Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, totally worn out, shouting "Wow...What a Ride!"

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

House is back on the market

In the next day or two the house should show up in MLS and in Picket Fences, our FSBO magazine.  Since this is the third house and I've worked in real estate (80's) and banking we thought we would use Flat Fee Real Estate, we are using them to list in MLS, there is no lock box with this service so we will have to let the real estate agents in and when buyers call from our FSBO ad we will have to show the house. Everything we are hearing is the market is picking up and houses are starting to sell, sure hope we get her sold this year.

All of our ducks are almost all in a row, just making some final decisions on what state we will declare residency.

This weekend it's suppose to get in the 40's and sunny, great weather for cleaning out the garage, shed and workshop once they're done we can say the house has been totally gone through. Where oh where is our buyer, we are so ready.

Until next time...

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Getting there

What a busy few days it has been around here. Waiting to hear back from Flat Fee, had a few questions but as soon as they are answered we will get the house listed once again.

Dave has the furnace all set, handy having a maintenance tech as a husband. Purging is as done as it can be, on the main floor all the closets and cabinets have been gone through. There is very little kept that won't be going in the RV, of course there will still be the final push of getting rid of some clothes, dishes in case we are here for another holiday and just a few things that will require a run to Goodwill when we sell the house. Aside from the garage the house has been cleaned from top to bottom. The first level still has some piles of stuff, this is the garage sale area. Packing is as done as it is going to get until the final packing takes place, just a few pictures and wall hangings-don't want to have to fix the holes don't have that paint anymore. There are 3 boxes that are partially packed, will also finish them when we do the final pack. So the house is as ready as it's going to get, of course there are things that need to be done but the quandary is do you invest in new carpeting. new windows, new furnace and such or do you keep the house price a little lower, we are going with the second option, why spend good money when someone else may come right behind you and change it all out. Before we head to Maplewoods for the season we do have the garage, a shed and workshop to go through, we should have until the end of April to get those things done, VT is not conducive to early openings at their campgrounds. So by the end of April (5 1/2 weeks) we still have a lot to get done including my trip to FL to drive my folks home and a garage sale.

Heard from the boys this week. David had been in Philadelphia visiting his girlfriend Laura. While out and about he lost his wallet, of course that added a lot of stress to an otherwise great weekend. After filing a police report and having to jump through a few extra hoops to get on board his flight he made it home safely. He hopes to head back east in May or June, all depends on how $olvent he is after he closes on his new (to him) house. He is in the final stages of purchasing his first home, it is a short sale in Surprise AZ, bought it for what we sold our first house for in 1985, and his is just a few years old.

Tom, our younger son, called to share some news with us, me in particular. In the last few years Tom has started bowling on leagues, he inherits this interest from both Dave and I, since highs school and through the late mid 2000's I had bowled on a weekly bowling team and when Dave worked nights he used to bowl on an early morning league. Until recently my friend Rene was still on the team we were on together when we left NY 20 years ago. Anyway Tom called to share his news of bowling his first game over 200, 213 in fact on St Patrick's Day, think the beer may have helped. Too bad it wasn't in a league, no other recognition, I'm thinking of sending him one of my old bowling patches from my over 200 games, found them not too long ago and didn't get rid of them yet. Tom is also hoping to come out east this summer, he's thinking of June for his birthday. Since we are headed west in October we will be seeing both boys so if they don't make it east this summer no problem.

Snoop has acclimated well to living here. While I'm enjoying him I do realize we are no where near ready to commit to a furkid right now. We are looking forward to getting back to the campground where there is usually a dog or two to pet and love.

Now that I have the house under control and have finished the projects I wanted to before we left for the summer I can really start thinking about what to get ready to pack and even start some planning on our trip, as long as it's about RV'ing and not the house, had enough of focusing on the house for a  bit.

Until next time..



Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Carbon monoxide poisoning

It's the last day of winter and of course we are getting a snow storm, we'll see how much it brings. Can't wait to be done with snow and cold, if we have our way we'd never spend another winter in it.


Monday after gym got my $ for the bottles, was good to see Nate & Josh Cookson were still working there, they're from our neighborhood and we've watched them grow up, just don't get to see them much anymore. After a stop at U-Haul Carol and I headed to lunch at Applebee's talking and laughing the time away. After few more stops we headed home where we found Dave home from work early, seems he may have a bit of carbon monoxide poisoning. He thinks on Sunday he may have inhaled a bit of fumes and they'll just have to work themselves out of his system, he ended up taking Tuesday off, he has to be back on Friday so will have a few days more to recover. I had  carbon monoxide poisoning once while working at the bank, seems we all did, shut the branch down for a few days, so we do know it'll take a bit to get out of his system.

