Moving On

Welcome to my crazy. If that sounds dramatic and worrisome… it isn’t. Just an update for you guys.

It’s simply that things take much longer (or I take much longer with things – if I’m being truthful) than we planned for. The original loose plan was that we’d be moved and living in the west by mid-July. It’s now August.

But then finding a house took longer than we thought. There were the houses I really wouldn’t want, those that would be ‘just fine’, and those that would make us happy. Despite the flawed logic and a town/region I know nothing about, I found myself going for the latter – the ones that would make me want to live there. This meant a new price level. The ‘just fine’ houses were not only cheaper and more plentiful, but would have been an easy fit. However, I’m the homebody-sort who needs to love my home and my surroundings affect me greatly.

This made it more ‘interesting’ from the banking/mortgage aspect. I learned all about the term ‘stress test’. That too caused a bit of a delay in selling our home and we needed some financial gymnastics.

And then there was Shadow’s sickness. I mentioned that before. I couldn’t have the house ready for selling if I had a sick kitty. She was doing so much better after the antibiotics when she flew west 6 weeks ago… that was the right decision.

Then… frankly I just hit a rut. Despite the stress and expense of having 2 houses now, I didn’t put the house on the market. There were some fixes to get done and I rely on J for that usually. But I need to move forward soon. In fact I’m going to try to sell it myself when I get back… saving a lot of money which I will then put into hiring real professional movers to do ‘everything’. Keep those fingers crossed for me.

So this weekend we’re doing a few small fixes on the house and then flying west this coming week.  It’s midway through the August long weekend – one that is book-ended by J and my birthdays and made even more special because we are spending that time together. And with Nuala and Cooper. We didn’t expect that it would work out.

Sitting in the corner are 2 travel carriers and all the things we’ll need for them for their long flight. Calming drops, calming spray for the carriers, harnesses, blankets, pee-pads etc. I’m very nervous about getting them there. While Shadow was my greatest fear, you just don’t know if any kitty will hyperventilate or have a heart defect that the stress will play on. I’m a worrier.

But I know one thing for sure – we are doing this in the right order for them. When we moved to this house, our two cats (rip) became very stressed with the process. Being in a new place is much less stressful than watching everything you know and use get packed up and disappear. One of my kitties stopped eating and went into a type of cat anorexia that was hugely stressful and expensive to try to address. She had been with us through 4 moves but moving from a house rather than apartment, with showings etc was too much. We promised that we wouldn’t put our cats though that kind of move again.

So they are going with us… into the empty house there… but we’ll all be together for a couple of weeks before I come back and work on selling our home.

I guess I could call this Leaving On a Jet Plane (2). And it really is 2 of them and 2 of us on a plane headed into a sunset in the middle of this coming week.