We Moved!

Well, here we are in our new home in Indiana!

I know some of you were waiting to hear how our trip went.  I couldn't post anything until now for obvious reasons.  Where did I leave you hanging?  Oh yeah, our household goods were being packed away by the Samoan dudes.

They set up a table in our garage and took their lunch break which consisted of corned beef mixed with rice.

Peeka really enjoyed exploring her new "kitty park" in our living room.

So on Monday they loaded up the truck and emptied out our house, except for the stuff we decided to take with us.  We ended up sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags, and then got up real early on Tuesday morning so we could start our road trip.

But first, we stopped in Palmer for breakfast.  We ate at the Noisy Goose where they have this bear looking in the window at the customers.

The trip itself really isn't worth writing about because we didn't stop to see or do anything.  We just aimed for our destinations each night before it got dark.  And since I was driving, I didn't have many opportunities to get pictures of anything.  Chuck was driving the truck (with Peeka), and I was following behind him in the car (with Weeners).

On the first day we drove from Wasilla, Alaska to Whitehorse (YUKON, Canada).

On the second day we drove from Whitehorse to Fort Nelson (BRITISH COLUMBIA, Canada).

On the third day we drove from Fort Nelson to Whitecourt (ALBERTA, Canada).

On the fourth day we drove from Whitecourt to Grand Falls, Montana.

On the fifth day we drove from Grand Falls to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The 6th day was Sunday so we went to church in Cheyenne with Karen and Kris.

After we had lunch with them, we drove to Lincoln, Nebraska.

It got dark out about two hours before we got there, and then we saw lightning, and then the rain came down so hard, all I could see was Chuck's blurry tail lights.  It was a scary time for me.

On the 7th day we drove from Lincoln to South Bend, Indiana.

We stayed on I-80 and skirted the southern side of Chicago where the traffic was crazy AND we drove through another downpour of rain!  Another scary part!

We drove 4200 miles in 7 days.  Well, actually it was 6-1/2 days cuz we spent the first half of Sunday in Cheyenne.  I was able to get just a few pictures along the way.

Before we crossed the Canadian border, we let Weeners out (on a leash).  This was her last time in the Alaska weeds.

For the most part, she did pretty good in the car.  She spent a lot of time on my lap, or Justin's lap.

Or she would find a place in the back part of the car and just sleep.

When we were driving through Canada, we came to spot where there was a small herd of bison on the highway, blocking traffic.  

And occasionally we would see some caribou.

We didn't see any moose or bears.

Whenever we stopped for a potty break, we tried to let Weeners out.  Sometimes she would paw at the windows while we were driving cuz she wanted to go outside really bad, so we tried to take her out when we could. Peeka was the opposite.  She was too scared to go outside, so we quit trying with her.

In northern Wyoming, the rest area had some baby bunnies running around.  They were so cute!

So when we got to South Bend, Chuck looked for a Super 8 cuz they will let people bring cats in the room for an extra fee.  We needed 3 nights in a hotel, and it was really hot and humid in South Bend, so we couldn't let the cats live in our vehicles for 3 days! Anyhoo, when we got there, we thought we went to the wrong one cuz it was under construction and we thought it was closed.  But it was the right one, so we went in, got checked in, and found out where they apparently keep their kitty customers.  They put us down at the very end of this hallway that smelled like cat pee.  Our room also smelled like cat pee.  

Then we soon found out that place was a dump.  Chuck said if the health inspectors came, that place would've been shut down.  The cat pee smell is only the beginning of their troubles.  Just trust me - it was a DUMP!  There was mold all over the ceilings and walls, especially in our bathroom. Chuck even went through the trouble to borrow their vacuum cleaner so he could clean out their bathroom fan AND he fixed the toilet lid which was about to fall off.  Plus our blow dryer was dead so we had to ask for a new one.  PLUS, we were supposed to get a continental breakfast, but it was closed off with yellow tape.  So they just put out some coffee decanters which contained room temperature coffee that tasted like watered down sawdust.  We ended up going to Starbucks for breakfast every morning. Anyhoo, we really appreciated getting out of that place when we closed on the house!

So we got there Monday night and were closing on our house on Thursday, so we spent that time getting familiar with the town and our new neighborhood, and also went to a furniture store and picked out some furnishings that we knew we would need for the house.  Everything went smooth with money transfers and we were able to close on our house Thursday afternoon, so Thursday night we slept in our new house on the floor in sleeping bags.  Woke up with an achy back, but I was just excited to be in our house.

On Friday we had our furniture delivered, one of them a guest bed for our guest room, so we are sleeping on that until the rest of our household goods come, which by the way, hasn't even left Anchorage yet, so it could be mid October before we get our stuff.

Anyhoo, we are so happy to be in our house!

