One Last Time

Kind of strange to start a new year with a month or so of endings.

Just over 15 years ago, on December 29, 1995 I signed papers and became the owner of this house.

The moving truck comes for all our large/heavy/bulky furniture on Tuesday at 8am. So we've got 2 nights left here. After that we'll be sleeping in the new house, which is a really weird feeling.

Sometime Tuesday the phone company will turn off our land line/internet, and (so they say) they'll come to the new house and run new line to hook us up there on Wednesday, so this is (probably) my last post from this spot- crammed between the bookcase and the bed, and the next one will be (hopefully) from my new dedicated office which is a really weird feeling.

A week from today, we're having a house warming party, something I mentioned not a few times to Ward yesterday as we mopped the floor of the still-empty and unfinished house in preparation for today's sealing of the floor. And that's a really weird feeling, bordering on panic-inducing anxiety.

I'd love to say "And that will be that", or "And they all lived happily ever after, cue the sunset", or "Boy, will I be happy when next week is over because then I can relax" but that's not the case.

This house will still contain 15 year's worth of stuff, memorabilia, tokens, symbols, crap and dust bunnies- and I'll have to be careful to steel myself and my family as we go through it all making very emperor-like decisions "thumbs up/thumbs down" as to what travels to a new spot in the new house, what stays in this house for the big estate/rummage sale and what gets unceremoniously stuffed into empty feed sacks and set at the curb.

It's going to be very difficult as treasures long forgotten get unearthed. Very difficult to say "WOW- I remember when we got that/where we got that/who we got that from!" think on it warmly and fuzzily and then set it aside and turn our backs on it. For absolute ever this time.

To avoid sensory overload (and because we'll still have our normal-everyday stuff to attend to)the "plan" is to go through room by room- hopefully getting one room a day completed. Twelve. There are twelve rooms in this house. Plus the shed. Plus the other shed. Plus the yard.

Oh yeah. And once the fences are done and the electric/water run, we'll still have to move the critters- coming here twice a day to feed till then.

AND we've got two trips to Houston in January.

Regardless of all the above, we're turning over the keys on February 1st to the house's new family, so there is a deadline, but it's all the way next month (insert hysterical laughter).

Whether or not the Long Slow Goodbye will be easier on us than a Quick Like a Bandaid severing of our ties to this place remains to be seen, and is really a moot point, because this is the way we're going about it.

Today's "Post Music" is one of my favorite songs- always has been- and the only thing I can sing without making dogs howl and run for cover. Alec told me "Mom- you sing that better than she does". Of course, he still depends on me for food and shelter...

So, for the last time gazing through 100+ year old blown glass windows (that are, I admit, letting in every bit of the 28 degree air outside), through the chinaberry and redbud trees and across the gravel drive to Pa's field as I try to think of words that make a damn bit of sense to attach to each other and then send out over the interwebs, this is Queen of the Universe- Over and Out.

See ya'll on the other side.