'm always miserable. I miss my kitchen linoleum. Right now it's nice having a place that's big enough to accommodate visiting kids and grandkids, not to mention Jungle Reds on book tour. Having said that, if I couldn't afford to have a wonderful house cleaner (she comes every other week) I'd be much more likely to move to smaller quarters.



RHYS BOWEN: the crazy moving lady chiming in. Darling Red sisters, remind me never to move again. We decided that our condo was too small for guests, too small for us both to have work space, and we did not like the way the current management company was running things. 

So we have bought a house. This should not be a huge, stressful move. It's 2 miles and only our winter home in Arizona, not like 40 years in our big house in California with accumulated junk. But it seems we've been carrying across boxes for weeks. There was a major electrical glitch ad we're waiting for the main box to be replaced. The closet doors wouldn't close over the washer and dryer so a man is coming to rebuild the closet. And we are currently like squatters with our two arm chairs, no kitchen stuff, using up food for meals and hoping Ito schedule the movers soon.  And writing to deadline. 

So if you ever hear me say move again, you are to restrain me!




DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, I'm sure it will all be worth it, but, oh, what a pain. We've been in our house twenty-three years and I cannot even contemplate the horror of moving--although there are days when I'm freezing or roasting in this old house that I'm a little tempted. If I could do it by magic!! Just out of this house one day and everything all organized in a new house the next! Ha. But my taproot is deep, too. I love our house, I love our neighborhood, and I don't really want to live anywhere else. 

I suppose downsizing would be nice--everybody is supposed to want to downsize, aren't they?--but we actually use all of our space. I don't want to give up a guest room (Wren's room when she stays over now) and we both have home offices. Not sharing office space with the hub, just not. So for the moment, I'm just working on decluttering.



JENN McKINLAY: Hub and I are still in our starter home -- bought 20 years ago next month. It's a small, three bedroom, two bathroom brick bread box with a big backyard and a pool. We think about moving and then do nothing. We can not seem to get it together enough to relocate. Maybe when the hooligans leave, maybe not. We are a lazy people and I like my neighborhood and my neighbors ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ so here I stay.


 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I love our house so much sometimes I worry that it's a problem.  It's too big for us, but it's...perfect. My best move ever was from Atlanta to Boston in 1983. My new employer paid for the whole move. I didn't do one thing, except open the door.  When I arrived in Boston, everything was already put into my apartment. I DID have to unpack some of the boxes, where I found carefully and individually wrapped open ketchup bottles, old newspapers, and half-empty cereal boxes. But ,whatever.  SO I am never going to move gain unless someone else does for me. 




JULIA: What about you, dear readers? Are you game for a move? Or are you staying put till they carry you out? Share your moving stories in the comments!

78 comments:

  1. I shudder at the thought of moving anywhere . . . we like our house and plan to stay right here . . . .

    We’ve moved three times in our forty years together . . . the second time I sort of abdicated from the whole moving thing by flying across the country [and taking on the daunting task of finding us a new home], leaving John and the girls to sell our house, pack, and move themselves, our stuff, and three cats. We did it that way because I needed to be at my new job the moment school was out, but in the process I missed a great deal of the madness and mayhem that goes along with moving . . . .

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  2. Love it/hate it. As a single girl it was love it. Gather the gang haul the furniture from one apartment to the next food was mostly salad stuff and Lean Cuisine so the most stressful part was stuffing the cat into the carrier and listening to him yowl on the trip.

    Moving from houses - different story. You put history in a house. It's not about the stuff, it's about the heart. We're looking at what we hope will be our last. If the SW Florida house sells by summer, we're permanently home in the Crown of Maine. Time to go back to the heart.

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    1. Very sweet, Kait! But wait till winter is over… :-)

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    2. Agreed about the difference in the single girl years, Kait. My moves in and out of apartments and shared houses through college and grad school involved a car full of boxes and buying pizza and beer for a few friends to come over and haul. I never had to clean the way you do when you've sold a house - there was always another student/young professional ready to move in with the remaining roommate(s).

