mishaday | Entries tagged with moving

This week was... whuuf.

First I was packing things to minimalize what I had out for the stager to come by and review what else needed to come out. I may have... underestimated the amount of things...

And so Thursday I found myself in a whirl of deconstructing everything in my bedroom, and shoving as much as possible into corners to get them out of the way. I had barely slept the night before from anxiety brain telling me exactly how much I needed to do and in how little time. I was running out of room in the storage downstairs, and the maintenance guy here came to my rescue by offering up a corner of the sauna downstairs. The condo has a few boxes in the corner, and a few more things won't hurt for the couple of days they'll sit there before I can ferry them up to my large storage unit in Kenmore.

And I got it all done. Whew!

Friday the stager came, and now my place is full of fancy tschotskes that Mocha has already tried to knock over (a plastic horse) or nibble (the fake orchid) and nice furniture that Mocha has both attempted to sharpen his claws on and sprawled all over. He approves of the one ottoman that's clear (the other had a tray with a fake orchid, vase and candle arrangement) and is currently sprawled atop it. It's definitely not my space anymore, but it looks good, hopefully good enough for people to ignore all the places the paint is chipped - I've definitely run out of steam to do any more touch ups.

I do have to do more cleanup for pictures on Monday. That's the task for the weekend, to clear all the windowsills of the things I was getting out of the way, to move more things that had gotten shoved into condo storage to outside storage, and a few errands. I did have the realization this morning that I have to do less clothes packing than I'd thought - I have lots of clothes in storage bins that had been on shelves that I'd taken down, but the bed they replaced mine with has TONS of space underneath. More than enough for my clothes bins. One less thing to worry about.

In the theme of ceasing to worry, I actually slept a full night last night and now I'm having a nice grapefruit mimosa, a little bit of nice crab in my scrambled eggs this morning, and just taking a moment to decompress before I hit the ground running. I might even wander up to an open house in Mountlake Terrace (knowing, though, that the way the market is right now, it'll be pending by Monday.)

I'm down to the last few things that need packing: clothes, dishes and my computer setup. I have my adjustable shelves and dining table that all should go into a small moving van or pod (depending on whether I've found a new place after closing.)

So. It turns out I never unpacked my books. I last blogged in August (jeez, Mish.) and it was all about the final effort of dealing with my parents' stuff.

Well. Then a very close friend of mine died. And like an overachieving nutball, I offered to help out her family with some of her estate. I spent a good bit of August and September helping them clean up/out her condo, and took on some of her crafting stuff to sort and repurpose. Ran a few things to Goodwill, etc.

The saddest part was cleaning up her pantry. I threw away so much food - her appetite had been poor the last few years, and then the last year before she passed, she spent most of her time at her parents house helping her father after a major surgery. (Did I feel the parallel. YES, yes, I did.)

Anyhoo. I spent the winter pouring my creative energies into sewing. And the books just sort of sat there. I emerged from isolation visit Palm Springs for Thanksgiving, yay for family vacations, and thinking about when to make the next step, and sort of wondering as omicron came and went how much I'd be working from home in the future: I was definitely feeling the pinch.

Last straw happened right in early March at the annual condo meeting. In the dearth of willing candidates, I was nominated to join the board again, and I declined. I was going to sell! I went to Mexico in late March - again, another family vacation, and decided, when I came back, that's when I'd really start working on this. I could tell from my haunting of Redfin and realtor.com that the market was heating back up again.

So. Two weeks ago I talked to a realtor. Today I got all my docs in for a pre-approval for turning around after the sale and buying again. Dad's coming up from New Mexico to spend some time with his granddaughters this weekend, and me this coming week. We'll be doing all the minor fixes that need fixing, I've got another storage unit secured at the same place I've got some things stashed, and I'll be moving most of my stuff in there: a stager will be by in a couple of weeks, and I'll list in early May.

With luck, I will only need to show the place for a single weekend. I'm contemplating packing myself and the cats out into a hotel for that time.

