Getting Ready to Move is a Big Ole Pain in the Butt!

Dennis and I have been off work since last Thursday getting ready for the big move. Being off work has been the only "sun-shiny" part of this whole thing! I have to tell you, I did not have a CLUE about this moving thing. Good god, who in their right mind would ever choose to do this? It is beyond me. I was so excited to find the house of our dreams, but what a process it's been in getting there. I know we've all done it - some of us tons of different times, but I really don't know why we put ourselves through all this. Why we don't just find a house that we like and stay there? Why do we have to move? Maybe its just me - it probably is, because people in all walks of life move every day! But not me - no more. I am never moving anywhere after this -no way, no how, no, no, no!

Well, we've been busy these past four days. We have so much stuff that we've accumulated over the past 10-15 years that I had this great idea to have a garage sale! Why? I'll never know. I think sometimes I don't think things through - ah, duh- what was my first clue! Anyway, I dragged my poor husband into my "garage sale" scheme and he, being the loving man he is, happily (I kid myself) complied. We spent all day/night Friday getting ready for this thing - setting up the garage/ putting all our stuff (more like junk) out on the two tables, pricing everything, yada yada........ well, I had another hair-brained idea to have it begin Saturday morning at the crack of fricking dawn - 7:00 a.m! Again, what was I thinking? Some might say, I was not! Any who, I wake up at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and dragged my " I'm not a morning person" husband out of bed at 6:30 a.m. (to help me greet the garage sale crowd. ) Well, we were busy for about the first two hours, then.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, not a single person! Now, don't laugh, but I had another hair-brained idea to have this booming garage sale on, not just Saturday, but yes, it's true, Sunday! Geez........ I woke up Sunday morning, but thankfully, didn't disturb my sleeping husband, to greet the crowd at 8:00 a.m. Not ONE STINKING PERSON TO BE HAD! I was so.........well, you probably know the rest.... I shut that god darn thing down at 10:00 a.m. and said "the hell with these dang garage sales!"

After all was said and done, we made a measly $150 bucks! NEVER AGAIN!!

Family is so much fun! Truly.

I love my family. If you couldn't already tell with all my past bloggings, my family is very important to me. They are the best. Tonight I met my mom, my sister Mary Ann (Mary-Harry for short) and my 16-year old niece, Stephanie for dinner. She just got her drivers license so we wanted to have a girls night out to celebrate this great milestone. We met for Japanese food and had a ball, talking, laughing and generally just being silly women together. How great is it to be so close to family - geographically and emotionally....... I feel very lucky and truly blessed to know such wonderful people. My family is great and I really do enjoy their company - yeh, we all have our "stuff" once in a while, but for the most part, we are pretty dang close.........

It was really nice spending time with my niece. Let me tell you a little about Stephanie. She is a really special young lady. Some might say her parents raised her well. She is polite, bright (both intellectually and through her inner beauty) and what I would call, very grounded. She seems to know what she wants in life and where she is headed. I admire who she is and who she is becoming. I love her so much and think it is so great that she actually likes to go to dinner, and see me, her grandma and her mom! How many 16 year olds do you know who LIKE to do these kinds of things! Not many, I'm sure.....Well, we think she is the best. And best of all, she's my sister's daughter so we have an extra special bond. I feel quite lucky to have such a special niece. I wish for her a life full of love, beauty, contentment and joy. I will hold that thought for her as she journey's through her young life......

Well, Easter is this Sunday and that means another family get-together....... yeh! I could get used to this!

Moving is so much fun!

Today is Sunday and what a fun weekend we've had! NOT! We are getting ready to move........ my husband has lived in this house for almost 25 years - he had the house when we met 12 years ago. I, on the other hand, have only been here 8 years, so I don't have the amount of stuff (junk) that he has..... boy, oh boy, are we having fun now! We only have about two weeks before we move into our new house, so we better get packing! I had no idea how much work it would be! Before yesterday, I was gung ho -ready to go. How hard could it be, I asked myself? Just devise a plan and get going....... well, I was in for a slow, rude awakening as I started to go, room by room, closet by closet, deciding what I wanted to purge, what I wanted to keep, what to sell, what to give to Goodwill and what to just toss as far as I could throw the damn thing! I'm already pooped and I've only just begun!!

