Getting Our Stuff Together

When a plan comes together, it's always a surprise for us … mostly because it's rare. There always seems to be a “monkey wrench in the works” or a “fly in the ointment”. Murphy's Law always prevails and it still may get us yet, but so far (fingers crossed and knock on wood), our house buying experience has been mostly positive and it all seems to be coming together. We had a few moments of angst when we were at odds with the seller during the negotiations. There have been some minor hiccups in the paperwork stream though it's all digital. Inspections and appraisals have been duly performed. The mortgage company has been quite demanding, but patient David has muddled through it all and all seems be on track … at least at the time of this blog post. We're waiting for the other shoe to drop, but hoping it won't.

Whilst we've been in the process of buying a house, David's sister, Mary, was selling hers and, of course, that's where we live at the moment. She was concerned it would take awhile to sell in the current Las Vegas housing market. We helped her to spiff it up, then she put it on the market. The first person who saw it, made an offer which she accepted. Whew … that was fast! A kind of controlled bedlam has ensued … if bedlam can ever be controlled.

How to dispose of what won't fit into the new house and how to purchase what will be needed? We've scheduled two yard sales on back-to-back weekends to unload all the undesirables which we know other folks will consider treasures. We've made several forays to local thrift shops, used furniture shops and scoured Craigslist for treasures (other people's undesirables) which we want or need.

David just bought an old beater of a pick-up truck (1997 Isuzu) to begin hauling unsaleable, undesirable things away … to make room for the new treasures we've purchased. The new house is larger and we've determined that not only do we need more furniture, we also need different furniture and, of course, different accessories. This reminds me of George Carlin's hilarious old routine about “stuff”. The pick-up seems to run just fine and is definitely suitable for running around town buying, transporting and generally moving “stuff” from one location to another.

The garage is chock-a-block full with labeled packing boxes and furniture on one side, yard sale stuff on the other with barely enough room for Mary's little Fiat to burrow in the middle of it all. There's been subdued excitement over the move. You can only pack so much stuff before it becomes a hassle to unpack it because you need it before it gets moved. The closing dates on the purchase and the sale are roughly two weeks apart allowing us plenty of time to move into the new place and clean out the old. We're patiently waiting for everything to be finalized so we can get settled, but it seems to be taking forever. Good thing there's lots of stuff to buy.