Today, we accepted an offer on our house! Now, we just need to wait until things move along for a couple of weeks and then we will be packing in earnest. The plan is to be moved by May 25th. Although we have worked for many, many days pre-packing and organizing, I know it will be a big job. As long as things go as planned, I will teach piano through April, have a recital, then stop teaching so I can pack fervently for the 3 weeks of May that I will have. Everything will be put in storage, except things for our immediate needs, which will be in the camper.
In the meanwhile, my sister’s husband got the garden tilled up over at their place. Patsy and I spent the afternoon with my sister, planting early vegetables. We planted broccoli, onions and cabbage as plants. We planted carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach, boc choi, and some basil and cilantro from seeds. I took 4 buckets of good compost from my house and we put a scoop under each new transplant to encourage growth. After watering in the seeds, I put slug bait around all of the newly planted areas and plants. I’m so excited that I get to do a garden with my sister this year!
It’s too early around here to plant things like tomatoes or peppers. We will get going on those in a few weeks. In the meanwhile, I plan to let the rain water these things and am going back over in a week or so to see if I need to weed. They are predicting nicer weather then, after a few rainy days. Rosalie will keep an eye on things in-between, since it’s at her house.
We had our last 4H club meeting. It was not held at my house so mine would stay clean. It was a lovely day, but full of emotion. They gave us a basket of presents, including yummy things like chocolate and peanuts, as well as a big handful of gift cards for the movies and Subway. There was a funny pillow that said, “The house was clean yesterday, sorry you missed it!” I laughed over that. I will say that after 30 people or so go through your house, it is a bit of a mess! There is a possibility that we will continue next fall, it just won’t be at this house, so they were thanking us for having it here for so many years. They gathered around us and prayed for us, as our future is still unknown to us. (Everyone’s future is unknown, ours is just so obviously unknown right now!)
During the day at 4H, I received a text for another showing. I had cleaned and spiffed up before leaving for 4H, but ran home and cleaned for another couple of hours and then we took off to use some of the Subway gift cards, together with coupons, for our dinner. By 9 p.m., we had our offer, signed things electronically yesterday, and do not have to spiff up anything this morning before church! I feel as free as a bird, for today, at least.
On Saturday, Rob invited several men over to help him continue cleaning up outside and in the shop and barn. He has decided to hold a sale this coming weekend, as it was too much to get done before. So, they moved things around, organized for the sale, and my nephew mowed the lawn. Some of them sawed wood to take home with them from the leftover logs from last fall’s logging. Rob gave several pick-up loads of items away to them, and they were hauled away yesterday, as well.
I have been collecting things from the house, which we will add to the sale. I still don’t regret taking the things to the charity shop or Ja’Ana’s rummage sale, but I still have sorted out more in the meantime. What doesn’t sell will be donated. I cooked chili-mac, salad, a bowl of home-canned peaches, and bought a bag of chips and a $5, 1/2-price, day-old cake from Safeway to serve, as I did not have time to bake. I didn’t taste it, as it was filled with wheat, but it looked very good.
We enjoyed watching a pileated woodpecker that loves to come to the dead log. Patsy loves grabbing my phone and taking pictures with it.
Yay! Happy you got a good offer!
Thank you very much.
Congratulations on the sale of your house, Becky! Now you can focus on the fun of finding a new one. Looks like a nice big garden. I can’t wait for it to stop snowing here, so we can plant our early spring crops. I think sharing the responsibilities of a garden is a wonderful idea. Hope it will be a bumper year for you!
Hugs
Jane
We are having an unusually warm, early spring here so it could be tilled sooner. Also, my sister is at a lower elevation there, so is at least 2 weeks earlier than here, for everything, and later in the fall. I can’t till here, yet. It is still too wet. We are already laughing at ourselves.
We both don’t plan to can much, because we both have lots left over, but we both know we will anyway if the garden produces a lot:) My stuff will be hard to get to if it is in storage, though, so that might slow me down a bit….
Congratulations on the offer! And on having a garden this year.
Wanted to suggest that when you run out of slug bait you try ‘cow-bran’. When I lived in WA state, I went to the feed store and bought a 50# sack of bran that they feed to cows. It was quite cheap but that was years ago — $8 for 50#. Anyway, you use it like slug bait and put a trail of it around your plants. It doesn’t have any poison so is safe for pets and kids. The down side is you have to reapply after it rains.
I’ve never heard of cow-bran. I’ll have to check it out. I did buy a kind of slug bait that is ok for pets and kids, since we took a bunch of our cats over there, and Patsy helps with the garden a lot. She, however, is old enough to know not to eat it, but still…..better safe than sorry. I have to re-apply this kind after rain, too, which you know in the Pacific NW is a big deal. It is also much more expensive, it sounds. I am super excited to be able to still garden. It relaxes me and makes me happy, and we get food, so win, win, win!
Congratulations on selling your house, Becky! I’m sure that is a relief to you and your husband. I hope you received what you were hoping for.
Now the fun part begins with you looking for your new house to purchase! Well, and the packing everything up…but I hope you don’t get too bogged down with that task. Sending positive thought your way that you will find a wonderful new home for your family!!!
We had to come down a bit, but kind of expected to need to do that:) We have been told to wait 10 days-2 weeks before packing in earnest, to make sure everything goes through as planned, so then, it will be a whirlwind, for sure.
Congratulations on the offer! I am sure that it is bittersweet in a way, but I really believe that when one door closes, He opens another…
I totally agree. I’ll admit, we did shed a few tears of both relief, and sadness–we both felt like we did not know whether to be happy or sad, so we are choosing happy:)
Becky, I am so excited for you. I remember when I sold my house that all the hurry up and wait for the closing to go through is also a big pain so just be prepared. What a big summer you will be having. Packing, moving, house hunting, camper living. There will be lots of stories to remember in the years to come.
Thanks so much! I am not excited about waiting on pins and needles to see if it goes through, but I know I can’t go to the next step until we did this step, so that’s good:) It will be a memory-making summer, for sure!
So happy to hear that you have an offer! It brought tears to my eyes to see how the Lord has worked all this out for your family. You have walked into the unknown and poured so many hours into this that it is nice to see it working out.
Thank you so much for all of your kind thoughts and prayers. We are very optimistically excited–waiting to make sure it all goes through with no hitches.
I am glad you got an offer in ball park you were looking for. I remember when my sister was house hunting properties were being snached up.really fast. They wrote a letter to enclose with their offer. It talked about why they wanted to move to that house, that they would be raising there family in the home etc, etc.
They had to offer under what the asking price. That is what they could afford. Other higher offers were submitted, but they took theirs because of what the letter had to say.
I hope everything works out with this offer.
Blessings,
Patti
Not only do we need to find a new house, we are on a VERY low budget, so it may take a while. That being said, we have several camping trips planned for this summer, which should be fun in-between looking. Also, I am looking for the bright side of things, and it will be nice to have a very simple summer for once, where I don’t have a large house to take care of. I’m glad your sister found a good house in her price range. That’s encouraging to me!