The guy who lived here was widowed about a year ago or so, and she had an "English garden" going, so there's a lot of interesting plants in the gardens outside, most of them I have no clue what they are. The plants are kinda sickly looking cuz the owner didn't take care of them (it was his wife's thing), and I am not a green thumb, but I hope we can make it look really nice again.

Peeka already found some ledges to sit on.

At night we leave the bedroom window open and listen to the frogs.  The cats will sit on the window ledge and listen to them too.

And of course Peeka already lounges on my kitchen counter.

Weeners did a lot of hiding at first, but it didn't take Peeka very long to feel at home here.

"rub my belly!"

After we moved in, we found some really cool amenities that we didn't know was here.  Like this hot water dispenser.

It's perfect for someone like me who likes to drink hot tea almost every night.  No more heating up a mug of water in the microwave!  This dispenser makes instant tea, and it's always ready!

Okay, so this is not an exciting picture, but this is really cool, especially for people who like to sweep their dirt under the rug (no, I am not one of those people).  But this house comes with a central vac, and it works really good, so we really won't need to use our regular vacuum cleaner that much anymore.  And it turns out we really won't need a broom or a dust pan either.  This little hole under the kitchen cabinet leads to the central vac bag.  If we flip the switch, we can sweep all our dirt into it, and it gets sucked into the central vac bag.  How cool is that?

Here is my kitchen.  Nice and big with lots of cabinet space.  The only problem is that they are so high.  I cannot reach the top shelves without a step stool.  This kitchen was made for a giant woman.

I wanted an island to use as my work station, like I had in my other house, so I was kinda disappointed that this island has a range in the middle of it, BUT!....if you look behind it you'll see that I have a long uninterrupted counter space, which makes up for the loss of island space.  

Look Ma!  Two ovens!  It's hard to see but next to the fridge is an oven and a microwave.  The oven that you see in the island is actually a convection oven, which I have to get used to. The owner of the house told me that he mostly just used the regular oven by the fridge.  The range is electric, which is a disappointment cuz I prefer gas ranges, but it's something else I will just have to get used to.  The only thing I really HATE is that refrigerator!  It's one of those fancy ones with the double doors.  I HATE THOSE!  But it came with the house, so I will just have to tolerate it.  Unfortunately, it's fairly new, so I will have to tolerate it for a LONG time.

I have a very nice laundry room, also with lots of storage area.  You can't see in the picture, but the wall opposite the washer and dryer also has more cabinets, plus a place for me to put my laundry sorters.   The washer and dryer came with the house.  A little too fancy for me (too many features), but they are pretty nice.  I think I figured out now how to use them.

I love the sunroom, but we are going to repaint it.  It's too much bold yellow.  After we tone it down and add some wicker furniture, it will be really nice in there.  It'll be great for reading or hand-sewing.

This is the study room where I will be doing all my Greek and Bible studying.  Chuck will use it too, for work related stuff.  It would also work as a Halloween room if Chuck would let me, but I think he would put his foot down about that.  So I think my Halloween decor will be scaled back quite a bit now.

I didn't take any pictures of the bedrooms, but we have a nice master bedroom/bath and two guest rooms (come stay with us!).

The downstairs is ridiculous big! 

What you see here is only half of it!

It's hard to tell on the pictures, but it really is so ridiculously big, it's almost laughable. Even with all my scap booking stuff and my sewing, I still won't fill up all that space, but after I get my stuff, I will be spending a lot of time down there.

Justin's bedroom is also down there, with a full bathroom.

But we will probably use some of it for storage cuz we are not allowed to have a shed.  All of Chuck's manly belongings will have to go in the garage, which has limited space.  So everything we had in our crawl space and stored in our shed will have to be stored in our new basement.  I suppose a significant amount of space will be taken up just by my Halloween stuff.

As for our neighbors, we already met some of them.  On Saturday, a lady from across the street came over and provided us with lunch and a pan of brownies.  She's a really nice lady.  We went over there today to return her brownie pan and she invited us to stay and visit with her for a spell. 

Then today, another neighbor lady came and brought some more goodies.  She has a swimming pool behind her house and told us to please come over and use it whenever we want.  She's not home a lot and she doesn't want it just sitting there not being used.

And as you know, my good friend Tammie is now only an hour and a half away!  So she and her husband Pete came to see us yesterday.  She brought me my rhubarb and raspberry plants, which are all looking very healthy. They stayed for dinner and we got caught up on a lot of things.  It was so fun seeing them again!  I am of course planning on going to her house in the near future.  We have a lot of stamping to do!

Today we visited a church in Mishiwaka.  It was SO different than what I'm used to!  After we left, I wanted to fly back to Alaska cuz I missed my Wasilla church family so much!  But like Chuck said, I have to give them a chance, and I know he's right.  The people were friendly enough; the problem is me trying to force myself to let go and accept change.  For some reason, it comes easier for Chuck to do that.

