The Waiting Game is OVER!!

I have not wanted to write any posts until we knew things for sure. We were waiting for the final mortgage commitment from our buyers for our house from their bank. It's been touch and go for a while, but after 45 days we now have our answer!

Yes, our buyers' loan went through and they are able to buy our house successfully next Friday. As soon as we get the money in our hot little hands, we are buying the house up in Oconto that we have chosen. (actually they wire it for us)


In the meantime we've been keeping ourselves busy packing and more packing and more packing....

We rented two large storage units closer to Oconto to where we are moving.  It made sense to move a bit at a time, rather than all at once. Us old folks get tired out fast, and trying to cram it all into one big moving day is not to our liking.

For the largest load of all the heavy boxes and many small boxes and delicate items, we decided to rent a U-Haul truck. For one day use plus mileage, it came to about $160 but it sure was worth it to get all of this little stuff up there in one load!!

Look how much space we have to fill with our stuff!!!

This stuff all fit in, plus all of my quilting frame pieces and supplies.  We sure had a lot of totes and boxes, and most of it was my fiber stuff!  ack!!!!

We loaded and loaded and loaded boxes and once they were all in....  then Steve added any of the garage stuff that was loose and awkward like saw horses, lawn mower and garden equipment.

That made it up there safe and sound... and we unloaded during a sleety icy storm.  Ick!   But we got it done in a few hours and we returned the truck 5 minutes before the deadline at the local Uhaul place. Whew!

Since then, we have been hauling a load at a time on our little trailer behind our tiny Geo Tracker. It cannot take a lot of weight so we've been selecting each load and what to put on the trailer each time.

We have done nine smaller loads, each time carefully strapping everything down and binding it up for the journey of seventy miles up to the storage units.

ONE

TWO

THREE

 FOUR

 FIVE

 SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT 

 NINE

(I was so busy I didn't get a pic while this last load was on the trailer, 

but it's all crammed in tight now to the storage unit) 

My 4 harness and 8 harness delicate table looms 

each rode on a separate trip in the safety of rear of the Tracker.

In all of the nine trips, we only had one mishap. It was trip number 4. I had wrapped our big couch cushions and matching pillows in heavy duty plastic bags. Although the weather was nice I thought it would just protect them from anything during the journey. Steve strapped all four plastic bags down securely on top of the other furniture as we traveled.

About eight miles from home, we stopped at a intersection and pulled to the side in a small parking lot to check the load each time. Steve got back into the Tracker, after checking the load, and said one strap was loose. Then he asked me: "Didn't we have four bags of cushions and pillows?" He only saw three bags and a loose strap???

 RUT ROH!!!

Time to backtrack!!!

We only had to go back 6 miles before we found our couch cushion and matching pillow lying perfectly nice and dry in the ditch on dried grasses. The plastic bag was nowhere to be seen. Obviously the cushion must have squirted out from under the strap with the aid of a plastic covering that made it slippery.

We were so lucky that it didn't land in a snowy or muddy or swampy area .... of which the ditches were really bad within a mile or so of this section of road.

We rearranged things and decided to cram the cushions inside of the Tracker, and let the dogs sit on top of them instead. As you can tell by this picture, they were not too happy about it.

As of this weekend, we have everything packed and organized in both storage units, of which both are filled to the max.

The only thing left in the house is our bed, our two chairs, and the TV and our laptops.  We set our lawn chairs out in the front porch for the last few weeks.

Everything feels so empty.

Lonely. 

We also have a few house plants and three long window boxes full of my precious coleus that I winter over every year. These will be the last things to leave the house because the temperature is too cold outside for them yet.

We are staying inside the house for now, even though we do have the comforts of the motorhome right outside in the back yard.

Because in the house we have access to unlimited supply of water and shower and washer / dryer facilities, as well as my soaking bathtub. We also have the internet within the house, but the signal does not reach to the motorhome. We still have cooking utensils and dishes in the house as well as our food for cooking.

We are still having some freezing nights here so we are not ready to dewinterize the motor home yet so we don't have any running water with in the motorhome. That would mean we would have to go back and forth through the yard to get into the house to use the facilities. Middle of the night potty trips through the yard in my jammies does not appeal to me.

But for the last few days of home occupancy, we will move into the comfort of the motorhome and have our internet in the house disconnected.   Then we can give the house a last final slap dash lick and polish for the new owners!

Steve said for the last few nights we can run a small heater in the lower storage bays of the motorhome if we do decide to dewinterize it.

For now, we are comfortable in the nearly empty house, and living the minimalist lifestyle.

Every day we have been 

telling the dogs this story. 

They listen so intently 

and they wonder what's going on.

As for the house we are buying in Oconto, I don't want to jinx anything by talking too much about it.

It will be full of fun projects for us to work on, but all the main expensive stuff has already been updated: new roof, new furnace, new water heater, new air conditioning, new kitchen appliances, and all newly refinished hardwood floors throughout the whole home. But best of all, there is a brand new huge garage for Steve. Two stalls wide by two stalls deep, plus an RV parking pad already in place for our motorhome.

I am not saying it's better than we have now, nor worse, just different and full of great possibilities and adds to the enjoyment of being nearer to ALL of our grandchildren.  Even the two in Green Bay will be closer, because it's a few miles shorter, and a much faster route to get there than from where we live now.  So ALL of the children will benefit by having us closer.  As well as Steve and I will be benefiting from having them close to help US as we age. (and watch over our house while we travel in the motorhome).