Sold!

Our house is sold! With "for sale" signs on the house across the street and the two houses behind us, we feel lucky. It's a great relief to not have to worry about a house when we're so far away there's nothing we can do.

We flew into OKC and worked like crazy last week to pack things up to go to NJ and to storage. I arrived a couple of days early to organize. My parents stayed overnight and impressed me with their amazing speed and skill of packing things so quickly. By the time Garrett arrived, much of it was done. He and my dad loaded things up for storage and phase one and two were finished. We saw Garrett's parents almost every day. As the saying goes, "The devil is in the details" and Mary helped us finish up those.

In addition to family, we were able to see a few friends. I'm hoping we can see others on our next visit because we miss you all. It made me sad that we didn't get to see everyone. However, we were so happy to see those of you we did. I was thrilled to visit with my Resolve girls at Abuelo's and learn about their successes, setbacks, and future plans. (Although they read this blog, they often forget to email updates on themselves...hint, hint hint!) Plus, it was wonderful to see my former lunch bunch from school. Thanks to Christy and Carole for arranging those gatherings.

I grew sentimental as the house emptied. Being by myself a couple of days was beneficial because I was able to soak it in and say goodbye. Change is difficult for me but it's good. I stood in the room we'd always planned on being a nursery and talked to Max. As time passed, Garrett helped me remember that we were wanting to move into a new house anyway.

I enjoyed looking at the things we'd done together to improve it. For several years, I'd enlisted my dad and Garrett to plant bushes as my birthday present. Somehow, the photinias had outwitted our clay soil by growing taller than the fence and were a beautiful bright red with little white blooms. Our living room walls are a bright cheery yellow--that probably scared some buyers, but we love it. We'd pulled up the carpet and Garrett had laid down all the wood flooring. We'd replaced almost every light in the place along with the face plates. All of the window treatments were practically new. Then there were the countertops...they were such a pain in the butt that I really didn't get too sentimental about them!

I suppose it was time to say goodbye. Still, it's always difficult for me to close a good book.