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    3. Oh, indeed, Hank, waiting for after mud season, too. I realized I shouldn't have limited to houses, moving from any long-term home. That's where history is.

      Julia, so true about the cleaning! So different between single time and and family time. Of course family time cleaning can be heart-rending, those kitchen door jamb marks that measure growth...

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  3. I've moved twice in the past ten years, and I never want to move again, although I do sometimes think about it. Right now I love my house and I love my neighborhood, and I'm within easy walking distance of the best neighbor ever, so I'm happy to stay.

    When my husband died, I was in a similar situation to Julia--we lived waaaaaaay out in the country, in a tiny little place that needed repairs, and wasn't convenient to anything. It was lovely for the two of us, who liked to get away from it all, but not so good for a woman growing older alone. Plus, I needed to get a full-time job, and all the freelance clients who might hire me were at least 70 miles away. When I was offered a job, I moved first to a rental house--not easy to find with two dogs and four cats--then sold the country house and bought my current place, moving again. I was super-lucky to have done all of this before housing prices shot up to the point that I could in no way have afforded any kind of shelter, including my completely-unimproved-since-1960 brick ranch in a nice neighborhood.

    But I hate to move. I hate packing stuff into boxes, and pulling stuff out of boxes, and I particularly hate sorting through stuff to see if it needs to go into boxes at all. Quadruple that loathing when the stuff was accumulated by the late sweetie, so it carries an emotional burden even though he was a packrat and saved tons of completely useless stuff. I salute your intrepid spirit, Rhys. I'm sending you the courage to make the decision that's right for you, Julia. But I'm not leaving this place until they roll me out on a gurney.

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    1. I'm with you, Gigi: Bring on the gurney.
      Having said that, aging in place requires some agility and funding. The hardest thing is friends who move away.

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    2. On one hand, it felt (and feels) odd to consider "aging in place" when I'm still healthy and in my mid-fifties. But as several friends having similar conversations have noted, that's really the right time to begin planning - when you have a decade or more to make changes before you actually need them.

      Hallie, it used to be people in our area of Maine moved to Florida, but I'm noticing that's less of a thing than it used to be, probably, I'm guessing, because of the effects of climate change. On the other hand, I have a dear friend who already moved half-way across the country to be closer to her child and grandchildren - and she's not the only one I know thinking about making that choice.

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  4. Those illustrations are classic - and the last one makes me think somebody's gonna get murdered soon. No, moving isn't fun. We already downsized and I plan to stay in this house until, well, forever. The first floor already has a full bath and the den could become a bedroom if stairs become unnavigable. Decluttering would be awesome - but not right now. Rhys, I hope the new place glitches get resolved soon!

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    1. From your lips to God's ears, Edith. Carpenter coming tomorrow to build new closet doors, cable man Wednesday, utility company needs to turn off power before electrician can come and garage door man needed later this week. And this doesn't even include the drainage guy, the landscaper......

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    2. We should have a conversation about all the "guys" it takes to move into a new house or maintain an old one!

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  5. I'm not moving if I can help it. It's not easy managing the house now that I'm on my own, but this has been my home since I was 2 1/2 years old. I'm not going anywhere. Of course, it's all dependent on me keeping my job so I can pay the bills. On top of which, I'd never be able to afford to fix the place up in order to sell it.

    As for moving stories, I had a friend who was living with his girlfriend. They broke up and my father and I helped move him out of a 2nd story apartment...to a third floor apartment. Two weeks after we moved him, he called again saying he'd gotten back with the girlfriend and was moving back in with her. He wanted our help to move back with her! Ummm...nope. You get my help for ONE move and ONE move only!

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    1. That sounds eminently fair, Jay, especially with someone as romantically fickle as your friend!

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  6. Like Hallie and Lucy, I have a deep taproot, but mine is rooted in geography, not a particular house. I loved moving into both of the homes I've owned (new apartments, not so much)--because I get to remake what I want home to be. That said, the logistics of moving--actually getting everything packed and moved from place A to B--where are the elves?? And when I moved into my first home (boxes all unpacked--no storage), I was missing the second volume of a two-volume work on Mayan archaeology. Not left behind at the old place, nowhere to be found in new place. Years later, moved again--all boxes in storage for several years, including books. New home--boxes unpacked--and there was volume I and II!

