House Preparation Hulabaloo
It's been a while since I've written, but I have big news: We're moving to Philadelphia. I've known that it was a possibility for a while, but I didn't know for sure that it would really happen until a little over a week ago, and I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure. There will probably be many more posts with photographs of things I'm throwing away, along with few words about why I kept them for so long, as I weed out closets, boxes, and garage space in preparation for the move.
Of course, before we can leave, we have to sell our house here. I've been an absolute madwoman for the past week, getting the house ready to show. That's why I haven't had time to blog; between trying to ship a product at work and running home directly afterwards to mulch the gardens, plant the flowers that had been sitting on the deck in their pots for so long, wash windows, vacuum floors, touch-up the trim, scrub the back patio, rearrange furniture, hang photos, and generally try to make it look like someone *could* live here but doesn't, I've been pretty exhausted. Some of the yard work was even done by flashlight, because I couldn't get home early enough to take advantage of daylight. I must've looked pretty ridiculous on a stepstool in the dark, a paintbrush in one hand and a Maglite in the other, touching up the trim over our front gate; and I must say that raking mulch one-handed is no easy feat. (Mom later suggested that I should have duct-taped the flashlight to the rake, which probably would have been a good idea.)
Al has been in Philadelphia for the week, which has been both a blessing and a curse—only one person in the house makes it easier to keep clean and neat, but it also means that I've had to do all the cleaning and repairs myself. I reassured our realtor several times that just because some work hadn't been completed on Monday or Tuesday didn't mean it wouldn't be done by Friday, when the broker tour was scheduled. I'm really glad I mapped out a list of tasks and scheduled them by priority (the furniture needed to be arranged, the house had to be cleaned, and new bedding had to be bought and installed by Monday night, for example, because photos were to be taken of the house on Tuesday morning; the trim painting could wait until Wednesday because the exterior photos were all taken from a distance; and the catbox could wait until Thursday), or I would have been completely overwhelmed from the start.
It all looks great now, though, and I now have a daily routine in place: Get up at 7am, vacuum house, dress and put on makeup, put away temporary bedding and replace with lovely new duvet, shams, backing pillows, and decorative pillow, wash bathroom sinks and mirrors, make sure toilet lids are down and that all wastebaskets are emptied, and make sure any dishes, appliances, or cords that I took out the night before are stowed away. It's kinda nice getting up at 7am instead of my usual 9am, actually; I get to see the morning sun streaming through the windows (and immediately spot any streaks that need a touch up with Windex), smell the earthiness of a garden freshly watered, and have some quiet time with Annie.
I was thinking that I'd get a break and be able to sleep in a bit today (it being Saturday), but last night a realtor came by at around 8pm to see the house, and she said she'd be bringing a client by this morning around 10am. The nice thing about a regular routine is that it's self-perpetuating; thus it was fairly easy to get up at 7am again this morning and run through the house preparation checklist. The fact that I didn't have to go in to work today left time for a little blogging, but now I'm about to go to the airport to retrieve Al, who's returning a day early from Philly (yay!).
We're going to spend the night at the hotel where we spent our wedding night, as a sort of pre-one-year-anniversary treat. We'd planned to spend our anniverary there, but since we'll have just moved by then, it's not practical. Lucky for us, the hotel is having a special this weekend that makes it a bargain to boot—and no messing up the lovely bedding here at the house! Heavenly Bed, here I come...
An Offer is Made
We got an offer on our house yesterday, so we slept with the comforter on the bed last night to celebrate. (We've been removing it every night and sleeping with an old blanket instead, and then reassembling the bed in the morning.) Of course, it's totally wrinkled now, which vexes me greatly. (Sorry, I've got Pride & Prejudice on the brain.) I wouldn't care so much if we were done showing the house, but its official status is "Pending - Continue to Show", so I just might have to iron when we get back from celebrating our friend Ken's birthday tonight.
I am very relieved that someone (actually, a few people) seemed to like the house as much as we do, and that a sale in September is now very likely. Somehow, however, my stress level has gone UP. I think it might be because we are now facing the logistical nightmare of finding a short-term rental, a house, and a way to get us, our cat Annie, and all our stuff to Philly. It would be easy if we already had a house and could put everything on a truck, but since there isn't much in our desired neighborhoods and price range on the market right now, we have yet to find a place. This means that we must ship the stuff we'll need in the next 2-3 months out to an apartment (should we find one that doesn't require a 1-year lease), to Al's office, or to my sister's house in Maryland, and then put the rest of the stuff on the moving truck to go into storage.
