Lisa's Log: Changes

One of my favorite self-motivating mottos for myself is "this too shall pass". It really helps to repeat this to myself over and over again when I'm going through hard times, or when I'm having to endure something that seems to take forever.

But "this too shall pass" unfortunately applies to all the good times as well. I've spent the last 34 years of my life in Alaska, and it is now coming to pass. It is time to enter a new phase in my life, which sadly does not include this wonderful state of Alaska.

We are headed for South Bend, IN. While we are living there, I don't know how many times I will be repeating to myself "this too shall pass". I'm sure it'll be a nice place to live and there will be many good changes to look forward to. My problem is dwelling on the changes that involve letting go of all the things I have grown attached to in the last 34 years.

I knew this day would come eventually. I just thought it was another 10 years away.

But leaving in 10 years from now would be just as hard (or harder) to leave than now, so why delay the inevitable? Right? Anyway, I have no choice in the matter. I try to think about Sarah when she had to follow Abraham into an unknown territory. But who knows? Maybe she was the adventurous type and maybe she was eager to get away from Ur.

Anyhoo, we have a friend from church who is a realtor, and we hired her as our agent. She came over last Thursday night. We sat down and talked about some things, we signed some papers, and then got busy, busy, busy, busy with purging, organizing, and packing boxes, and hauling a bunch of stuff out to the shed, in order to declutter the house and get it ready for showing.

Also made a dump run. Another dump run coming soon.

It was a LOT of hard work and lifting heavy boxes! Good way to get yourself buffed up!

On Tuesday, this was in front of our house.

That same day we got a phone call saying that someone wanted to see it.

Wow, that was fast.

Later, we learned that she "really liked it" and she wanted to come back that evening with her husband so he could see it. So we showed it again.

The next day was a holiday (the 4th of July), but the same lady wanted to come back AGAIN and show it to her sister! Also, another realtor wanted to show it to someone, so we let them come back to back to make it easier on us (cuz we have to leave the house every time someone wants to look at it). Well, apparently the house and the location was what this lady was looking for for the past year, so she wanted to snatch it up before someone else did. So her husband offered full price for it, which was nice. The house sold in two days, so - wow - that was really fast.

Yesterday we signed all the negotiating papers and then the rest of the day I felt........sad.

Also yesterday, Chuck sold both of his motorcycles, and I felt sad.

This morning, someone bought our side-by-side and hauled it away, and I felt sad.

Attempting to cheer myself up, I cut some lilacs and roses off my bushes and put them in vases in my house. But tending to my bushes that I'm leaving behind also made me feel sad.

Looking at houses for sale in South Bend on the computer just made me wanna stay here.

I think it's best for me now if we just leave.

The closing date is supposed to be no later than 9/3, but I'm pretty sure we'll be gone by then.

We hope to make a house-hunting trip to South Bend in a couple weeks and hopefully we'll find something we like, so hopefully we can move into it right away when we get down there.

So between now and then, I still have more stuff to purge, organize, and pack. Today Chuck wants to go through the stuff in the crawl space (i.e., many many bins of Halloween stuff). That will be enough to keep me busy for the rest of the day.

I've been taking lots of pictures of things that I will miss in my own yard. Here are some of them: