Getting Ready for the Next Phase

Welcome to our home. 

Welcome to our home.  Notice how neat it is.  I am glad I have this picture, because it is a very unusual event.  Hubby and I spend a bit of time getting everything as organized, uncluttered, and neat as we possibly could.  The reason?  Well, we have placed our humble abode on the market.  We needed the picture for our posting at MHVillage, a site for selling manufactured homes.

I love my little doll house.  Normally it is stuffed to the rafters with my personal art, and that of grandchildren, next to that picture above the sofa.  You can still see the fan cord there next to the sofa, because here we are in mid September and it is a freaking 90 degrees outside.  The toaster oven is relocated to the laundry room where our microwave oven resides.  My chicken has been moved from the table to behind the sink. The coasters, utensils, remotes, pictures, and tchotchkes are all put away or already packed.

To you who may have real estate experience, I know the walls are yellow, and the giant artwork should go, but I have no climate controlled place to store the painting while we sell our house.  Around the corners, and down the hall are rooms stuffed with things that need to be dealt with on another day.  Pieces of furniture and boxes already packed must be transferred to our locker.  We have begun the process of selling off stuff that has been packed away in storage for five years.

The fragile neatness will have to be maintained for that hoped for buyer who will want to look at the house right away.  I’ve done this before.  Once all the personal stuff is out-of-the-way, we settle into a routine of putting stuff away.  Already, our stuff has begun encroaching upon the pristine neatness.

Entropy is already making its dent.  Entropy is that principle of order returning to chaos unless some force holds order in place.  (That force will be me.)  The remotes, coasters, a bag of chips along with Hubby in his chair are already back in residence.   The animals have been allowed back in, along with their beds and toys.

So why are we putting ourselves through this?  Didn’t I say I love my doll house?  Yes, I did.  As much as I love my doll house, Hubby is no longer employed in this area (#retirement), and we are no longer tethered to this area and have the freedom to live where we want.  We have an opportunity to select our retirement home, and plan on living closer to at least one of our children, and take extended visits to the rest of them.

There is still a possibility we could take our home with us, but that prospect seems daunting.  We have many choices we will be making in the next few months.  The fragile order of our lives has devolved into chaos, but we are creating order in a way that suits our lives now.

The first step, is get ready for a move.  Something I’ve done many times.  But I’m going to miss my stuff while it sits in boxes in the dark of the locker.  Opening things in our new location will be just like Christmas!