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    1. Maybe there's a Mayflower moving guy out there who's passionate about Mayan archaeology, but also has a guilty conscience when it comes to hoarding other peoples' books?

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  7. Julia, I share many of your same feelings. I've been in this house for almost 10 years, which is longer than any house I've ever lived in, not counting the house I grew up in. It's wonderful here, quiet, private. But, I have a long steep driveway and the garage is in the basement which means I am always carrying something up or down stairs. It really makes sense for me to move. But just the thought of what is involved makes me want to lie down with a cool cloth over my eyes. I do have options but they come with their own but. My aunt gave me a nice flat lot but there are no trees and here I am surrounded by trees. And the fact is I probably can't afford to build on that lot. But no matter what I do, if this place actually does sell, I have to go somewhere until I've found another place. With 3 cats and a dog living in an apartment in town (kill me now)is not a plan that makes me very happy. And if I even have to move to an apartment might it not make more sense to just stay there?

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    1. Okay, what if you sold the lot your aunt gave you and used the proceeds for gently graded steps alongside the drive (so you can reach the mailbox) and a storage shed right outside the back door?

      I've actually considered, as part of my aging-in-place plan, heating my driveway. It's just dirt and gravel right now, so I could have a contractor lay down the heating mat and pour asphalt (or whatever) at the same time. The estimates I've seen run to $7-8K for the whole project, which isn't nothing, but it's certainly not as pricey as a lot of home improvement projects.

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    2. I've always liked the idea of a heated driveway; that won't happen here though. My driveway is rather long - 280 feet. I'd be happier if it were paved but again, because of the length that won't happen either. Selling the lot is in the back of my mind but that lot is next door to another aunt, family land. I'm afraid it would cause bad feelings.

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  8. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve moved... that might be fun to think about. And there’s always that weird moment, the first day you wake up in your new home, right? and you think: where am I?
    After all these years, I sometimes still turn on lights in places where there are no light switches. And then I wonder… Where do I think I am?

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    1. You know, Hank, that would make a nice, creepy scene in a thriller...

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    2. ooooh. You are SO right! Wow. SO right.

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  9. My husband and I have moved three times as a couple(1 apartment, 2 houses) and each time to a different state. We've been in this house 20 years, and I would be willing to move to a smaller one. Willing but not eager....

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    1. If you're thinking about it, Ramona, start Marie Kondo'ing your stuff now! :-)

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  10. We'll eventually heave three-quarters of our stuff and leave Cincinnati. Smaller, walking distance to public transportation, but with a fenced backyard for the dogs. Somewhere on the East coast.

    Nor Cal to LA, LA to Jersey, Jersey to Cleveland, Cleveland to Atlanta, Atlanta to Cincinnati. Lots of moves and lots of stuff, some of which never gets unpacked. My Julia Child cookbooks disappeared during the move to Atlanta, and reappeared in Cincinnati.

    After they hauled a five piece set of chintz-covered living room furniture up our steep drive, I apologized to the movers. Very nice, but not mine. I wonder how many people lose their belongings during a move?

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    1. We've lost stuff every time, but this move is a few boxes a day just a ten minute drive away, then movers coming for bed, desks, chests and table. Surely they can't lose those?

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    2. I can't offer any tips if your stuff has to get warehoused between moves, but I can help with making sure the movers do right by you. The Sailor worked for almost a year as a mover in our area, while getting his life together and waiting for his Basic Training to begin. The men packing and hauling got paid $10 an hour in our area (which has high wages overall) and they REALLY appreciate cash tips and a little kindness.

      The best house he moved was a place where the wife had cold soda, water and sandwiches on offer, and each of the guys got a $100 tip. Believe me, they treated her stuff like it was their own grandmother in a box. The worst - no tip, no water, and everything in a stuffed-to-the-ceiling garage was covered in mouse poop and dead bugs. Did the moving company at least supply them breathing masks? No. No, it did not.