So that's pretty much the gist of it.  This week Chuck has off, and then he starts his new job next week Monday.  So we will be spending the week picking out paint, getting more settled, and taking care of important business, like opening a bank account and things like that.  And on Wednesday we have someone coming over to measure the bedrooms so we can start the ball rolling for changing out the carpet.  We want to get that done before our stuff comes.  We will have lots of things to do to make this house our own, but it'll be fun.

Crunch Time

Today the movers came.

It's happening.  It's really happening!

Is this really happening?

How can this even happen?

Somebody pinch me.

This morning at about 9:30, three big Samoan-looking dudes showed up at our house.  I would like to have a picture of them, but somehow I think it might be kinda rude to take their picture.  Anyhow, they were super nice, like gentle giants.

At first, for awhile I was busy running around the house gathering stray stuff that I didn't want them to take.  They pack really fast and take everything they see, so if you're not on your toes and paying attention, you're gonna find out your half-eaten donut and your coffee cup disappeared and got packed.  No, that didn't really happen to me, but as Judy Tenuta would say:  "IT COULD HAPPEN!" Most of the time if they came across something they think we might want to keep out,  they were really good about asking us before they packed it, but there were some things that unexpectedly disappeared without a trace that we won't see again until it comes to us in our new home.  But that's okay; at least we know what happened to it.

So after I was able to relax a little, I started to feel like I needed something to do besides pace back and forth while they did their work.  I had to do something while waiting for laundry load after laundry load (I was washing all the bedding before they got packed), so I put some Weird Al music on and sat down with my sewing and just stayed out of their way.

I was sitting by the kitchen where one of them was working and I began to make some chit chat with him.  Really big dude with tattoos all over his arms and a pony tail.  My guess was that he was Samoan, so I asked him if he was from Hawaii.  He said yes, he was from the southern Pacific islands, and he said he was American Samoan.  So we had a little conversation about Hawaii, since we were just there about 3-4 years ago (I'm sure you've seen my blog posts about that).  Then I asked him if he was familiar with Don Ho.  Of course he was!!  He said that his uncle used to play music at some place where Don Ho played, and his uncle had Don Ho over at his house for BBQs sometimes, so he actually got to meet Don Ho at his uncle's house a couple times.  I asked him what he was like, and he said that Don Ho was a really nice guy, a hugging kind of guy, loved to give hugs (especially when he was drinking......)

Anyhoo, I thought that was pretty cool.  And then we were talking about some of Don Ho's songs.  He said his favorite was "Pearly Shells".

Maybe I"ll play some of my Don Ho songs for him tomorrow.

He seemed to really enjoy Weird Al though.  Sometimes he busted out laughing while he listened to him.  Those big Samoan dudes can look intimidating, but for the most part they seem like they are really laid back.  He talked about his daughter and how he does a lot of stuff with her, including sewing. He even helps her make "princess dresses".

Anyhoo, this morning Weeners disappeared AGAIN.

But I knew she had to be in the house somewhere.  I locked Peeka up in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and looked and looked and looked for Weeners all over the house in every nook and cranny.  I couldn't find her anywhere and began to suspect that she somehow snuck outside when the movers came.  Finally, in the afternoon, one of the guys went in our bedroom and started packing stuff, and he came and told me that he saw her bolt out of the room and run upstairs.  So where was she hiding?  I looked everywhere in that room!  She always was a good hider.  Anyway, I was able to get her locked up with Peeka until the big dudes left.

After we let them out they were exploring like crazy.

So, the movers are pretty much all done in the kitchen.  We are eating off paper plates now.  I have no dishes to wash except for the stragglers that were still in the fridge.  They also have our bedroom about half done.  Pantry and downstairs bathroom are done.  Tomorrow they are gonna do the garage and the upstairs.  The upstairs will be so easy for them because I already did most of it for them.  All they have to do is the upstairs bathroom and Justin's room, and he really doesn't have that much.  So I think this is a relatively easy job for them.

And now I have to start the cleaning.

I was hoping to get all the cleaning done so we can go to the Fair on Sunday, but now it's looking like our dinner date with someone got moved to Sunday.  So, I wonder if we'll be able to go to the fair on Monday instead???????????  We shall see.

I don't know when this computer will be taken apart, so I can't say if I will be able to write again before we leave.  We shall see (...said the blind man).

Our Last Week in Alaska

Today begins our last full week in Alaska.  I can't believe we are leaving in 9 days!!  (sniffle! sniffle!)

We are starting to say our good-byes to some people. 

First of all, on Thursday morning, I decided to do something about FlatFace.

Apparently he really thought he belonged to us, and we think he was actually living under our shed.  I always felt so bad for him when he turned up at our door all wet and dirty.  If it were up to me, I would've let him stay in the house, especially during the rain storms, but Peeka would not have it!!  I'm pretty sure he is the reason Peeka has been peeing in my laundry.  So, to get her to quit doing that, we've been booting him outside whenever Peeka was in the house.  Poor FlatFace!!!