Then I'll have to deal with actually packing and moving out, securing a new place to purchase, and possibly a transient place to stay in between. And in mid-May I also have to go out of town for a work conference, so that's going to be fun.

Current Mood: Already tired

Closing on Dad's house was delayed nine interminable days. We had a week's grace because someone (DAD) wasn't far enough along on packing his garage up, and then passed that into 'the house is empty, may as well stay in the hotel.' The cats remained in the empty house, and were not best pleased. Finally, we were on the road.

We made Price, UT the first night, and just past Boise to Ontario, OR the second night. The first night Darlene managed to get up in a rip in the box spring on the hotel bed. Extracting her was a treat. Second night though I was up early and nabbed her before the hotel noises drove her into hiding. Tossed her in the carrier and no needing to completely turn over the bed.

The drive wasn't bad. I wasn't in a horrific hurry like last May, and I had Dad along to help drive. Salt Lake City wasn't the ultimate hell of construction: they'd finished what they'd been in the middle of last year, and we could use the commuter lane, which also helped. Dad wanted to make one stop at a small airport outside Mountain Home, Idaho on the second day, and we stopped to look at the Geiser Grand Hotel in Baker City, Oregon. We'd not gone far enough to stay there the previous day, but it was neat enough to stop for breakfast.

So we arrived in Seattle, tossed the cats in the empty condo and headed for a hotel for one more night. Last Monday was an errand day, the pods weren't to be delivered until Tuesday, and so I got my first shot! Such a relief to have that done, and the next one was scheduled before I'd even been poked.

I had bought a medium dog cage last May to spare the cats an eternity in their carriers, and I just brought it into the condo as is. It kept them firmly corralled as we unloaded the pods, and they're still comfortable in it, napping during the day while I work next to them Though now I'm at the stage of boxes everywhere - they're happy to use those as a jungle gym. They will be sad when their perches go away.

Then once I'd unloaded my pods, Dad and I went over to Port Orchard, where he and Mom had moved half their stuff a decade ago in a first stop to a move to the Northwest... that never came. We put a dent in things, but there's still far too much art (a couple paintings of my mother's that I want to keep, and some of my grandparents' that I don't), holiday decorations and ornaments, and boxes of books and and and. Two days and there's still more to do.

Sunday I'd hit my wall. Slept in, did laundry and thankfully Dad took himself off for a long walk in the park. I put him on a plane Monday and my condo is finally all mine. It's got way too many boxes still to be unpacked, but the quiet and the personal space is not to be undervalued.

I mean, except for these asshole coworkers who keep stealing my chair. If they weren't so cute...

One more day of work. Two more days of packing. Three more days in New Mexico. Thursday is closing, and we head out on the road to Seattle.

One of my anxieties is somehow fitting all the shit I've acquired down here in the last year into my car. I have a little waterproof rooftop bag which will be much stuffed, but there's more computer and suitcases and other stuff that needs to be packed around the dog crate that the cats and their carriers will be stuffed into.

Then my brain is already planning into next week for my own pods to be delivered, and unloaded into my condo. Just unloaded, then I can sort things out at my leisure. My too many things in a small space, dreaming of a larger condo or house, leisure.

So Dad's house is still for sale. It's probably priced a little high for the shape it's in (15 years of no updates-shabby). Dad doesn't have the money to update it but he still goes to Lowes for rose fertilizer, and comes back with flyers on replacing the old electric range with a shiny gas stove (there's a gas hookup, but still. No. No, you can't afford it; No ,the carpets will still be shabby and pink. Just. No.)

We've gotten the routine of quick clean and clear down: visibly clean and no cat accoutrements (especially the litterbox!) in sight. Mocha goes in the car with us, and Darlene... well, she hides under the bed. She's shy enough she won't come out while strangers are there, so I'm not worried for the 1/2 hour we're out of the house for a showing. Also, wrangling her out from under the bed after we've run the vacuum? Not happening.