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  11. We closed on this house 18 years ago tomorrow, and this is the longest I've had the same address in my entire life. Moving is anathema to me, even though the last one was bought and paid for by Kodak. I intend to leave this old house feet first!

    Still and all, it is inconvenient when I can't get up the stairs, operated shoulder and stair rail are both on the right size. I'm banished to a bed in the sun room and bathing in the powder room sink for the duration. But our house is beautiful, draughty, sitting on a hill surrounded by ice and snow, and I wouldn't change a bit of it.

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    1. Me: Images of Ann backing up her stairs.

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    2. Yeah, Ann, you can do the little kid thing where they scoot upon their butts one step at a time!

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  12. Right side, not size, and it's hard to type with my arm in a sling

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  13. "After they hauled a five piece set of chintz-covered living room furniture up our steep drive, I apologized to the movers. Very nice, but not mine. I wonder how many people lose their belongings during a move?" - Margaret, that would be a great opening for a mystery novel.

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    1. And since the Atlanta move? I still cannot find the kitchen curtains. They vanished.

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  14. We've been in this house 23 years this July. Like Jenn, it's not big. Three bedrooms (and my son's room is only 10x9), big yard, nice neighborhood. I love my bathroom, we just put the sunroom on that has opened up the whole house, I love the decor, my den, and we're planning a kitchen remodel for when the kids are gone (one down). As long as The Hubby is alive, I don't see us moving.

    However, if something happens to The Hubby, then I have a decision. That big yard needs mowing - like on a riding mower. I do wish I had one floor living because I don't like stairs (Upstairs for bed not a problem, downstairs for laundry bit of a pain). But this is my house! We're almost to where it's absolutely perfect!

    I suppose if I can hire a cleaning service and get someone to mow the lawn/be a handyperson it would be okay (The Boy swears he's never leaving Pittsburgh - maybe he'll take care of his mom).

    Mary/Liz

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    1. I see the advantage of staying in a "small house" (ie, the size house our parents' generation raised five kids in without thinking twice about it.) Once the kids have gone, there's not nearly as much pressure to downsize. I mean, I love my house, but it's got about 1500 more square feet than I need.

      I've run into the landscape maintenance issue here, as I've written about. Ross LOVED to be outside working every day in the summer. We've got an acre of lawn, flowerbeds, berry patches, fruit trees and grape vines. It's a big job, and I don't have the interest or skill set to do it - working outside on my own is so boring and unfun! I need to find someone affordable to step in before my back yard becomes an impenetrable tangle.

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    2. Yeah, I'm probably already it a "downsize" size house. I think now that we put the sunroom on we might have close to 2,000 sq feet, but certainly no more. The footprint of the house is only...25' by 30' I think?

      I'm all about the low-maintenance landscape. I have bushes. I put annuals in planters in the front. Other than that...it's just mowing a quarter-acre of grass that gets me (I think that's the size of our lot).

      Mary/Liz

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  15. My moving has mostly been driven by circumstance, not necessarily personal choice. I dream of moving to something I own, not rent, but the truth of the matter is that, unless "circumstances" rears its ugly head again, this is where I am for now. And, its not a bad place to be, all in all.

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    1. My mother, who moved dozens of times as a military spouse and after, used to say, "There's something to enjoy in every place you live." She was, to use a popular phrase, someone who could bloom where she was planted (even if she was only there for four months!)

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    2. So true! We moved a lot with my husband's job changes. Every place had something to enjoy.

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  16. I live here since 38 years. The first 18 with family, the last 20 alone. When my husband left , I thought and looked for moving but didn't find a place I loved as much as my home. We had worked so hard on our home to make it our own that I decided to stay, never looked back. Hope I can stay here to the end.

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    1. Danielle, that's good to know, because that's the way I'm leaning.

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    2. Julia, I've read probably most of your previous posts and if I'm not mistaken, I think you tend to try to do all by yourself . If you have the talent and energy to do so, it is OK but, for myself, I could not keep my home without asking help or hiring help when needed. I have to choose my battles.

