A Very Moving Experience

Finally, after 14 months of our house being on the market, it seems that we will be moving! It's something we've been planning for several years now. We just didn't anticipate putting our home up for sale during the worst housing market in recent history. Here's a quick timeline of our house-selling attempts:

4/08 House goes on the market. Bad housing market? Who cares! Our house is FABULOUS. It will be quickly snapped up by a lucky buyer!

10/08 There have been only 4 showings during the past 6 months. Fabulous or not, no one seems interested. Take house off market for three months to enjoy holidays. It's tempting to totally stop cleaning the house during this period.

1/09 New real estate agent. We're hopeful. Reduce price. By a lot.

4/09 We have several showings during the first couple of weeks of April alone. This is encouraging. Finally an offer, but it falls through when potential buyer decides she must file bankruptcy.

6/09 Lots more showings. What's going on with the market? Another offer in late June, but we are extremely cautious.

7/09 Looks like fabulous house is finally sold. The appraisal went well, the inspection is over and all of the "problems" are being fixed as I write this. I will be so glad when the haggling part of this sale is finally over. Moving won't even seem so bad after all of this contract back-and-forth stuff.

Or will it?

Fifty miles is not a long way to go when moving. I know this first hand because about twenty years ago, we moved 750 miles. With a toddler. About 10 days before Christmas. In the snow. And we packed everything by ourselves. Was I crazy? I was like some kind of modern pioneer woman cramming newspaper-wrapped chachkis into a box with a baby on my hip. The strange thing was, I didn't even give it a second thought; it was just what I had to do.

Now, 20 years later, the process seems monumental. We figure we'll have approximately 17,000 boxes of stuff alone. And this is after we "went through" all of our junk and got rid of a lot. Where did we get all this stuff?

But in the end I know that it will be totally worth it. We love the area we're moving to. The new house is wonderful. We'll be closer to my sister and her family and to my brother and sister-in-law's cabin in the mountains. And the cats are so looking forward to it.

By the way, this is not how Ozzy will be traveling to his new abode. We will NOT be packing him. I just wanted to throw that disclaimer in. He just thinks that cardboard boxes are fabulous.

Cathy