When I say "moving" you might get the wrong idea. This is a move to the third power. This is literally the move to end all moves. One hopes.
- We are building an addition to our house in San Diego, which involves emptying two rooms of furniture and three closets of their contents. (Move and store, part one.)
- Simultaneously, we are putting our house in Virginia on the market--which, as any frequent movers can tell you, demands removal of about a third of all furniture and stored 'stuff' so that the house looks spacious and airy. Which it is, once we carry out all the books and other accumulations with which we have feathered our nest. (Move and store, part two.)
- We are also planning (simultaneously, of course) to purchase a condo in the Alexandria area. (Un-store and move, part three. This involves packing and moving stuff from the current VA house and/or the storage space to one of three possible locations--new condo, San Diego, or Goodwill.)
Considering that all of these include a time element, we are solving personal equations in three unknowns. The renovation is scheduled to be completed in September, though that depends on a quantity of variables in and of itself. The sale of our Alexandria house depends on the vagaries of the real estate market, the interest rates, and other factors that I don't even want to think about. Buying a condo...? Well, that might be easy, except that we'd prefer to sell the first place before we do that, and we'll be dependent on what is available when we are ready. And if we sell and close on our place before the San Diego house is done, we need to store furniture and house hold goods until we can arrange a transcontinental move. And we all know that summertime is the busiest season for movers, which further complicates the issues. Interspersed among all these conflicting priorities are occasional trips to California when our presence is required to inspect, approve, and--most importantly--write large checks to continue the work.
When you consider the volume of work involved, and the uncertainties that accompany this monumental shift in three directions, you might imagine that my inner control freak is going wild. And you would be absolutely correct. I am making lists, and then making lists of lists. I have not one but TWO red notebooks to keep track of things. My senior-moment-prone brain is desperately trying to remember all I need to do, and the whereabouts of all our furniture, boxes, and papers--and failing utterly. I have a predilection for thinking about everything a month or so in advance, and lately, all I have been seeing on the road ahead is absolute chaos, which consists of a storage space the size of Chicago, packed with unlabeled boxes that I need to sort, with no margin for error, into moving vans heading in opposite directions. ("If Van 1 leaves Alexandria at 6 AM, going 30 mph, traveling west, and Van 2 travels at 40 mph, at what time will the two vans collide, destroying both loads of McElveen belongings?") You get the idea.
However, if you have followed my blogs in the past--or if you know us at all--you know (as I do, way down deep) that this will all work out. By November, we will be settled more or less (provided the house sells..if it doesn't, you may visit at the mental institution nearest whatever location we last mention.) I have faith that all will be well, boxes will be unpacked, and I will have found my Christmas decorations, or whatever decides to go missing along the way. Life will continue, if not exactly as normal, as close as we can get.
As I keep saying (maybe to convince myself) it is far better for us to do this now, instead of waiting till we are truly old and decrepit and less able to cope with all the changes ahead. But...stay tuned. It's going to be a bumpy summer.
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