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  17. I've been in my condo for 15 years now. My collection of books and Hallmark ornaments is taking over, so I need to either downsize or move. Of course, to move, I'd have to downsize first. That sounds like too much work, so I'll just sit here surrounded by things I need to sort through instead.

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    1. Time to binge watch the Marie Kondo show, Mark!

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    2. Absolutely. I am terrified to watch it, because I know what'll happen.

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    3. The amount of Xmas stuff I have is ridiculous. Thankfully it isn't technically mine. It is all the stuff that my mother accumulated over the years. I'd love to just get rid of it because I do not do any decorating for the holidays.

      The only "official" Hallmark ornament I own is of the spaceship Serenity from the Firefly TV series. And I only bought that this year (after the season was done and it was 50% off) due to what it was rather than what it was intended for.

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  18. Rhys, I sincerely hope life settles down for you and John soon, and that your new place turns out to be your best move ever.

    As you ALL know by now, we are moving soon. When we moved here in 1988 we only managed to go 1/3 of a mile; the next move is 6/10 of one. My husband has lived his entire life within 1 1/2 miles of this spot. Talk about deep taproots!

    Before we bought this house I had never lived anywhere longer than five years, and I always used to say, like Ann Mason, they would have to take me out of here feet first. But things change, don't they? The property we're moving to has been in the family since 1962, and we've owned it since 1992. For over 50 years it was used as a studio/office for Steve's business. The road it's on is less than a mile long and used to have mostly farms on it. Now our bit of it is one of a handful that have not been subdivided, and furthermore, it has a view of Kentucky from the new second floor. We were going to have to get rid of one of these properties, anyway, so might as well make a home we can stay in for most of the rest of our lives, right? The bonus for me is there will be a fresh slate on which to garden, with lots of sun. And the driveway is still 300' long, but it's almost flat instead of a double ski slope as we have now.

    Of course I have mixed feelings about leaving this house, where I raised three children, had three businesses, and loved and laughed and cried and learned, so, so much. But I still have memories galore, and a billion photos, if my mind goes. So there's that, right? LOL

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    1. Oh yes, Karen, the memories can go with you! I've talked about relocating, but found to my surprise that the nephews aren't ready to let go of 'home' yet--they're more than happy to move on, but they still want to know that I'm here in this place.

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    2. Absolutely, Karen. And I believe the real hardest part of moving is when you have the life you've built somewhere behind. It sounds like you'll still be shopping at the same local grocery store! That helps soften the blow a great deal.

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    3. Yes, we will even have the same UPS driver and mail lady, and since we've owned this property so long, we know all the neighbors already. The next-door neighbors have been part of our family (we invite them to Thanksgiving dinner most years) for almost thirty years. And my husband's twin brother lives right across the street.

      It will not really be a hardship to move, truly.

      I am looking forward to having a much easier to clean home, though. Mostly on one floor.

      Flora, our kids are the ones having the hardest time with this, which is weird. They're 48, 34, and 31, for crying out loud.

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  19. Great post! I wonder if it is an American thing to move? I know so many people who buy a place to live then move again! When we visited England, we visited a family owned house in the Cotswolds. Our class from Worcester College, Oxford visited the Cotswolds. I was shocked to discover that the house had been in the same family for 500 years! I am trying to imagine if that could happen in America. At the most, the family generations living in the same house would go back maybe 300 years?

    Diana

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    1. Diana, my family (or at least, some members of it) lived in the same house in Argyle NY from around the time of the Civil War until 1997. The house was a wedding gift for my great-great grandmother, from her father. She raised eight children there, and when she was old, my great-grandmother and her husband moved in. They stayed the rest of their lives and my grandmother and her husband took over. My mother and my siblings and I lived there for a year (post-divorce) and it was the absolute true north of our extended family for decades.

      Alas, when my grandmother passed away at the ripe old age of 87, no one in the extended family, which was spread from Maine to Florida to Texas to California and points in between wanted to relocate to a tiny farming village in upstate NY. Perhaps people stayed put in houses for so many generations in England because there weren't as many places to move to! The entire UK is smaller than the state of Michigan.