Now, my darling, energetic and amazingly fit husband has really done the hard work. He began painting the downstairs, living room and kitchen today. There he was standing on a step ladder, head bent backwards, with the roller in his hand - back and forth, back and forth as he paints the ceilings! Good god. There is simply no way in hell that I could ever do that! That man has the endurance of a bull. He just keeps going and going. But, after about 5 hours of this, I asked him to please stop and take a break. Which thankfully he did. I thought he could use a good, hot soak in the tub, so I ran the water for him and once in, gave him a good rub down. Nothing like soaking in a hot bath after a hard days work.

I quit about 11:00 this morning (really never got off the couch - truth be told) and went grocery shopping. I love to shop for food. Nothing like good food preparation after my hubby has worked so hard all day. I love doing that for him. I made a nice batch of chili. So, about 4:00 p.m., he finally came and sat down, read the paper and chilled out. We had a nice glass of wine, a hot bowl of chili and took the rest of the night off. Thank goodness!

I Wish I Was.......

I wish I was computer/tech savvy, but no matter how hard I try, I'm just not. Too bad too because I want to be, but every time I try, I just don't get it. It's so frustrating! I have all these neat ideas and lots of them require a web page, but for the life of me, I can't seem to figure out how to set it up. A friend even told me about this site that offers free websites and I still can't figure it out - ugh, why do some people just "get it" and some people just don't!?

Take my friend Susan who lives in Germany - she has created two or three really cool sites - one for her doggie hotel (see link on my blog page); one for her rental home in southern France (see link again) and one just for herself. They are easy to navigate, cool sites and I want to know how to do that!! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! I need a tech savvy person either living with me or on my payroll!

So, what is a poor girl to do? Does anyone have any advise out there? Where can I go to learn how to create a web site? I am an auditory learner so looking at something or reading instructions don't do it for me. I learn by listening......... does anyone know of any You Tube tutorials or the like to help me out?

Please leave a comment if anyone has any ideas.......... in the mean time, I'm going to go try to dig something or someone up to help me!

Tootles........

Life.......

We just celebrated Dennis' 60th birthday - a big milestone in his life..... one day, we will or have already celebrated (if we're lucky) that day. In celebrating his sixty years, with friends and family, I began to think about life........ the truth is: life is short.

It seems there are lots of people racing through life, trying to make the time pass quickly, hurrying here and there........waiting for that this or that to make them happy. I guess what I want for myself is to enjoy life today. Be present. Notice everything and be totally focused in whatever you are doing. As I type these words, time is ticking away. It was really strange, I was on a conference call at work last week and there, on the phone, was a digital clock. It was very strange listening to the dialog and watching the time tick away, one second at a time. By the time the call was done, an hour of precious had passed. Now, think about that. That hour is gone. I never thought about it like that before and it was very strange actually watching time pass.

Along with Dennis' party and the significance of all that, it made me think......... and thinking is what I do. I love to postulate about life and its meaning......... it made me think about what is important - what is important to me. We are in the process of buying a house - a bigger, more beautiful house, with all the trimmings...... and though I am excited about it and want to live there, I could have stayed in this house forever......... the reason is quite simple. Things don't matter to me. Yes, things are nice but they are just things and they are not what is important to me. What is important is my family and close friends. Without those special relationships, nothing else matters.

Dennis and I spent yesterday lounging around the house, reading the Sunday paper and just enjoying another beautiful, sun-shiny day. I loved every minute of it. As we sat, we began to talk about life and how it never stays the same. Isn't that the truth? Just when it starts getting comfortable, something happens to give us another opportunity for growth..... it's the cycle of life. Nothing ever stays constant for long....... hopefully, we are all ready and equipped to meet each change or challenge and go with the flow. Trying to stop the tide of change is an exercise in futility. It will just sweep you over.... the best thing to do is embrace change and ride the wave.........

I don't know about you, but we have lots of changes happening. Not only are we moving but we have some family changes going on as well. Dennis' brother and his wife want to move to Colorado. We are happy for them, but sad too. We will miss them a lot. Dennis was really sad to hear the news because he realizes what it means. Life is short. You never know what will happen, so enjoy today. I guess the lesson for Dennis might be to enjoy his brother as much as he can while he is still in California - go golfing, take a day off work and go have fun! Don't wait........ enjoy every minute.

