Day 1 update and thoughts

Nothing like good friends when you have no beds or furniture on general.

Note to self: clean fridge more often! General note: cleaning a fridge isn’t fun at the best of times. Cleaning one when you want to just get done and on the road is excruciating!!

Having lots and lots of things you need to have someone pick up when there’s a shelter-in-place order is impossible. Garbage men will only take things in bags. (Ever tried bagging a hammock? Didn’t think so. Just know it does NOT work!) and the junk-picking-up companies aren’t now. Dear owner: things in the garage aren’t as bad as they appear. Really!

Bit of COVID-19 humor. My husband got this prize in the local grocery store Monopoly game. I challenged him to go back and try to redeem it.

Gas prices are amazing right now. Filling up for $1.79 a gallon doesn’t even hurt at all. 😊. There are a lot less cars on the road, even in St. Louis during rush hour, although it was still hectic enough. And the virus hasn’t had an impact on construction.

The sunset tonight was beautiful, an enormous orange ball. Unfortunately, it was right on the middle of the road for at least three days…or seemed like it. Eventually we went in a different direction, literally, but there was still beauty as you can see from this (very carefully taken) shot. Disclaimer: I’m not responsible for the smushed bugs on the windshield. Well, maybe I am in a way, but Hey, I didn’t force them to fly into the glass..

That’s it for tonight from Springfield, Missouri. After the last few days and six hours of cleaning this morning, the 7 1/2 hours on the road was pretty much just fun. 🤪. Bed is going to seem so good tonight and that’s where I’m headed. TTFN. More tomorrow.

Phew!

Long day (yesterday) but the most downtime for a long time while someone else works. 😁

Great moving crew

Van finally loaded and we’re off to overnight with friends.

Lovely dinner and friend time!

Cleaning up tomorrow and and heading for Arizona.

Bedtime

The adventure begins.

P. S. Anyone else getting forever-dry, cracked hands from all the hand-washing??

Because…

…it’s moving day and I need some bright beauty! 🤪😊

Monday non-walk and tales of travel

For many weeks, I’ve been doing a morning walk with Jo, but she’s taking a break and we’re getting ready to move, so we’re not having an official walk. Our city has a shelter-in-place order, but we’re still allowed to walk outside, but I don’t have time right now AND we’re getting the last snow we’re likely to see for a long time, considering we’re moving from the Midwest to Arizona. 🙂

But a few days ago I was at church, delivering some donations and I spotted these harbingers of spring. In our yard, the daffodils and tulips are up, but not flowering yet, so I especially rejoiced in these. I was hoping to get one last walk in the park, but it’s not to be. So enjoy these!!!

Feelin’ a bit like this today

For Six Word Saturday

LA street art

The move’s on. We have a date: one week from today, so you can imagine what I’ll be doing all day, every day. 🙂 It’s good news and sad news: good because we’re doing what we’re supposed to do; sad news because of the people we’re leaving behind. But the adventure begins (or continues.) In the meantime, here’s some street art from LA for you to enjoy.

Friday Fictioneers–A House is Not a Home

I enter the land of no internet tomorrow as I board the plane to visit my parents in Arizona.  Of course there is internet, but to get it, I have to go to the nearby library or a Starbucks which I’ll do, but not for long each day.  This will be family time and I intend to enjoy it.  I’ll be blogging every day but won’t be able to get much reading done, so apologies in advance.  The almost-two weeks I’ll be there will fly by all too quickly but will be fun, even while I’ll miss Bill.

For those of you not familiar with Friday Fictioneers, a weekly photo prompt serves as the springing-off place of a story of 100 words.  Sounds easy, but it ain’t necessarily so.   You’re welcome to join by going to the home page or just read any other stories by clicking on the link at the end of mine.  Warning!!  It’s very addictive.

