Dreaming of France -- Moving Misadventures

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

So, it happened. We actually closed on the sale of our house and managed to move out this morning. It sounds much simpler than it was.
Closing was scheduled for Friday. On Thursday, the buyers scheduled a walk-through. I fumed a bit because that was precious time I could have been packing things.
Then the call came from our real estate agent. The washer and dryer were supposed to go with the house. We had just moved them out to Spencer's apartment the weekend before.
This was our second contract. The first one fell through, but the agent asked us whether we planned to leave the washer and dryer. We told her no. So we assumed, she would put that in the 2nd contract too. She didn't. So that was her mistake.
Because the washer and dryer were gone, the buyers wanted them replaced or a $400 credit. We decided the credit would be easiest. Then they changed their mind. They wanted a washer and dryer there and wanted another walk-through to prove that it was working. Obviously, we had no time within the next 24 hours to buy and install a washer and dryer.
They also had another demand that we give them $400 toward electrical things that they wanted fixed. Earl's brother is an electrician and had fixed all their requests, but they brought in another electrician who suggested other fixes.
We offered $400 for the washer and dryer plus $300 for the electrical work. They refused. They wanted an actual washer and dryer installed, plus $500 for electrics — they upped the price. And, to guarantee the washer and dryer worked, they also wanted a $400 check held in escrow.
Earl drew a line in the sand. No. It was the principal of the thing.
The real estate agents both chipped in $100 toward the electrics. We agreed to buy our neighbor's used washer and dryer for $300 (a steal). The escrow check was still tripping us up when we walked into the title office to sign that Friday morning.
The title guy convinced us that his company would hold the washer and dryer check in escrow and would not release it unless all parties (including us) agreed. They also set the deadline for five days so it doesn't drag out. So we agreed.
Saturday was supposed to be spent moving out, but first we needed to move the washer and dryer from our neighbor's basement to our basement.
As they moved the dryer, the heavy-duty cord swung up and hit Earl in the forehead just above his eyebrow, leaving a drop of blood perched against his sweaty brow. When they reached our basement, they realized the plug didn't match the outlet for the dryer. Earl would have to replace the cord so they matched.
My sons went to move the washer. As it started to slip on the stairs, Spencer grabbed the bottom of it and it sliced the web between his thumb and finger. Our neighbor doctored him with a beer before his girlfriend drove him to the urgent care for four stitches and no more help moving things.
At some point, the new owners drove past (spying on us) and noticed the porch swing was gone. They immediately called their real estate agent who called ours, who called us. The porch swing was on hooks so it didn't have to stay. My friend Sheila had asked for it.
Friends stopped by to help as we winnowed down our belongings, still it looked like we couldn't possible finish by 10 a.m. Sunday.
We had optimistically planned to finish Saturday and spend the night at Earl's brother's house. We canceled that plan.
I can't begin to describe so you can feel the physical and emotional exhaustion of Saturday. Without a run, I logged over 19,000 steps just carrying things up and down stairs, out doorways and into pickup trucks -- 46 staircases, my Fitbit says.
Grace dropped by and I made her help me carry a desk and a chest of drawers from the basement to the garage - -I had heard Earl's moans of pain as he tackled another flight of stairs with the new knee he received last month. Grace professed to be exhausted and I stared her down with a look of disdain. She didn't know what exhaustion was.

The house finally empty 

When Noreen and her husband dropped by to pick up the cross country skis and offer to help, they looked around our house with pity. They couldn't see us escaping the items left to move.
"If we were moving to a new house, I'd just tell the movers to pack up everything and I'd sort it when we got there," I explained, " but there isn't a new house. We have to get rid of everything."
Between 5 and 6 p.m., we made three trips to Goodwill, donating bookshelves and ottoman's and bags and bags of books before they closed for the night.

Then we settled in to go through the remaining bookshelves and boxes in the basement. They were things no one else could help with. They were personal -- did we save the newspaper clips with our bylines? Which kids' books would we want to read to our grandchildren? Which letters from friends, family, old boyfriends, siblings would we want to read again someday?

The back room in the basement where we stored everything, finally empty late Saturday night. 

We fell asleep around 11 and woke this morning at 5:30 to finish.
Earl drove the futon we'd slept on to my friend Najah's house at 8. He came home and took a load of things to the storage unit (which has to be emptied by Thursday) then a final load of things to Goodwill at 9.
Spencer stopped by to pick up the small television he wanted to put in his room, along with some weights, a broom and a vacuum. I kept cleaning, making my way toward the back door.
Yes, at 9:40, I stepped out back, Swiffer mop in hand. The house was clean and empty.
Earl had pulled up behind the neighbor's car because Spencer was behind our garage. And, as we were ready to leave, he realized he didn't have the keys to the pickup truck. He'd driven it into the alley, so the key couldn't be far.
We spent a frantic 15 minutes searching for the key, retracing his steps. A neighbor came over to help look as we combed through the snow that had fallen the night before.
Finally, he held up the key which he had dropped into a bag of trash. If you saw how many bags of trash we left, you’d realize The loss of the key could have been a nightmare.
So stitches and lost keys and hopeless thoughts all behind us, I thanked our house one last time for the years of laughter and warmth it had provided, and we drove away.
Then we came back so I could leave the garage door opener for the new owners. And then we really left.
In less than two weeks, we'll be in Florida for Christmas. And in 25 days, I'll be living in France.

