Marti's Musings: What a weekend!

After a pretty horrendous week at work, we spent the weekend with the Caring Transitions company knocking out lots of work prepping the house for sale, sorting, packing, trashing....some of you know the drill....for the rest, and those who will going through this in the future - well here is our progress thus far.

As the last post showed, our new Corian counter top and sink combo came in, and was installed on Friday.  Saturday night we ran to Lowe's to sign off on the new carpet order.  The price was pretty good - and that should be in in 7-14 days.

Saturday at 10AM the Caring Transitions team showed up.  Wow!  Carol and Marcie  hit the ground running.  To maximize their effectiveness they split up and each tackled a task.  Marcie hit the kitchen - asking what I wanted from each cupboard and drawer.  Piles started: keep, trash, RV, sell.  By the end of the day, the kitchen was 'staged' - and now ready for show. (amazing, huh?)

Carol and I headed to the basement.  We had done some work months back (think pre-fractured ankle for me), when our daughter came up and spent a week sorting through a lot of stuff stored there since we moved in.  You know, the toys, boxes from collections on display - not touched in the 13 years we have been here.

Carol and I then had to open (dreaded) Christmas boxes and sort through the stuff I had put aside as "keep".  Actually, truth be told, it wasn't all that hard to part with my Christmas things.  Many things I cared little to nothing about.  But anything I really liked, is put away for our future home, or given to one of the kids for their enjoyment.  All of the decorations and ornaments that they made as children are now heading to their own homes to add to their collections.  It actually felt good, sharing and passing on!  It wasn't traumatic because I felt I was "giving" - not throwing away.  A huge difference for me.  There were, of course items not saleable and they were trashed - we filled the pick up truck's bed twice with large bags of cast offs. 

At the end of day one, an entire corner of the basement is now "sell" area - and the "keep" corner grew larger (but not NEARLY as large as the "sell" corner).  The empty box area was growing by leaps and bounds.  Yeah! 

Day two was pretty much of the same, except Marcie was traded out for Thomas.  Thomas is an energetic young man, expert at packing, hard working - and so handy at running boxes up and down the stairs.   Today the focus was on finishing the basement.  The piles have now become labeled boxes.  Sorted by each child, storage, RV, trash (yup, we filled the pick up truck again) - and the ever growing "sell" corner. 

We also packed up the china closet.  That needed to be done in anticipation of the new carpet arriving anyway, so that filled the last hour of the productive day.  The basement is now divided up, areas for the estate sale, things to divvy out to the kids, or put away for later.  The decision to keep some things didn't come easily, but our memorabilia, the irreplaceable and sentimental pieces - I just was not willing to give it all up!  And my daughter has put aside part of her attic for my storage.  My son has agreed to take some boxes, too - so it will work!

And Paul?  He was busting his hump doing things around the exterior of the house.  Painting, replacing some wood planks, painting doors, cutting the grass, edging, trimming, repainting the foundation walls, spraying for weeds, painting window sills, fertilizing gardens, painting - Oh!  Did I already say that?  Yeah, he has a paint brush permanently attached to his hand, and sample paint on his leg, arm, hat... ya know... but as he said:  "It's the little things that will make the difference" - he is definitely going for the WOW factor.

So, here we sit - exhausted  (as Paul says:  "Even my hurts have hurts") - but feeling satisfied and so grateful to Carol and her crew.  We have made huge progress this weekend.  Trying to work full time, and get this all done?  Impossible.  Our time line is about two weeks to get the house on the market (the carpet install should be the last piece)- after that it is all in God's hands. Once we sell, I resign - and the games begin.

And...then we're off! :c)