You Say Good-bye, and I Say Hello

Yes, I know that you've missed The Grandstander from the flood of email that I have received stating that fact. Well, actually, it was one email, and all it said was that the sender has noticed that I still wasn't writing anything, but you define "groundswell" your way, and I'll define it my way!

In any event, it has been quite a week for Marilyn and me (quite a six weeks or so period, actually). On Monday morning, we said Good-bye to our home of the past 24+ years, and on Monday afternoon, we moved into and said Hello to what we hope will be our home for at least that long, and, we hope, many years on top of that.

We first looked at this house in Stonebrook Village on June 6, and 50 days later, we were living in it. To call the whole experience a whirlwind doesn't begin to do it justice. When we listed our house to sell, our realtor told us that houses sit on the market for anywhere from 45 to 60 days on average. We expected that we would enjoy our last summer on Field Club Drive and with a little bit of luck we would be moving into our new place in September. Well, we were very fortunate in that we had a lot of activity on our house (everybody loves the North Allegheny School District, apparently) in those initial days and were able to come to an agreement after only four days. That sure shortened our timetable, and after our Outer Banks vacation the work of moving began in earnest on June 27. We had to find a mover (which we did prior to leaving on vacation), get packing boxes (we ended up with close to 100 "packed by owner" crates and boxes), pack up 24 years worth of living in one spot, get rid of stuff we didn't want (have lost track of how many trips we made to Goodwill), and be ready for a closing date of July 26.

Some comments and observations....

• The entire process of moving is incredibly stressful. Where do you start? What do you keep? What do you toss? And were will it all possible go in your new, smaller home?



• It had been 24 years since we last moved...the accumulation of "stuff" over that period of time simply blows you away. Why did we get some of this stuff in the first place...and why have we held on to it for so long?



• We are also 24 years older than we were when we last did this, but that can't have anything to do with the enormity of the task, can it?



• How could we possibly have done all of this had we still been working and holding full-time jobs?



• Whatever a professional mover charges, it's worth it. Trust me on that.



• I now consider myself an expert at packing dishes and glassware. We were told by the rep of the moving company how to pack dishes, china, glasses, and crystal (you pack the dishes on their edges, and you wrap everything in blank newsprint - lots and lots of newsprint, which the moving company is happy to sell to you - and pack them in an extra heavy duty box called a "dish barrel," also available for sale from the moving company. The dishes, glasses, china, and crystal have all been unpacked and not a single item - ZERO - was broken! I was hoping breakage would be less that 5%, but to throw a perfect game was beyond my wildest expectations.



• Early on in this process I purchased for myself a new cordless electric drill and a new boxcutter. Both purchases have paid for themselves a hundred times over (or so it seems).



• Many of you reading this are probably by now saying something like "Who is he kidding? We know that Marilyn was the brains behind the planning and execution of this whole process?" Well, if you are saying something like that, you are absolutely correct. Her ability to plan out this entire process and make it work with the sort of efficiency that Presidential candidates have been promising - and failing - to deliver to our government since the FDR Administration has been absolutely amazing.



• We felt the brunt of how far the pendulum has swung in the other direction in the mortgage industry in applying for and, eventually, securing a mortgage. What a picnic THAT whole process was!



• Our thoughts often turned to Jim and Nancy who have moved so many times over the years. How did they manage doing that so often?



• And you might have noticed that it has been REALLY HOT over these last few weeks. One thing we know that we will always remember as we look back upon this little adventure will be the infernal heat.

The entire process was, as I said earlier, stressful and not without its tense moments. We have a ton of stories that can be told, but in the end, as we come to our first weekend in our new house, it has all been worth it. We really like it and know that we have made the correct decision (trust me, there were times during those 50 days when that was not always a sure thing), and we know that we are going to be very happy here in Stonebrook Village.

We can't wait to have you visit!