So now my dilemma is to figure out what I'll desperately need in the next 2-3 months. Mid-weight sweaters, certainly. Lightweight shirts, certainly. Ditto jeans. Scrapbooking supplies? I know it seems frivolous, but what if I have a lot of time on my hands? I'd want to be able to catch up on my scrapbooking! Portable CD player. At least 3 classical/rennaissance dance music CDs. A Jane Austen novel or two. My Dreamweaver fleece pullover, a scarf, a hat, and some gloves. My Bugaboots, my sneakers, my black Sketchers... and my Steve Madden superboots? They're comfortable, to be sure, but not built for walks about town.
I was reminded just now of Claire going through a similar dilemma a while back... and I've found her post on the subject. Very similar, indeed! I was wondering myself whether to pack my muffin recipies....
La Créme de Le Clem
I have yet to tell many of my farther-flung friends that we are moving to Philadelphia; Al is in charge of getting a P.O. box (so we'll have a semi-permanent address) and an apartment (so we'll have a temporary place to live until we find a house) this week, and I was going to send out missives about the move as soon as I had the P.O. Box address to pass on. Those who read my blog are ahead of the game, however, and have been contacting me.
One such e-mail, from my friend Clem, arrived in my Inbox this morning, and I could not have been more happy to see it. You see, Clem lives in the NYC-area, and it had not occurred to me until he wrote that I would be a 75-minute train ride away from him. That means it will be entirely possible to meet him in NYC for drinks, as we have often done when a conference or other business trip has brought me into town. Then I realized: I won't be working right away, so it could even be possible to meet in NYC for drinks ON A WEEKDAY. We could get happily blitzed (read: drink two whole martinis!) in the MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING DAY. Gosh, why hadn't I thought of this before?? What a brilliant idea, to take the train to NY and visit my friend Clem! Yet another reason why moving to Philadelphia is a Good Thing.
Pending
Our house is now officially listed as Pending: Do Not Show, which is a huge relief. I kinda want to mess the house up to celebrate, but I probably won't. I've grown too accustomed to its limited-lived-in look, and I now can't seem to take something out without putting it away as soon as I'm done. This is probably a good thing, and how other civilized people act. However, there will be a letting down of the guard, so to speak.
Tonight I will sleep with the comforter on the bed, and tomorrow I will not get up at 7am to vacuum*, clean the bathrooms, remove the shower caddy from the master bath, and straighten up the curtains and pillows before I leave for work. I will leave the bonsai out in the garden, my book on the nightstand, my closet door open, and the toilet lid up, should I so desire. (Putting the bonsai out should also extend its life considerably, so that's not just a convenience, it's a necessity. It looks lovely on the back of the toilet in the master bathroom, but it prefers to be outside.)
I was thinking that I might also start watching TV again, but I turned it on when I got home from work and found I wasn't ready. This is odd, because I used to have the TV on all the time when I was single, just for the company; I guess now that I'm married and have a husband who also loves TV, I cherish the quiet when I'm alone. I've been listening to my extensive collection of Rennaissance, Baroque, and early music CDs, and to classical radio, when I've wanted something other than complete quiet. Annie seems to like this arrangement as much as I do, and I'm thinking that I'll play classical music for her when we move, so she'll feel calm and at home.
Speaking of home, Al found us a furnished one bedroom apartment that takes cats in Philly today, and I filled out the rental application via fax. We're getting a three-month lease, with an option to go month-to-month after that. I hope we can find a house in the next month or so, and move in by the end of the year, but it's a relief to know that we have somewhere to stay in the meantime. It's a load off Al's shoulders in particular, because he'll be there full-time starting September 2, and living in a hotel for all of September wasn't feasible. It also means we have somewhere to ship the clothes and other supplies we'll need for the fall. Yay!
*Well, OK, I might vacuum, but I'm not getting up at 7am to do it!
Girl Time and Moving Fears
It's a good thing I didn't go hog wild messing up the house last night, because the buyer's parents are in town, and he wants to bring them by tomorrow to show them this fantastic little house he's bought. So tomorrow I will get up early and run through the house-preparation routine as usual. It really doesn't bother me; Al is coming home from Philly tomorrow, too, and I wanted the house to look especially spiffy for him anyway.
I'm finding that despite my excitement about the move, and my longing to be with Al in Philly, that I have these moments of panic where I don't want to go. What if I don't like living so close to my family? What if I find out that my sister doesn't really have time for me anyway, and I just never knew it because it never came up before? What if the humidity gets to me like it did in Washington, DC? What if I miss the bougainvillea and the crepe myrtles and the annuals that never die so much it makes my heart ache for the big windows in the house in Mountain View that overlook the gardens we worked so hard on? How will I ever in good conscience leave Chumba (aka Luna, our neighbor's cat, whom we feed daily, and who spends more time hanging out with us than he does with her)? What if I get a craving for Sono Sushi (e-bi sa-lad e-bi sa-lad) and can't find anything comparable? These are the things that run through my head—and my heart—every week or so.