Our time for moving was coming up fast, and we couldn't get rid of him, so I took him to the pound to see if he had a chip in him.  If not, I was just gonna leave him there.  I was hoping he had one so I could take him home and meet his owners and explain the situation to them.  But when I got to the pound, I found out they were closed until 1:00.  Why in the world they open so late, I have no idea, but I was NOT gonna just drop him off in the Night Box and leave him there.

So I took him to the vet instead.  They scanned him for a chip, and nothing came up.  So then I knew I had to take him back to the pound later that day.

But I was meeting a friend at 12:30 that day, so I had to take him back home and let him go in my driveway.  I knew he would still be there when I got back, but I was really frustrated with the inconvenience of taking him back there AGAIN.  All that running around for a cat!!

So I met my friend Margaret for lunch in Anchorage.  She is an older lady that I used to bowl with and after our bowling league ended, we still remained good friends.  She was one of my quilting mentors so I would occasionally take my sewing projects over to her house and we would spend a whole afternoon sewing together.  Anyway, it was nice having lunch with her, but sad to say good-bye.  At least I can still chat with her when we play "Words With Friends".

After lunch I went to one more quilt shop in Anchorage and found a couple more Alaskan quilt projects to buy.  Interestingly, one of the ladies that works there said she grew up in Indiana, so that gave us an interesting conversation.

After I got home, FlatFace was still hanging around in the driveway (as I knew he would be), so I scooped him up and took him directly back the pound.  I explained the situation to the lady behind the counter and she immediately fell in love with that handsome face and assured me that they would find a good home for him. It was hard to leave him, but I knew that it would be even harder to just leave him here under our shed.  And since he's been gone, Peeka actually seems happier.  So far she hadn't peed in my laundry since he left, but we'll see how long that lasts....

Then on Friday night, our church family gathered together and put together an ice cream social for us.  A lot of people showed up for it.

The guy who coordinated it felt bad after he found out I couldn't eat dairy ice cream, but his wife found some non-dairy ice cream somewhere and she brought 4 different flavors.  Plus, another lady made some home-made non-dairy ice cream for me, which was real nice of her.  It was really good too, it was toasted coconut flavor.  It was a really fun time, and I was able to control my emotions for the most part - until the very end when we all joined hands and they sang us a song (sniffle! sniffle!)

Then there's Weeners.

I thought I was gonna have to say good-bye to her because I let her go outside on Wednesday and there was nothing unusual about it.  She and Peeka both had an appt on Friday morning with the vet to get their health certificates to go across the border.  But Friday morning came and she still wasn't home.  So I only took Peeka in, and had to reschedule Weeners' appt.  We scheduled her for Thursday, hoping she'd be back by then.  When Saturday came we were starting to think we'd have to accept the possibility that we'd have to leave her behind, but Saturday evening she FINALLY showed up at our back door!!  So of course, now she is SOOOOOOO grounded!!!!  I instructed everyone to NOT let her outside again no matter how much she cries and begs!!

"I'm grounded because I was naughty."

Then on Wednesday of this week, I was invited to attend Chuck's good-bye luncheon shindig at his work.  I felt honored because I've never been invited to his work before, but at the same time I feel awkard.................because I've never been invited to his work before.   When Chuck's secretary asked me to come, at first I told her, "I don't know cuz if I go, I'll just cry".  She said, "that's okay, we wanna make Chuck cry too."  

Since the movers are coming on Thursday, Wednesday will be his last day of work.  It will probably be hard for him, but I doubt he will actually cry. 

At church, I've been getting a lot of people asking me who's gonna make the drinks after we're gone???  Well, that still remains to be seen.  I started training someone this morning who said she was interested, but it was a bit chaotic cuz she had 5 kids with her. There is another lady who expressed interest, so next week I might be trying to train both of these ladies, which will be kinda difficult.  I wish I could just stay here and keep doing it myself.

In the meantime, Chuck has been busy training someone to take over the church finances.  It hasn't been difficult for him to do that, but it's been a bit time consuming and a big hassle to satisfy all the requirements for the banks.

Even though we still have  one more Sunday yet at church, we already had to say good-bye to some people who said they wouldn't be there next week.  Some friends from Anchorage even came to worship with us this morning so they could see us one last time.  It's really humbling to find out how many friends you have at times like this.  Next Sunday I'm going to be an emotional basket case.

But I will survive through it, and after I get that over with, I am really hoping we can go to the Alaska State Fair one last time. I started my Alaskan adventure at the Fair 34 years ago, so I think it's only fitting to end it the same way.  But we'll see how things go with all the packing.  There is going to be so much to do that weekend between cleaning and packing!!