It's disruptive, though. A half-hour showing requires 23-30 minutes of clean and clear, and be out of the house 10-15 minutes before the half-hour showing. That's upwards of an hour and a half. Just to pile into my car, park around the corner out of sight and wait. I have some handsewing and Dad stalks them on the doorbell and front door security cameras.

And my condo is still for sale. I had extended the listing through the end of March, and well... it's March. My agent says the housing market is hot, but anything with shared spaces or walls... just isn't moving. The idea of moving back in to that little place makes me tired and sad, so I think (especially as we approach summer) that I need to consider renting it out. I may need to refinance to make it all work right, but if I can get it to break even, then I can get into a larger place.

I'm juggling the idea of renting for a year or two. I might need the time to re-gather a down payment if my condo doesn't sell. I'm also going to need to talk to my boss about continuing remote work. To date I've said (with the assumption of moving back to Seattle) that I'd want to do something like 3 days in the offce, 2 wfh. I want to remain in the PNW (and there's the complication of my things in Pods can't go far without having to take everything out to shove them in a moving van - that idea is exhausting.) but working remotely full time might be in the cards.

I've set myself the mental date of June 1st to get back to the PWN. It's a ballpark, based on all the factors. That'd be a year in NM.

I had set my mail forwarding to expire in January, with the assumption that'd I'd be on the ball enough to continue it if I still was in NM. Then Mom died, and yeah, no. I was 95% done with my taxes before I realized that yeah, I really needed to check my mail before I tried finishing them. I'm mostly sure I have everything electronically, BUT. I'm hoping to fit in a quick trip next weekend.

Current Mood: stressed

Still in New Mexico.
Still not King. (to recycle an old fandom joke.)

Last Tuesday I reduced the price on my condo and extended the sale until the end of March - it had been set to expire at the end of January. There were other units for sale in the area that were making my place look too expensive, so. I am more than ready to move out of New Mexico: I just don't have a place to go TO.

Last weekend Dad and I took a trip down to Las Cruces. Our main purpose was to look at a condo down there for him. He'd found it online, and had been making noises about renting it first, and then putting this house up for sale empty and I wasn't feeling it. But we'd have to look at the prospect first. So we went.

It was a nice drive down: we stopped along the way a few times, and made it to Las Cruces by noon. Dad took me straight to the airport (of course - this man knows where every little county airport west of the Mississippi is, and he's aiming to start a business down here). There's a little BBQ place that had melt-in-your mouth pulled pork. No sandwich - you have to order the bread extra! But between the good pork, excellent fries and decent slaw, I didn't much mind. The condo is right on the Picacho Hills golf course, and it's a good size. It's a little over priced, but it has good bones, and hopefully the price will mean that it won't get snatched from under him.

Because he's not ready. This house needs to sell first. Then he can buy. And the prospect of attempting to get this house showcase perfect ready has me exhausted just thinking about it.

The tangible goal of the condo has Dad getting things done: We're shuffling things around and he's working on packing: we're down to just the garage, the kitchen and clothes, so I'm left looking at my own detritus in the back room... again, with the exhausted.

And Mom's memorial is next weekend, so there's that to contend with. Wow. I had some energy when I started writing, where did that all go? Anyway, Dad's gotten it into his head that a Quaker-like service on Zoom is a good idea, especially given our far-flung family. Which it is... maybe not exactly what Mom might have wanted, but... memorials are for the living. So. He asked me about a local memorial (for a friend's father) and I had to prompt him to remind him why an in-person memorial is a Bad Idea.

There is organization happening though, in the betweens. I started in on inventorying Mom's jewelry: not just a few gold and silver heirloom pieces (Dad's keeping HIS mother's 30's era squash blossom silver necklace.) but ALL the beaded pieces she made. It took me most of a day just to go through and photograph the necklaces. Some of that was because the cats would come over and plop right down in the open space I was using to lay things out. Or paw at the lovely dangly things. Once I get everything inventoried (and squash down the guilt for not having done my own jewelry when the nice insurance lady asked me to years ago)