Update

Things have been extremely busy around here and I’ve neglected posting my blog.  Thanks Carol and Margie for checking on us.  It’s nice to know someone is thinking of us.

We hadn’t heard any news by the end of the week last week, so we knew nothing would happen over the week-end.   Al made plans to head back to Tampa to do some pest control accounts.  He left today knowing our May 20th closing date would be extended once again.

We had a good garage sale Friday, making $230 and getting rid of lots of stuff.  Saturday we were pretty much rained out.  We ended up getting some traffic in between rain showers and made $100. 

My Mom and brother came for a short visit Saturday.   They were only able to stay overnight, but it was good to see them.  They brought Steve’s dog, Red.  He’s an Akita.  If you saw the movie, Hachi, that’s the same type of dog.  (a real good movie but such a tearjerker)   Red fell head over heals  in love with Sweet Pea!  It was the funniest thing.    Red is getting old and had been hit by a car when he was young.  My brother found him laying on the side of the road with a broken leg. He was in a cast for quite a while and the leg healed, but he has always had trouble with it.  Despite the pain, Red followed Sweet Pea everywhere and it wore him out!  His  leg  and hip were giving him trouble and,  and he couldn’t make it up the stairs.  Sweet Pea was on the porch and Red was at the bottom of the steps wanting to get to her.  He struggled to try to make it up the steps.   It was pitiful, but cute.  Mom, Steve and Red slept in the house and ended up letting Sweet Pea come in and spend the night in the house with them.  She was at the back porch and Red wouldn’t settle down with her outside.  Red gave up his dog bed for Sweet Pea,  and he laid on the floor and licked her face.  Yep, that boy was in love!  Mom was here only one night but she managed to spoil my dog!

As far as the house, I just received an email from the Realtor and it appears everything is good, other than some foundation work we thought we would have to have done.  They are now talking about the end of the month for closing.  The delay is probably a good thing.  It will give us more time to get rid of more stuff and not have to kill ourselves.

Well, I’ve struggled with this piece of news, and even considered not putting it in the blog.   I wasn’t sure I could get through it.

We lost our little kitty Socks today.  She was around 20 years old. She was born in a hole in the ground as a feral cat.  We rescued her, her siblings and mother, when she was just a few weeks old.   I found homes for the other kittens and I even found her a home, but the lady brought her back after 2 days…she was such a mean little thing!  That wildness took a long time to disappear but she eventually learned to trust and love us.  She was the “Alpha” cat and the other cats feared her.    She never weighed much over 4 pounds, but was the ruler of our household.  She’d smack the other cars when they walked by, just for good measure.  They got so (and still did until the end) they would try and avoid getting too close to her.    She was so tiny that she always looked like a kitten.   We are sad, but she had a good long life and the end was relatively easy for all concerned. 

44 Days Until we are Fulltimers?

We are trying to prioritize things in order to get the house emptied out and all our stuff sold by May 6th.

So far things are progressing on the sale of the house.  We are cautiously optimistic.  We have a “pre-approval letter” from their lender.  However, we also had one of those from the buyer on our Tampa house and it meant absolutely nothing.

The buyers live in South Carolina and evidently do not intend to come and see the house.  I don’t understand why…maybe they are elderly?  All we know is that the man and woman have different last names. 

The local relatives of the buyers are coming over on Saturday to do a more detailed inspection of the property.  This is when they could either  hire a property inspector or do it themselves.  The realtor said it’s usually better if they do the inspection themselves.  Hopefully they won’t nitpick.   When we were in Florida for the winter, we had the well pump turned off and all the out buildings locked.  The buyers have until March 31st (we extended their deadline) to do their “due diligence.”   If they find something they don’t like they will still be able to void or renegotiate the contract. 

We have not moved back into the house.  All of our stuff is here in the motor home and the house is staying clean, so we’re not moving back into the house at least until after the inspection.  We may not move back there at all.  We thought it might be nice for the kitties to have one last chance to romp around their “big” house, but then it’s such a problem to catch them and get them back in the motor home. 

I had not done any laundry the last week we were in  Tampa thinking once we got back to Georgia, I would just do it all there.  I have a big pile of dirty clothes :(

I was so looking forward to having my washer, dryer and clothesline back.  I got the first load washed and when I came back to put them in the dryer the floor was wet.  Not a ton of water, but the washer was definitely leaking.  We were hoping it was a hose, but no such luck.  Al thinks it’s the water pump.  So now what do we do?  Buy a new washer?  Definitely not.  Replace the water pump?  Well the part is $100 and then there is no guarantee that it is actually the pump, plus it’s something else that takes up valuable time.  Rent a washing machine for a month or so?  That’s a possibility.  We’ve never rented anything like that, so I don’t know how that works, or how much it costs.  We could also buy a used machine.  Al found one with a 30 day guarantee for $150.  That seems a little expensive for using it for a month, but then we would be able to sell it.  I don’t mind at all using campground Laundromats, but I’m not so sure about a regular one.  My perception is they are nasty and crummy people are there.  Maybe I’m wrong.  All I know for sure is I really need to wash some clothes!

Yesterday was a busy day for us and by the time night fell, we were two very tired people!

We put an ad in the newspaper for a moving sale here at the house on Saturday.  We have never had one at the house before and always rejected that idea because we didn’t want strangers coming into our little private piece of paradise.  Now that we’re leaving, we aren’t so bothered by it.  We also got to know a lot of the garage sale crowd in town and they are decent people so we aren’t concerned that we’ll have a bunch of scumbags coming.  We just don’t know how many people we will draw because we are a little out side of town.

We went by and reserved a small storage shed.  We need this “safety net” for the things that we don’t sell or need to keep.  We are not selling the mower, golf cart or utility trailer until the check is in our hand, so we’ll definitely need a place to keep them until we sell them.

We got some gas for the mowers and went home and started the  job of mowing and cleaning up the property.    We had a winters worth of leaves on the close in front yard.  I mowed off and on most of the day and by the time the day ended I was sore all over.  Riding that mower makes you feel like you’ve been in a car accident, like you’ve been beaten up! 

It’s looking better already but we still have lots more mowing and clean up to do.  A few plants died over the winter but they may not get cut down.  Some things will have to be left for the new owners.

Today we need to get some shock and chlorine for the very green pool and make some decisions on the washing machine.  I will continue mowing. 

Some time between now and Saturday morning, we have to organize a garage sale.  We are going to start selling furniture, but we’re not moving it all to the garage.  I think we’ll put some stuff in the garage and just tell people that we have furniture if they are interested, we can take them to the house.  We’re just not sure how to manage all this.  I guess I need to put some prices on the furniture.

Another project for today will be to photograph and Craig’s List some things. 

Lots of work to do and it’s just beginning!  Wish us luck!

I Predicted Correctly

My last paragraph on yesterdays blog said,  "we've just about gotten the house messy enough to bring in someone to look at it."

Guess what?  Yep, someone is coming to look at the house this afternoon.  We got the call from the Realtor yesterday morning, so at least we had 24 hours notice.  We spent Monday cleaning up.  We just can't seem to keep it showroom ready unless we have the motivation of someone coming to look at it.

We had someone drive up our private driveway yesterday afternoon, then turn around and head back when we saw him.  Later Al saw him on the side road.  We're assuming he is the guy who's looking at the house.  Maybe this one is really interested.  We normally don't get anyone on our property except UPS and Fed Ex, sot we're pretty sure it's a "looker."


Wish us luck.