On the Move...

Today is Thursday, July 18th and I am already moving. After nearly two weeks of nail-biting, I found a townhouse for lease that suits me and the landlord had no problem accepting Jake & Woody as "additional tenants". The house is just a couple of miles from here, in a very nice gated community (real live guard at the entrance gate 24/7) with TWO swimming pools, a clubhouse and lots of on-going neighborhood gatherings and activities.
My new friend, Sue Lang, from the In-Betweeners Meetup group found out about it as it is right across from her place. The landlord is a semi-retired college professor who lives in Dekalb, Illinois. His mother owned the house, but when she was in her early 90's, she moved back up to Illinois. She passed away 3 years ago and no one has lived in the house since. Alan is a very nice gentleman; said he isn't ready to sell the house, but if he decides to and I'm interested, I will get first dibs. I assured him that buying a place was the LAST thing on my mind at this point. He was so gracious and respectful of me; he arrived down here last Friday evening and we set up a time to meet at the house on Saturday afternoon.
The house is very similar to this one in size and layout. Master bedroom and bath with big walk-in closet with wire shelving; good sized living room, kitchen (MUCH bigger than this one with LOTS of counterspace), dining room, den and second bedroom with a second full bath at the other end of the house. Full laundry, nice size COVERED lanai and a one-car garage. Right off, I showed him pictures of the overhead storage that TJ and I had built here and I asked him if I could put it up in the new house. He was impressed with the design and said, "Absolutely!"
So I signed a one-year lease, got the keys and started moving boxes over there late morning on Wednesday. I figured I could get the kitchen stuff moved in and put away in a day or two. This morning, three friends from the Meetup came over and we took more boxes and disassembled the overhead storage. Hauled it all over to the new place; stashed boxes around and also moved my small oak desk and my sewing worktable. TJ and I are going to install the overhead storage on Saturday; figure it should take us about 90 minutes as this is the second time we've done it.
The moving company will be here at 9:00 on Wednesday morning July 24th to get the big furniture and whatever boxes will still be here. That still gives me a full week BEFORE the end of the month, so I can come back here and vaccum the place. I plan to take all my framed artwork by car and Lisa said she will help with that, too. I don't trust the moving company with that stuff and didn't want to have to go buy rolls of bubblewrap and special boxes to pack it all up again.
Needless to say, I'm tired already...but I am excited about the new house. The wool rug I bought for the dining room here will fit perfectly and I think I'm going to be able to use the area rug I had made for the living room here -- I'm just going to put it on top of the existing carpeting in the new place. Alan said he would like to replace the carpet at some point in time because it is a bit faded from the sunlight coming in BEFORE they installed plantation shutters. So he has no problem with me putting my rug on top of it.
I didn't ask him about painting because I think I can make myself live with white walls for a year. I have enough artwork to make it look more colorful and interesting and I'm too tired to think about painting anyway. All I want to do is get settled in again and then get back to the business of living.
Aside from one phone call with Tom almost a month ago concerning my Maryland tag renewal and taking my name off the Maryland car insurance that we had together, I have remained no contact. I still have the occasional weepy spell, but I know it's mostly because of this upset over the house. I also know that if I talked to Tom, I would end up feeling a whole lot worse. That's enough incentive to remain no contact. It's just what I have to do, so I'm doing it.
Jake & Woody don't know we are moving, but I think they will be fine with it. They are actually going to like the lanai at the new house better than here because it's bigger and it's on the SIDE of the house instead of the back. It affords a much more expansive view of the immediate neighborhood and there are birds, squirrels and people around a lot of the time. I'm going to go up to PetCo tomorrow and buy them one of those carpet-covered "cat trees" for on the lanai. I saw one on Animal Planet last week that had been customized with artificial greens and it looked almost exactly like a natural hiding place up in a tree! I can do that! I have a heavy-duty staple gun and lots of heavy safety wire. So if I get really ambitious, I will have to take a picture of it when it's finished.
I got phone calls from three of my Maryland friends this week and they are talking about the beastly hot weather up there. It's been 100 degrees (or really close to it) all week so far and the humidity is extreme. The news mentioned poor air quality for the entire Baltimore/Washington area all week, as well. I remember those days when you walked outside and it made you gasp for air! We have had a cool spell here this week. It started with showers and thunderstorms around noon today and it's still cloudy and cool this evening. I'll take it. It's a nice break from the bright sunshine and crystal clear skies of southern Florida summers.
So that's about it for now. I hope this move goes smoothly and since I am doing a lot of it myself, maybe it won't take so long to get things put away and arranged. I will do my best to keep you all posted on what's happening and promise to take some pictures once I get settled.
Thanks to all for your private messages, emails and phone calls. I sure appreciate all the support!
xoxox