We are hoping to close on the house on Monday and if all goes well, we want to leave on Tuesday.

I'll try to write one more post before we skedaddle.

In a Lull Right Now

We got two weeks before the movers come and pack for us.  It's coming fast, and there's so much to do yet, but most of what we have to do makes more sense to wait until it's closer.  So we have been in a lull, which is a bad thing cuz it allows me to think too much, which can be depressing.

We can't close on the house until after the appraiser comes and completes the 23-page long report, but before the appraiser could come, we had to fix all the problems that came up in the house inspection.  Most of those were fixed easily and quickly, but we had to wait for the new windows, which had to be ordered, during which time we couldn't really do anything but wait.

BUT!!  Today both of those things got taken care of.  We got the window replaced this morning, and then the appraiser came a couple hours later.  Now we just have to wait some more while the appraiser gets the report done.  We hope he'll get it done quickly cuz we want to close on the 27th.

So, in the meantime, we are in waiting mode again, but I do have a few things to do.  For one thing, PW moved out so I've been clearing stuff out of her room that she left behind.  Chuck said we could keep this bookcase IF I can get the stickers off from it.

What in the world was she thinking when she put that sticker on the side of her bookcase?  Was she too lazy to walk a few steps over to her garbage can?  GRRRRRRrrr........!!

There were two stickers on there, and the first one wasn't too bad to get off, but this one is a BEAR.  I have it soaking in walnut oil right now.  I'll come back to it later.

At least it gives me something to work on, and doing all this hard scraping helps release some of this pent up stress I've been carrying around these past weeks.

I guess I'm determined to get the sticker off cuz an extra bookcase is more storage space for all my scrap booking stuff.  Plus I have a whole bunch of books I'm taking with me.

And let's not forget that August is harvest month!  Normally, I'd be at the cabin every weekend this month picking blueberries.  Now I'm telling my friends at church to go ahead and pick 'em. 

I ended up canning all the blueberries I still had in my freezer from last year so I can take them with me. 

Canned blueberries aren't the same as frozen ones, so I might have to find different uses for them, but I already found one use for them.

If you blend blueberries with raspberries, half a banana, half an orange, and some almond or cashew milk, oh my, what a treat!  (Don't forget the chia seeds!)

My raspberries are really taking off now.  We pick a whole bowl full about every two days.  I could've picked more than this, but I was seeing too many 8-legged residents, so I will wait for Chuck to get home and finish picking them.

Also, I thinned out my carrots and my beets and also picked more peas and beans.

I can't preserve them cuz I don't have enough jars left and I don't wanna buy more, so we're gonna have to eat them somehow.  Plus, there is still more to come, so I will probably end up taking veggies to church to give away.  Too bad we can't take them across the border - those carrots would make a great road snack.

My tomatoes are still green, so I'm not even considering them.  I'll let the new owners do what they want with them.

FlatFace really thinks he lives here now.

He makes himself comfortable in any spot he can find.

On the back of my couch...

....and even on our bed.

He's making this difficult for all of us.

I feel so bad for him when I have to boot him outside.  I'm guessing he stays under our deck every night, especially when it rains, cuz in the mornings he's sitting out there looking in through the glass, all dirty and wet.  Poor thing.  For some reason, he never wants to go home.

Hmmm....., maybe it's because we feed him and brush him and pet him and spoil him and let him sleep on our bed............

I'll probably cry for him when we have to leave.

So that is pretty much it.  In another week or so, things are really gonna be buzzing here.

Our Last Month

August 1

This is the first day of our last month here in Alaska.

The weird thing is that I came up here in 1984 at the end of August, and here 34 years later, I am leaving at the end of August, pretty much on or close to the same day.  How weird is that?

I remember it well.  My friend who brought me up here took me to the Alaska State Fair when I got here, and I remember being on the ferris wheel looking at the mountains and her asking me, "Can you believe you're really in Alaska?"

At the time, I didn't think Alaska would be my home for 34 years.

It's a long time to be here, but not long enough.  

The longer I stayed here, the more lucky I felt to be here.  Alaska is one of those places that feels "exclusive", a very special unique place that makes me feel special and privileged just to be here (and feel sorry for the ones who don't live here), and I think most Alaska "lifers" feel the same way.  There's a special kind of sadness when people have to move away, I think because most people don't have family up here, so there's sort of like a different kind of Alaskan bond that people have with each other here.

Yesterday was my "commissary day", so I took some pictures of my routine stores that I will miss after I leave.  One of them is the Natural Pantry.

I go here every other Tuesday without fail.  We don't have a "Whole Foods" store up here, but even if we did, I would still rather go to the Natural Pantry.  This is where I go for all my whole grains, and my coconut powder (for my coffee), and some of my organic produce.  They sell a lot of things here that you can't find in a normal grocery store.  I also eat lunch here almost every time.  It smells so good when you walk in there.  What I like is that they have charts with all the foods on their buffet that tells if it contains anything that's a common allergen.  For instance, I usually get the soup, and if they have "dairy" checked on the list, I know not to get the soup.

