What? It’s only been about 11 months since I blogged! You impatient beasts! However, if we’re friends and you’ve been following my social media, well…you kind of have the full story! For those of you who have not, and for me who is documenting one of most exciting times in my life, I’m going to catch you all up and try and wrap the last 11 months up in this post without turning it into a novel! I think the best way to do this is with a monthly timeline with just one or two highlights from each month. OK, here goes the rollercoaster ride:
October 2016: I accepted a new position with the American Heart Association! I was and continue to be excited about this opportunity. I feel I’m in just the right place right now. I also have to make the decision to give up teaching classes 3 times a week because of a new travel schedule. I’ll keep my place until the end of the year and teach as much as I can. It’s a tough decision, I’ll miss my girls!
House is still on the market.
November: We thought the house would be sold by now, but turns out we got to host one last Thanksgiving at 8 Heritage Lane! Not a bad thing, it was our biggest crowd ever! Harry and I also got to walk with the American Heart Association in a local parade…Harry was the Grinch and it was awesome! Most fun I’ve had in a while.
House is still on the market.
December: We took a trip to Captiva Island . So much fun! We were planning this trip since early summer as a celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary. It was great to celebrate with friends. We celebrated a friend’s wedding when we returned. I love love. Harry played Santa at the American Heart Association’s Cardiac Kids annual Christmas Party. He was great. Christmas was magical with family as always. I taught my last fitness class.
House is still on the market.
January: I had a good feeling going into 2017…my first post on Facebook was Bring It #2017! We accepted an offer on our house this month and got serious about looking for land! It was a fun, busy, productive month. We felt like things were really starting to move!
February: What a “hurry up and wait” process selling a house is! Wow. We had a few things to do to satisfy the buyers but worked hard and quickly to get things done. We handed over the keys to a young family we know will enjoy the home and all it has to offer just as much as we did when we moved in. Yep…things are moving forward! We found a beautiful piece of property with a pond where we would build our forever home, our offer was accepted.
March: This was the beginning of #ApartmentLife series. The first one was, “Honey can you move the kitchen table so I can get to the dryer?” Harry and I, 2 adult children, a golden retriever, 2 cats and a bearded dragon moved into a 750 square foot apartment. Going from a 2 story, 2600 square foot home with an oversized garage, full basement and shed meant we needed to downsize and store most of our “stuff”. It was an interesting month but we went into this knowing it was temporary and would all be worth it the end.
April: FINALLY closed on our land. We were paying cash and thought it would be a much quicker process than it was…everything about this move has been slower than we thought, so I don’t know why I was surprised. The new construction loan process is well underway and we anticipate closing in May! We gave our builder a down payment so once we close it’s about a 4 month process…from what we’ve been told. I’ll do a separate post on why we chose modular and our experience with the process…so far so good, but it’s early! We started going to our land almost every weekend. It’s a great get-away and we love to just look at it and imagine what it will look like when our home is there!
May: Harry stained a sturdy pallet and we made it into a make shift deck/seating area. We situated so it looks over our pond. We bought some cheap adirondack chairs and planted some flowers in a deck box. It’s home and we love going out on the weekends. We’re clearing some vegetation so we can see the pond better and Harry is making a path around the pond. Trying not to do too much as the clearing, grading and excavating should start soon. Mackenzie is leaving for the Cape soon and her boyfriend from Seattle came for a couple of weeks…yes, one more person in the apartment, but it was perfect!
June: We were sure we would close on our construction loan this month…but did not. 🙁 We take weekend trips to the land, enjoy the pond, and we even celebrated Harry’s birthday with friends and family at the property. Harry and I have been trying not to complain too much on how long this is taking, we know how blessed we are and keep reminding each other of that. June seemed to be a long month. Mackenzie left for the Cape, Ian is working full time, Harry and I are both really busy with work..Can’t wait to end our day on a 30 foot front porch looking over our pond… with no neighbors…(oops, did I say that outloud?)
July: We closed on our new construction loan the third week of the month and clearing, excavation and grading should start soon! Rumor has it our home is being delivered August 15!
August: To be continued…
So there you have it, 11 months wrapped up into what I hope was an easy read. So much more happened this year but I’ve been keeping notes and hopefully will find the time to expand on some of the more interesting moments of the past (almost) year.