My story this week is non-fiction.  We sold our house at the end of August and, in a week, moved from the home we’d lived in for 28 of our 29 married years.  When we put the house on the market, I emailed the realtor once about something at “our home.”  He told me to think of it now as a house, not a home, that you sell a house. “Home” has an emotional connection it’s best you to try to avoid when selling. This story springs somewhat from his wise words.

copyright Dawn at Tales from the Motherland

A House is Not A Home

We found it accidentally shortly after our marriage.  Light streamed in through over-sized windows, sixties-hued carpet concealed hardwood floors, the kitchen sported forest-service green linoleum.  It seemed as if we could never fill the space.

Over twenty-eight years, we chose furniture, gloried in the light, decorated, planted, mowed, set up bird feeders, fostered pit bulls, hosted friends, enjoyed two daughters.  The space filled with laughter, learning and love.  House morphed into home.

When the movers left, light shone in, floors glowed, the paint was perfect.  Memory-filled house, no longer a home, waited emptily.

We drove away.

We didn’t look back.

Sharing Saturday

During our recent move, the movers strained under many boxes of books, commenting more than once while loading and then, with a different group of men, unloading, “You really have a lot of books!”  ‘Tis true, I confess, a vice (perhaps) I don’t care to break, although I try now to confine my bibiliophilia only to libraries, where all trophies must be returned or paid for.

One of my main tasks these days after moving in is to find places for all these boxes of books and I’m striving (with much difficulty) to winnow out those books I may not want or need. It’s very much as I imagine cutting off a body part might be.  To fill one box to donate feels as if I’ve won a major prize!  Unfortunately, all too often I find treasures I’d forgotten I’d had, as most of them have been stored in boxes in the attic for some time, and I alternately want to drop all else to dive immediately in or pack them all loving away again against the day when I have an entire room for a library.

Today I came across a fat book containing all the poems of e. e. cummings.  I almost made it to the donate pile until I committed the fatal mistake of looking inside, opening to one of the pages marked for all these years by bits of paper.  While reading poetry can be a beautiful solitary pursuit, one that plucks all the strings of the emotions, it’s even better share.  So here are a few of the poems I enjoyed today.  I hope you find one that touches your emotions and makes your Saturday brighter.

in Just-

in Just- 
spring       when the world is mud- 
luscious the little 
lame baloonman 

whistles       far       and wee 

and eddieandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it's 
spring 


when the world is puddle-wonderful 


the queer 
old baloonman whistles 
far       and         wee 
and bettyandisbel come dancing 


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 


it's 
spring 
and 


		the 

goat-footed 


baloonMan       whistles 
far 
and 
wee 

.....................


it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands

......................

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
        who used to
        ride a watersmooth-silver
                                  stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                  Jesus

he was a handsome man
                      and what i want to know is
how do you like you blueeyed boy
Mister Death

from Tulips and Chimneys (1923)

The journey

After 28 years in our first house, we’ve moved into a smaller rental house several states away. The next stage of the journey begins.

This is it!!!

The big news (no pictures today) is that we’ve managed to get our four-bedroom-attic-and-basement house-and-28 years-two-children-in-the-same-house move ready to go in a week and one day.  On Saturday, Aug. 18, we were on the way back from our Wyoming vacation, which many of you have been sharing, (and which will wind up at some point soon), and heard we had an offer. Although it was less than we’d hoped, it was more than more separation in our marriage was worth and we accepted.

We arrived in Naperville on Sunday night, I drove our younger daughter to Philadelphia and school ( 13 hours) on Tuesday, then back to Cleveland on Wednesday and began packing on Thursday morning, a week and day from today.  I had lots of help from Bill and our older daughter on Friday and Saturday and then Bill again these last several days.  Without them, I couldn’t have done an eight-day move.  And that’s not counting the six months it took me to get the house ready to put on the market.  My s-i-l and several friends provided lunch, dinner, moving materials, people to whom we could pass on furniture and best of all, moral support.

The movers come tomorrow  and a day from now (Friday night), I’ll be staying with friends and then driving to Naperville for the beginning of the next segment of our life.  Hopefully, I’ll be doing a bit more writing to go with all the photography I’ve been doing.  Thanks so much for bearing with me while all this is going on and thanks also for all the prayers and good wishes.  It’s so much fun to be in touch with so many wonderful people all over the world via this blog.

Thanks!!!