When we were in South Bend a couple weeks ago, we went to a few different stores wondering who would sell whole wheat berries.  I was looking for a store with a selection as big as the Natural Pantry's, where they have a big long aisle full of every grain you can imagine, and some you never heard of.  

Usually, I am getting soft white wheat berries and hard white wheat berries.

You would think they wouldn't be very hard to find in South Bend, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  I was really disappointed with Whole Foods.  They brag about their selection of bulk grains, but for wheat berries, they only had hard red, which is the kind I use the least. I don't know where I'm going to go now for my soft white wheat berries, which is the one that use the most.  If I can't find them in Shipshewana, I probably won't find them anywhere, which means I'll probably have to order them from Amazon.

I will really miss the Natural Pantry.

I had some extra time so I went downtown to visit the quilt store.

There are several quilt stores in the Anchorage area, but this is the one that has mostly Alaskan fabrics and patterns, which I have been looking for and stocking up on to take with me.  I was really thrilled to see that they finally had some fabric with puffins on it.  I've been looking for puffin fabric for a long time.  Last year they said they ran out and didn't know when they would get more, so I was glad they had some this time.

There is a quilt shop just two miles away from my house that I will probably visit one last time. Now that I'm looking for Alaskan things to take with me, I'm beginning to feel like a visiting tourist here.

Another place I will miss is the commissary on JBER.

I know it's only a grocery store, but I will miss it for several reasons.  For one thing, we save money by shopping there.  But also, they have items there that I have gotten accustomed to buying from there.  I had my standard routine "staples" grocery list custom made for that store.  Plus, for me, there's just something about shopping with all those military people in uniform.  I always liked shopping on base and seeing the uniforms; somehow it made me feel safe.  Plus, you're not gonna see your typical "WalMart clientele" here, and the chances of your purse getting stolen is slim to none.  Also, it's a place where I felt "special" and "privileged" to go to because not everyone can go there.

And since Chuck retired as chief, we have the added bonus privilege of parking in this spot:

Moving to South Bend will take all of this away.

There aren't even any military facilities anywhere near there, which makes me feel sad.

We will have to go visit Ft. McCoy in Wisconsin whenever we go through there.

I bet Ft. McCoy never gets any moose.  Yesterday after I got through the base gate, I saw a mama moose and her half grown baby strolling through the grounds.  I don't know how they got through the gate without a military I.D.

(I will miss the moose.)

So, aside from me feeling sorry for myself, we have a lot of things to do yet before we leave. With so much to do, it gets frustrating sitting around waiting for things to happen.

We ordered the new windows that we had to get fixed, so we are still waiting for those.  After we get the new ones installed, then we have to wait for the appraiser to come.  More waiting.

Sometimes I wish we could just go; the longer we stick around the harder it gets to leave.

In the meantime, I got a storage unit set up for Stephanie so we can start putting stuff in there that we are leaving for her.

And pretty soon I will be scheduling an appt with the vet, so we can get the kitties certified to cross the border.  Yeah, that's gonna be a meowing good time......!

Too bad we can't take this one along.

We will miss him.

And we have been discussing when we should have the movers come and pack our stuff.

Right now we think it will be August 24 (on Justin's birthday), so we can leave on the 28th or 29th.

Right around the anniversary of my arrival date 34 short years ago.

House Hunting Trip

"Shhhh......we'w hunting wabbits.....!"

Okay, not really, but for some unknown reason, when I think of "house hunting",  I think of Elmer Fudd pointing a gun at a house.  Dumb, I know.  Don't ask me to explain how my brain works.  I didn't get much sleep this week.

So anyhoo, last Monday we flew down to South Bend to hunt for a house (unarmed), with a hunting guide (realtor) named Tim. I liked him right away.  He was friendly and quickly seemed to understand exactly what we were looking for in a house.  We tried to get a good night's sleep on Monday night, and met with him Tuesday morning (still tired from traveling) and began the great hunt.  He had the first day all planned out to show us 11 houses.  For lunch, Tim suggested we eat at a place called "Sassy's" and talk about what we have seen thus far.  

"Sassy's" is a burger joint in a shopping area called "Heritage Square" in South Bend.  My favorite part of "Heritage Square" was this coffee shop that was attached to a grocery store, and you can go upstairs and sit in the balcony if you want.  Over the next couple days, we found ourselves there a lot.  

A lot.

A lot.

They also have this fountain there, which is very appealing on a hot humid day.

Thankfully, the days while we were there were "cooler" than their average temps.  Tim thanked us a couple of times for bringing the cooler weather down with us.  To me it still felt hot, but the breeze made it bearable.  Unfortunately, I had to give up on fighting with my stupid wonky bangs and just had to accept the fact that I had to walk around looking like a dork.