We also love spending time with my mom and dad. In fact, we love having them over for dinner, traveling with them, etc - any reason to get together is all we need.......... we see them all the time and love it. We are also close to my sister and her family and my two brothers and their families. Changes are happening there too, as kids grow up and new ones come in...... my brother and his wife are adopting a baby boy, so we are all looking forward to that new addition.

Life is about change - easy and sometimes not so easy.........but one thing is for certain: life happens and changes are a comin'

So, sit down, buckle up and have the time of your life!

Happy Birthday Month!

Dennis' birthday is in the month of March and I'm discovering that a lot of people I know and work with are born in March.... They are all lovely Pisces.... the sign of the fish.... Pisces people are known to be emotional, sensitive and dreamy...... they spend a lot of their waking moments in la la land, thinking and dreaming of a better day....... I wouldn't say Dennis is a typical Pisces but if he had his way, he might spend all his time in his imagination......... pondering the meaning of life.........

As you know, we are celebrating Dennis' big day with a party. It's this Saturday and we have about 25 friends and family coming over. There is a "guys only" golf game that morning, so that should suit Dennis just fine. He gets to see all his best buds and enjoy what guys do together - namely competing and doing that sort of male bonding....... I know Dennis is looking forward to it..........

So, as Dennis golfs, I'll be home getting the house ready for our guests. I really enjoy the whole party planning thing and sometimes think that I should have been an Event Planner. I really do love it and it brings me great joy to cook for other people and entertain...........speaking of cooking and entertaining, I can't wait to get into our new house because it is situated perfectly for that kind of thing. The kitchen is a chefs dream (two ovens and a super-duper convention microwave) and a backyard is big and roomy enough for lots of people. Once we're all settled in, which should probably be by mid-late April, we're going to throw a big housewarming party.

So, I guess that's it for now............ more later as we get ready to move...........

Changes are a Comin'

My hubby has been wanting to move for a loooooooonnnggg time..... so we hired a realtor and have been looking at a variety of houses (large, small, lots of land, little bit of land, affordable, way too expensive, etc) for about a year..........

Before our search began, I was just as content to stay put and to continue to enjoy the house we currently have. It seemed perfect to me - a great location, great neighbors, centrally located, pretty close to work, close to family, almost paid off, yada, yada........ but funny how life is.......... as much as I protested and tried to convince Dennis that our house was just fine, he kept saying how much he wanted to move, so there in lies the rub.......... the rub and morale of the story:

Be careful what you ask for because you might just get it!

What we got was an awesome, beautiful home! It all came together quickly too - all in the past two weeks. Once that energy started flowing, everything seemed to move very quickly. I knew the house was ours the moment I saw it. I could just feel it. Call me crazy, but I knew. Even that first night after walking through it with Tracy (our awesome realtor), I was already living there - literally. I told her the next day that this was the house and that I had already moved in - in fact, I'd taken a bath in the master bathtub and cooked a meal on the stove! She just laughed, but I was darn serious. I knew the house would be ours because it was perfect for Dennis and I. The natural setting and the beautiful oak trees was just our style. It was a bit pricey, but I also knew that we would get the price we wanted and we did (at least I think we did : ).

Since I had just finished reading my new favorite book " A New Earth" (check past blog entry), I tried to apply some of the principles I'd just learned to the process of getting the house. I had to be:
1. Non-attached
2. Non-resistant
3. Non-judgmental,
in every aspect of the process and transaction.

Well, with everything in life, no one and nothing is perfect, so I did struggle from time to time. However, one thing was certain - I was not attached to the outcome - I honestly could have taken it or left it, and with that mind set, I was able to open up the space for good things to flow.

I did however lose that steely focus from time to time, especially when my wonderful husband was being the shrewd negotiator that he is......... I thought he was playing a little too much hard ball and that we might lose the bid and thus, I lost my focus and became attached to the outcome and resistant to what was happening........ but I was able to find my center again and trust the process, knowing on some level that if it was meant to be, we'd get the house....... and we did, so I am a very happy girl!

Well, it's the weekend and we've begun the unruly task of trying to decide what to keep, give to Goodwill or trash...... we have lots of work ahead of us but it is good. We get to clean house, start anew and in about a month or so, we get to continue an already wonderful life in a new and wonderful home! I can't wait!!