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    2. Julia, did the house/village in upstate NY give you inspiration for Millers Kill?

      My family never seemed very rooted, but my husband's family has lived in the town where we live now since the area was settled, before 1850. There are streets named after them, and we have one of his brothers, two cousins, and an uncle all within a few blocks. And we live about six blocks from the house he grew up in.

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    3. Absolutely, Debs. Argyle is the basis for the fictional Cossayuharie in my books.

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    4. Julia, that is amazing how the house in Argyle, NY stayed in the same family. Did your children see your grandmother's house ? Yes, the UK is smaller. And it has more history too. I remember a line from the Outlander where Claire and Frank were talking in the kitchen. Claire loved that everything was new and new.

      Since the house was sold, where is the "true north" of your extended family? Maine?


      Debs, that is wonderful.

      Diana

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  20. We moved this past fall - to downsize; to return to the town we got married in where some of my husband's relatives live; and to be near our daughter. Well - we still have boxes in the guest bedroom. It won't get used as such for a while. We now have a laundry room on the main floor which I love. We still have our old house with some things still in it. I do dreadfully miss my best friend, but all the others in the "group" had also moved. I love the house we bought. I get to go exercise & do other things with my daughter. In the spring, my husband will get to work on putting together his 56 Ford truck with our son-in-law in the SIL's huge shop. It IS a pain to move and I hope to never do it again. We lived in the previous home for over 30 years so you can imagine how much we had to sort through!

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    1. Sounds like a great outcome after the move, Jody! That's what we all hope for.

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  21. When I was a kid, our family moved a lot - 6 times before I was in the 7th grade to 4 states - every time with a baby grand piano and tons of books! I hated it! My father seemed to have no tap root at all. Once, when my mother's parents moved all the way from Canada to live across the street from us on the coast of Mississippi, my dad decided to go back to grad school, so we moved to another state! The hardest part of it was always leaving friends (and grandparents), always being the new kid in class. So I swore, once I got out of college, that I would never move again. Ha! Twelve moves since then, but I have been in this house for 17 years now, so I will definitely only be leaving it on the gurney!

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    1. I hear you, Mary. By the time I graduated high school, I had moved ten times, to three states and two countries. I moved another ten times between the start of college and buying the house I live in at the age of 32. I figure staying put for 25 years after that still only averages it out to one move every three years.

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  22. I think it might have been yesterday's post when we were talking about bookshelves that I mentioned moving and how I would like to, but leaving behind my built-in bookshelves would be a major problem. Most houses I look at online have one set of built-ins at the most. Not enough, and I don't want to go through having them built in again.

    I would love to live in the same area, an hour away, as my daughter and her family. Being right there where my granddaughters could come over after school or we could share a dinner from time to time at Grammy's would be so wonderful. But, there are several reasons a move from Kentucky to Indiana is problematic. First, the whole taproot thing. I've lived my whole life in Kentucky, 22 years where I grew up and 42 years here. I'm attached, and living in Indiana seems like a betrayal of sorts. Then, there's some tax situation concerning my husband's military pension, something Indian is supposed to be fixing. And, with my younger granddaughter already being nine and my older one graduating from high school this year, moving just to be near them seems a bit impractical. And, yet I still look at Trulia all the time for houses that might be "the one." Of course, if I am completely honest with myself, even though I like my house where we live (and we had lots of work done a few years ago), the city where we live is not some place I couldn't leave. I suspect though that we will go on living here, making a few changes here and there to accommodate things, like fencing in the back for our newly adopted rescue dog. As long as I have books surrounding me and can travel, I'm satisfied. When I think of all the packing I'd have to do, I am even more satisfied.

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    1. Kathy, Maybe the trick is to encourage your granddaughters to attend the University of Kentucky, Berea or Louisville! A lot of people wind up staying in the areas where they went to college or grad school.