Me looking happy because I'm in Frane

The sun rising on a new beginning of my life in France. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Miracles in the Making

Just a quick update as I am yawning from the flurry of activity today. (Read the previous post if you aren't up-to-date on the latest about the sale of our house.)
We had five showings on our house today and received three offers.
Officially, we are now in contract and scheduled to close on December 8, plenty of time to spend Christmas in Florida with my parents and to fly to France in the New Year.
We are moving to France! We really are!

So we have a contract and a backup offer to help things move along.
France will happen after all.
Thanks for all the support and good wishes.
My optimism is on the rise.
A toast to our good luck and to all of my friends online.

Thanks for your support on this crazy voyage. 

Fears in the Dark of Night

Guys, I'm writing to you all today like a diary, a chance to pour out my fears. 

My eyes popped open suddenly last night, boring into the darkness. But the darkness was broken by flashes of lightning and a loud boom that could have been thunder or the tree at the corner that fell during the night. 

My mind didn't care which. It began racing.

What was I doing? 

Was the house really going on the market in a week? Were we going to leave behind the house we bought 10 years ago, where the children attended school, where Earl and I walked to dance class, where I trudged most days to the coffee shop with my computer bag slung over my arm so that I could tap out books that inevitably focused on my longing for France?

But while I was longing for France, did I forget to find the joy of everyday life in my little burg?

If we sell our house here, the number one school district in central Ohio, we will never be able to afford a house here again. We hope to sell the house for an amount we couldn't afford now. 

I spent some time today trying to figure out how we could keep the house even if Earl retires, and we might be able to, but we would sacrifice that other thing we've been wanting to do -- moving to France, traveling, exploring, having adventures. 

We could stay here, and I could add an extra job to the two teaching jobs I already have. I could convince Grace and Jack to move into the refinished basement where they would only need to share the kitchen upstairs. 

But that would mean giving up our dream. 

Earl would be free to write and travel and explore, but not with me because I would be working more hours. 

Perhaps if we had a place to move to then it wouldn't be so scary. We've sold houses before, but we always knew where we were moving afterwards,  had a warm home waiting for us, but not this time. 

Our plan is to stay in Ohio until December when Earl will retire, yet we have no place to move too if the house does sell. Apparently, homes are selling within hours of going on the market. That would still give us a month or so to find some place to live for the remaining three months, but the pressure has begun to build. 

And then when we go to France, we don't have a house purchased. We thought we'd rent for a few months in different places to figure out where we want to live, but our we endangering our security, our future, by not owning property?

If I share my doubts with Earl, rather than the two of us talking it out, he's quick to come down on a black or white side. "Forget it, we won't go," or, "don't be ridiculous, of course, we're going" when I just need to bounce ideas around. 

And when he tells people we are moving to France, he still says that it is my dream. I thought it was our dream now, but if it's only me then should we be going?  

On top of all the tumultuous thoughts, I fell this morning on the last step of our concrete porch, landing on my left knee and my telephone. The screen cracked on my phone. The bone under my knee, that one that kind of sticks out, is really sticking out now and has turned purple. It swelled up like a bump on someone's head. 

That just gives me an excuse to sit in a recliner and give all the confusing thoughts in my head a chance to run amok. 

Do I take the plunge, take a chance, selling the house and travel around France and other European destinations? Or should we play it safe and find a way to hold onto our little, but expensive, house?

Small Steps Toward France

Earl and I both know that the end of his job could be inching toward us. Last week, one of his co-workers announced 60 days left until the possibility of them losing their jobs.
We have a backup plan, as I announced in my post France Dreams Coming True, but we're still kind of in denial. That plan requires selling our house. And whose house is ready to go on the market?
Definitely not mine.
On Friday, I  made one small step toward preparing it.
I cleaned up the area around my desk. Our house is small with two bedrooms upstairs and another bedroom downstairs. My desk is situated in a nook in the hallway.
I don't often write there because I need a window, so I haul my laptop to the dining room table or the front porch.
But papers I've graded and notes I've taken and bills I've paid, plus all of the paraphernalia gathered from the kids' events and school reports gathered on my desk in the past five years.
Here's how it looked before I started to clean it.

Hours later, with three boxes full of recycling and three neatly labeled crates, one for each child, my desk area looked neat.

Now if I could just convince myself to work on one area each day. Or if I would pull one box out of the basement storage room every day and figure out what is worth keeping or what needs to go, I could be ready in 60 days to throw the house on the market.

But, a bigger challenge awaits if we do sell the house, because how can we get rid of everything. Everything! Wooden trains and American Girl dolls and rocking horses. Carefully made quilts and snow globes of Paris. Framed photos of all those family members. 

Maybe I'll put them all in small boxes and whenever someone comes to visit us in France, they have to bring along one of our momento boxes. 

Today, hopefully, we're riding our bikes down to the Rib and Jazz Fest to listen to some music. We planned to go last night, but the extreme heat and the itch of my poison ivy convinced us to stay home.