Anyhoo, before we got down there, we had been looking at houses on Zillow.com and gave Tim a list of the ones we were interested in seeing, and we also gave him a specific one that we wanted to see first, and we did.  It was the one that I wanted, but Tim informed us that someone had JUST put in an offer for that house the previous day and we had until 5:00 to try to outbid them if we still want it.  We didn't want to upset someone else's offer, and we certainly didn't want to start a bidding war, so we decided we would keep looking and maybe, just maybe, we would find something else that suits us just as good, or better.  So we looked at the 11 houses ALL DAY, and ended up being late for the last one, which resulted in the awkwardness of the owner being at home when we got there.  The owner seemed a little bit agitated at first, but we got to talking to him and learned we sorta had a little bit of an Alaskan connection.  Tim told him that we were from Alaska, and then he seemed really interested in us because he said he's been here twice and loves it, and plans to go back again next year.

This little part of the story doesn't seem important right now, but hang on, it will all play into the game later.

Well, as it turns out, I absolutely LOVED the house, especially the basement!  I was super excited about this house, and Tim knew it, so after we left, he asked us if we wanted to put in an offer.  I wanted to scream "YES!", but Chuck didn't want to rush into things.  He liked the house too, especially the big finished garage with the workbench and everything in there, but he didn't want to regret making a hasty decision, so we decided to finish looking at the rest of the candidates on Tuesday, and then make our decision. The owner of the house mentioned that he had more lookers coming the next morning but we didn't think a whole lot of it because that house was on the market for 57 days and the owner was lamenting that he kept getting lookers but no buyers, so we thought we were safe in looking at other houses for just one more day.  What are the odds that someone would  finally come and make an offer the same time as us?  Right?

The next morning, Tim needed time to plan our day and schedule the showings for the rest of the houses (we had 5 more to look at), so we agreed to meet at noon, which gave us time to drive to Coldwater, MI, where my good friend Tammie offered to foster my plants that I brought down with me.  Yes, it was rather embarrassing hauling rhubarb plants and raspberry plants through the airport, and onto the airplane, but it was very important to me that I have a little piece of my Alaskan back yard in my new location.  We can't take it across the Canadian border, so taking it down there by plane was the only way.  By the time we got them to Tammie's house, my poor rhubarb was looking very depressed, but with a little cognitive therapy and love and patience, I know it will come around.  I could learn a lot from my rhubarb, as I will soon be going through the same thing, being uprooted from my familiar surroundings and planted into a new location.  My rhubarb will have to be my therapist after we get down there.  

I regret that I didn't get to see Tammie herself.  I knew she was supposed to have come back home from Mexico the night before, and I couldn't get her to answer the phone when I tried to call her and tell her that we were coming.  So I just thought she was really tired from her trip, and we just dropped the plants off in her yard and left.  It didn't feel right going to her house and into her yard and not seeing her, but I didn't want to disturb her if she was tired from her trip.  As it turns out, I found out later that she wasn't even home yet until later that day.

Oh well.  It's nice to know that I will get to visit with her soon.

(hey, tammie! that coffee shop down the road from your house, "Big Hat Coffee Shop", they have good coffee there and their cranberry scones are pretty good, too)

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  On Wednesday at noon, we met up with Tim again, and he reminded us that there were some lookers at that house that we wanted.  This made us a little nervous, especially me, cuz I really wanted that house!  But we took our chances and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the rest of the houses on our list, wondering what we might be missing out on if we didn't.  We saw some not-so-good houses, so-so houses that had some issues, and some pretty nice ones that we considered. At the end of the day, after MUCH MUCH MUCH discussion, we decided to put in an offer on that house we saw the previous day.  Chuck wanted to take his chances and start with an offer that was below the asking price.  I wasn't comfortable with it for a couple reasons, but he was firm when he told me to let him do the talking.  So we ended the day signing all the paper work, and waited for news the next morning.  Will the the owner accept? or reject?  I kept worrying about the low offer we made, but if he rejected it, then all we had to do was raise our offer, so either way, I thought the house was in the bag.  Well, we finally got some news that was worse than rejection.   The other lookers made an offer on that house.  "What?! What are the odds?  Really?!"  So Tim asked us if we wanted to change our offer.  Again, I wanted to scream "YES!" cuz I wasn't comfortable with our first offer anyway.  This being our last day there, we were running out of time and getting desperate, so this time we offered $5000 above the asking price, with the added clause that $1000 will automatically be added, up to a specified limit, if the other bid ties with ours.  After signing all the papers, Tim felt pretty confident that we were locked in.

But we shall see.......

We decided to give the owner until 3:00 that afternoon to accept (or reject).