I was saying to my boss that really, with everybody on e-mail and IM now, and with friends already making arrangements to come visit us in Philly, it'll hardly be like we moved at all. And most of the time I really believe that. Things are different now than they were in 1996, when I moved out here; since then, all my friends and family have gotten e-mail at least, and some of them are online all the time. But every now and then I worry that I'll really miss some of my close friends, especially the ones I have the priviledge now of seeing every day.
Which reminds me, I don't think I ever mentioned what a wonderful, girly weekend I had last week. On Saturday Kristin, Valerie, Winsha, and I all had dim sum at my favorite dim sum place in the Inner Richmond, Ton Kiang. (I love it because [a] it's not just about the pork: they have way more varieties of shrimp dumplings than any other dim sum place I've ever been to, and [b] everything tastes SO DAMN GOOD.) Going with Winsha is fun, because despite her all-American-girl accent, she's fluent in Chinese—which means she can verify ingredients, etc. And for Valerie, who can't eat wheat, dim sum turned out to be a bonanza. (All those rice wrappers, you know.) Usually she gets gipped at mealtimes.
After stuffing ourselves full of dumplings, we drove over to San Francisco Center to find Kristin an evening dress to wear to an upcoming formal event. We went to Nordstrom, made a beeline for the sale rack in Savvy, and found a dress worth trying on. It fit, and it looked nice, so Kristin had the salesgirl hold it while we scoped out further possibilities. Mostly we picked through the sales racks in all the other departments, and I made a surprise purchase when I went in to the dressing room to try on a pair of black pants and saw a cool pair of jeans in my size hanging in there. When the pants didn't fit, I tried on the jeans; they did fit, so I bought them. Hope no one came back to that dressing room looking for a pair of size 10R stretch lowriders...
We then moved on to Accessories, and had great fun trying on a bunch of hats. I actually like hats ("And hats like you!" said Kristin), so I bought a rather expensive (but also rather practical) one, and considered a couple others that looked good on me. I couldn't see spending $104.50 (for the Dreamweaver green one) or $279 (for the fabulous black and cream one)—both on sale!—though, when I'm about to be unemployed. They'd be difficult to move anyway, especially since the green one was Four-Weddings-and-a-Funeral-size. Anyway, it was a fabulous way to spend the day, and I went home very happy (and Kristin went home with that dress).
On Sunday I spent the day with Jean, and we finally got to have tea at Lovejoy's. Jean had planned my bridal shower with an afternoon tea theme, and then ended up missing it because of a death in the family, so I'd been promising to make it up to her with tea for two at Lovejoy's ever since. Tea takes a while, though, and we'd never found the time until now. Luckily Jean had suggested that we go hiking after tea, because after dim sum and incredibly rich tea sandwiches and scones, I had an excess of calories to burn. We did a fairly-strenuous (mostly because of the heat, rather than the terrain) 4.5 mile loop around the Russian Ridge open space preserve in the Palo Alto hills, and I even got to wear my new hat! Actually, I'm incredibly thankful for that new hat, because I surely would have had a vicious sunburn on my nose, ears, and neck without it.
Between tea, hiking, and the walk to and from Jean's house to Lovejoy's, I figure we had at least 3 and a half hours of talking time—and it was excellent. So nice to catch up, compare notes, and discuss current events. All in all, a lovely weekend. I hope this weekend will be as good!
Packing Day
The packers are here, and Annie and I are freaking out a little. I can't find the practice amp for my bass guitar (which I should have set aside last night, but didn't), and I'm worried that there's something else I forgot to set aside. I figure at the rate these guys are packing, they might be close to done by the time that Al gets here around noon.
One Step Closer to Sanity
I found the practice amp, so that's a relief. I wish Al would hurry up and get here, though—I've already had to field a couple questions that I didn't know the answers to, and who knows whether I guessed right. God, I could use some ice cream. Some Cake Batter ice cream, with M&Ms and colored sprinkles mixed in, from Coldstone Creamery would do nicely. That, and a shot of wheatgrass juice, would bring me one step closer to sanity.
Moving Day
It's moving day, and I'm sick. After an abominable allergy attack yesterday—brought on, most likely, by (a) being in the same room with Annie for most of the day without a HEPA filter, (b) every bit of dust and dander in the house being released and circulated by the packing activities, and (c) the allergy shot I got at 2pm (what was I thinking?)—my sinuses, ears, and throat are all congested and sore, and all I want to do is sleep and drink mint tea.
No rest for the wicked today, though, as the movers will be here shortly to load the truck, and I need to head out to return the cable modem (bwaaah! no more always-on internet!). I also need to finish arranging my suitcases so something I need doesn't accidentally end up on the truck. Farewell for a couple days. Wish us luck getting all our stuff and Annie across the country!