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  23. Oh boy. We returned a week ago from our first househunting trip to the Carolinas and Virginia. I am still depressed. We were looking at specific houses we saw online; I want an older home because I think the construction was much better than what is being done now. My husband wants some acreage. He would be perfectly happy to buy some land somewhere I like and then have a house built. That scenario is pure nightmare to me. I do not want to build. Getting offtrack here. We are in Houston because Frank's last job brought us here. I am a native Houstonian but I hadn't lived here in 40 years. My family (parents and us) have tended to be rolling stones, moving as needed, so I don't really have roots anywhere. I want one last move to someplace less populated, less trafficky, less complicated. After we got back from our trip (which our dog made hellish and he is never road tripping with me again, but that is another story) I was so depressed. Frank is perfectly happy here. Maybe I will just travel all the time, or rent a place to stay for a few months at a time so I don't have to endure summer here. Aagh. One moving tip I have: show up at your new home after the moving van. Leave the hell of directing where the furniture and boxes go to the unlucky spouse who is in place. I did that on our Minnesota to Houston move as my husband had been here for months while I was trying to get the house sold. Scruffy the dog and I had a nice drive to Richardson, TX to spend a night with my parents. I think I waited a day to continue to Houston. Frank was so frazzled when I arrived. So glad I missed it!

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    1. "Let your spouse handle that" was Joan Emerson's very sound advice as well, Pat.

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  24. I was the youngest of 12 and to call our family gypsies would be an understatement. Once we moved into a house one weekend, and when my married brother came to visit us the next, we had already moved somewhere else. My mother would ask to stop and look in the windows of an empty house while moving our furniture to a new one. Unlike my siblings, I did not mind the moving - even the going to 2-3 different schools in a year. Having been a teacher for the last 25 years though, I've seen lots of evidence of how constant moving impacts children. My husband and I moved 17 times in our first 7 years of marriage, but when the kids arrived, I realized that I wanted roots for them. When my oldest started school, we bought a house just outside of town in a rural school district. The street where we lived was a starter street with a couple of kids in every house. It was a delightful place to raise children and they still remember it with great fondness. We lived there for 13 years - a record in my family who between them have lived in nearly every house in Galion, the little town close to me. When my daughter was a freshman and my son a junior, we built a house in the country. We've lived here for 20 years and hope to live here 'til we die. One friend said to another after visiting my house, "Only God knows where Judy lives." I love the solitude. I love that people always call first before dropping in, and I love that my children have a place they will always call home. I never had that. The closest to it was wherever my mother lived. Once she died, we all felt rather homeless. But this is home now - a quiet, safe place where I have met with God on every inch of the house and property. So, how do I feel about moving? I hated when we moved from our first purchased house after 13 years of accumulating. I actually brought the door with us that we used to measure the kids' growth. But mostly I hated all the decision making - what stays, what goes, what to do with it when we get to the new place. The idea of moving after 20 years terrifies me, and I know why when I venture to the basement. So I think I'll stay here where it is home to my husband and me, to our children, and now to our grandchildren. Love fills it to the brim and God's presence is my constant companion.

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    1. Judy, I think those of us with peripatetic childhoods like to sink our roots in deep (and do the same for our kids. I attended five different elementary schools, and one of my non-negotiable parenthood points was that my children wouldn't have the same experience.

      As it turned out, Youngest went to four different elementary schools - the first Catholic school closed, we couldn't afford the tuition at the second after the Smithie started (private) high school, the first public school also closed and was replaced with a new consolidated school. At least she had many of the same classmates in the first and third move!

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    2. Julia, I seemed to be the only one of the 12 that felt the importance of having those kinds of roots. The rest are still moving - even in their 70s and 80s. (There are 20 years between my oldest sister and me.) When we decided to build when the kids were in high school, it was with the understanding that we would find property in the same school district. They graduated with the same kids they started kindergarten with. I wouldn't have it any other way.

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  25. I hate moving. We moved several times when we were first married, then lived in the same apartment for 15 years. When we finally bought our little three-bedroom house I declared to one and all "I am NEVER moving again!" I also told my husband that when I die he going to have to bury me in the back yard because I'm completely serious about the "never again" part. He thinks the house is too small; I think he has too much stuff. I have lots of stuff, too, so we've been working really hard on decluttering.