So Tim left and met with the realtor of those other lookers, while me and Chuck hung out in Heritage Square, drinking coffee, buying chocolate, pacing, worrying, wondering what was taking Tim so long to call us.  It kept getting closer and closer to 3:00.... and we were imagining the worst.  Now it was after 3:00, so surely we lost the house.

So while we waited for Tim to call and give us the bad news, we talked about some of the other houses we've seen that would be acceptable as  Plan B.  Chuck texted Tim and told him that we would like to see "these two houses" again. We were bummed, feeling 90% sure that we were defeated. We were getting anxious, frustrated, and nervous because it was really crunch time for us.  We were leaving the next morning, and we still didn't have a house to claim, and we were talking about what to do.  Should we make a a rush offer on a different one that we don't like as much?  Should we make another house-hunting trip before we move?  - that would've been a major inconvenience. Do we just forget about it, and rent for awhile after we move down there?  - we didn't want to do that either. I cannot describe in words what we were feeling during those two hours of waiting.  Despair, perhaps.

About 3:30, Tim calls.  He says in a quiet even tone, "You texted me and mentioned two houses that you wanted to see again?  Did you still want to look at those other two houses?"  While he was saying this, me and Chuck were hanging our heads (in DESPAIR), and started to say "yes" and then Tim continues and says, "well, you don't have to look at those houses cuz you got this one."  And now I can't describe the RELIEF we felt!!

I'm guessing the other lookers probably guessed that we offered the asking price because their strategy was to bid $2700 above the asking price, plus the clause to raise it $1000 if it ties with ours.  They used the same strategy as us, but their limit was actually higher than our limit.  So, the owner could've went with them, but he went with us because our bid started higher, but also their realtor told our realtor that he accepted our offer because he met us and he liked us.  Tim thinks it was our Alaskan connection that really helped us out.

Whew!

After reviewing all of this, I told Chuck, "Man, all these little factors at play:  his house being last on the list, so we would be late, so he would be home (awkward as it was), so we could talk and discover we had Alaska in common, and then starting our second bid $5000 over, and he still could've taken their offer and got more money but picked us anyway. Man, we were really lucky!"

He said, "No,.....that wasn't luck."

I think he's right.

Whoever was out there making petitions to the LORD for us, thank you!

So here is a picture of our new home:

It doesn't look super impressive here, but the inside is very very nice.  Too bad Chuck cut off some of the landscaping part on the left side of the picture.

Here is the back yard:

It sits on a corner lot in a quiet subdivision where a good portion of the people there are middle-aged or older, so we probably won't see a lot of kids in the neighborhood, but there are probably some.  

After the current owner accepted our offer, he invited us over if we had any questions for him about the house or the neighborhood.  So we did go over there and the first thing he said was, "Thank you for buying my house!"  We talked more about Alaska and the house and the neighborhood, and he asked Chuck some questions to get to know him a little bit. He seemed well pleased that Chuck is retired military and has a good job.  He is the original owner of the house, so I think he felt better getting some reassurance that his house would be well taken care of.  He agreed to come see us after we move in to show Chuck how to operate the sprinkler system and the security system, etc.

Anyhoo, so that is the story of The House That Almost Got Away.

Now that I feel good about the house we're moving into, I feel a little better about moving.

I still don't want to leave Alaska, but it does help that we will have a nice house waiting for us.  My favorite part of the house is the basement - perfect for a scrap booker like me who has enough scrap booking stuff to run a store!  Oh my, we are gonna have to buy a LOT of shelves!  My sewing area will be down there too.  It's a huge room with bright fluorescent lighting. (The owner used that part of the basement to build model trains.) The other half of the basement is also a nice huge area with a bedroom and full bath - perfect for Justin, and still more room left over as a rec/TV room.  Also, I love the sun room.  I am looking forward to sitting in there with a book and a cup of tea.  The kitties will probably be in there a lot too.

Sorry, we have no pictures of the inside until we move in (1st or 2nd week of September).

Better yet, come and visit and see it for yourself.  No excuses anymore that we live too far away!

On the seller side of this big change, we are still moving things along.  In response to the "Repair Addendum" after the house inspection, we got three appointments this week:  an electrician, a plumber, and a window guy.  We need to have a few things looked at and/or fixed so we can get the appraiser here.  Thankfully, we have no major issues to worry about.  At least, there shouldn't be.

p.s.  We got home this afternoon, and now it's past midnight.  I still haven't seen Weeners yet.  Justin tells me she's been missing since yesterday.  New worries of a different kind.

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:

Weeners sitting at the fire pit.

My rose bushes.

My iris.

My lilac bushes.

My big back yard buffered by trees with the occasional moose visitors.

My fireweed patch.

What's in store for me in South Bend?

Humidity, wood ticks, fleas on my cats, and big spiders.

(ugh)

The kitties better enjoy this while they still can.