    I've also reached the point where I'm ready to never help anyone else move again. After each of our last two moves, I messed up an elbow tendon so bad that surgical repair was necessary. After helping my mom-in-law move this fall, my shoulder tendon was inflamed so much that I needed physical therapy. Yes, I see the pattern! Since I already have one auto-immune disease, I'm wondering if I an undiagnosed auto-immune issue that affects my tendons. Got a bunch of blood tests today and I see the rheumatologist soon. In the meatime (you guessed it) I'm not moving anywhere.

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    1. Stay put, Cathy! And I hope you'll get some answers from your rheumatologist.

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  26. I'm active duty military and we've never gone back to back in the same location. This summer will be our 8th move. It was easier before children and pets. Lots of military families are a little annoyed with the KonMari craze because we do it every 2-3 years whether we want to or not. Rather than "does this spark joy?" the question is "can I stand to unpack and put this away again?"

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    1. Anon, growing up as a military brat my mom's standard was: "Do you still use/read/play with this? Does it still fit you?" If the answer was no, it didn't come with us to the next post.

      My mother kept one box per child, about the size of a small paper or book box, with curated mementos of our childhood and teens. She died this past summer and we finally opened them - I think the careful selection made what she saved much more meaningful than inheriting a garage full of old papers, toys and clothing.

      I will say, growing up in the military could be tough, but it was definitely worth while. I've never regretted being a part of that culture.

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  27. I was one year old when my parents bought this house 67 years ago so I've never really moved. If I can't do the steps I know that I will have to but meantime I think doing the steps is good exercise. I also love my garden. Another thing is I have a great location for the buses and am about half an hour from church and restaurants where I meet my friends. I'm even closer to the grocery and book stores and the library.

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  28. My last move was completely unplanned and extremely emotional. I moved from a two bedroom home with garage and shed to a one-bedroom apartment with absolutely no storage. I even have boxes in storage off-site to this day. But I always have to remind myself that I'm lucky, I had moved but was allowed to try and finish getting the last of my stuff into storage during the first 5 days of October. My time was up and I was done. That night the firestorm, that ripped through three counties in 2017, began. I live about one mile from final the edge of part of the fire. If I have chosen a different apartment just a little bit north, my emotion would have turned to anger because I would have lost everything.

    I do have a different moving story that is not quite so dramatic. It goes like this.... my mom decided to get remarried. she and her future husband announced this at the end of October and they were getting married the Sunday after Thanksgiving, 4 weeks later. They were moving to a new home, a two bedroom apartment that was across the street from the single bedroom apartment that John was living in. At the same time I needed a new place to live and my sister who had just moved into a small apartment of her own still had stuff at my mom's house as did my brother. In a mmonth time we were planning a wedding and moving five people to four different locations only it wasn't exactly five people to four locations. It was six people to five locations because my grandparents were in the two bedroom apartment that John and my mother were moving into.. Are you following yet? John offered a deal to the complex owners, he and mom would move into my grandparents apartment and they didn't have to clean it if I could move into his old apartment and not have to put down a security deposit. They got the deal. First my grandparents had to move, did I mention these are my father's parents, not my mother's. Then we started the moves for the rest of us. I had furniture in my new place with half my clothes, the other half was at Mom's new place, where I stayed before they got married, with my Mom. John was still across the street.... Everyone survived and the wedding was beautiful.... The post office had a little trouble getting all the mail straight. My mail was forwarded to my new home as an individual, my sister did the same. My grandparents had their mail forwarded as a family. My mother had her mail forwarded to her new home, which was my grandfather's former home, as a family. We all had the same last name..... Mom's mail was constantly forwarded twice, once to her new home and then to my grandparents before it was finally delivered. They had two forwarding labels on the envelopes.

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  29. Have a secret desire to move the 90 kms closer to my job! Dream plan involves just taking my clothes, contents of my kitchen , new lounge and my mother's dressing table. Ah dreams✨💫🙏🏻💛🌻

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