Took stock of my packing supplies, U-Haul will buy back any unused boxes, since I'm just about done and I still need one box (didn't get one long enough for two things when I was there yesterday) I will plan to go back the next time I go to the gym. I'm keeping a few medium boxes and I still have some picture\mirror boxes for the last of the things when we sell the house. So for now I have 1 box to pack and some straightening up, as soon as Dave gets the furnace fixed we'll get the house back on the market.

Until next time....

Monday, March 18, 2013

Furnace

Yesterday Dave got a temporary fix done on the furnace, have to order a fan motor or something. During the afternoon we got the paperwork done for Flat Fee Realty, going to try this route for the summer. We know the house needs work but it is a good large home with income potential at a decent price, we just need the right person to come through, sure wish they'd hurry up and get here. We don't want to put any more money in since inevitably it won't be what the new owners want, we think we've priced it accordingly, time will tell. Meanwhile the pile for the garage sale grows, the room with the stuff for the RV doesn't seem to be accumulating much from house these days. Went through the laundry room and now have more stuff to get rid off, lots of paints and chemicals, I'll do it after gym one day.

Snoop seems to be settling in fine, finding his places to hang out and his part of the bed at night. He's bonded to me, the other day we were sitting in our office and Dave was holding Snoop, as I came towards the office Snoop jumped off of Dave trying to get to me, well he ended up in the garbage can and couldn't get out, I was more concerned he had hurt himself so didn't get the camera out, but afterwards I was laughing so hard I started crying, just too funny.

Off to the gym now the on to errands. Need a few boxes to pack up some larger peices and need to drop off our bottles. In VT we have a bottle deposit, so there are a lot of fundraising bottle drives. Our campground Maplewoods is collecting bottles to fund a play ground, instead of taking the bottles with us when we go I'll return them today and save the $ for when we get out there.

Until next time...

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Oil and Snoop

Woke up this morning to a chill in the house, yesterday Dave mentioned he should check the oil tanks, we'll he didn't, not that it would have made a difference if he had checked since it was so late in the day when we had this conversation. Now awaiting a phone call from the on call delivery guy and we'll get to pay a special fee to have him deliver today, hope this house sells soon.

Yesterday we decided to help a friend out, we are dog sitting her daughters Chihuahua, Snoop. At heart we are large dog people, our last four footed kids were Rottweiler mixes, Strider was the smallest at 115 pounds and his brother G.O. was 125 pounds, we lost Strider to bone cancer in 2010 and G.O. we lost in 2011 to Grand Mal seizures. We decided at the time to not get another dog, last year camping we enjoyed all the dogs we came across, we were actually asked to adopt a puppy at one of the campgrounds we were at. So we are test driving having a small dog around, so far so good.

At 8:30 the oil man came, Dave paid the "here's your sign" fee of $100, we took on 200 gallons ($738) and the house started warming up. But there is a motor thingy that has finally bitten the dust, so the furnace kept shutting off. We were having our close friends over for dinner so while Mike gave Dave a hand getting things set up for the night, Les and Deb met Snoop, Carol could report to her sister Snoop was doing fine. We did get in another fun evening playing mexican train and enjoying everyone's company. Deb showed me the progress on the quilt, all I can say is Wow, it sure will look beautiful in the RV.

Until next time...



Thursday, March 14, 2013

All done packing for now, almost


Today I finished boxing all the stuff that was ready to be packed up, moved it all to the garage where we are storing all of our go to storage stuff. In the garage awaiting their move to a storage unit we have so far 13 med, 10 small, 10 book, 2 picture, 2 stemware and 1 wedding box, a total of 38 boxes, not bad considering how much was in this house a few years ago, and it was all just stuff. The things awaiting garage sale day and the stuff already gone has not been missed. Why did we have so much stuff.

Last night I met my good friend and former co worker Angela for dinner, what a great time we had. It was great catching up on our families and lives. Just as I figured she was very supportive and a little in awe of our decision to fulltime and asked lots of questions. She recently attended the Champlain Valley RV Show, we discussed what she saw and I tried to share what little knowledge I've gained in the last year. We made plans to try and get together with the husbands soon, maybe they will make it to Maplewoods for a visit.

We ordered Dave a toolbox for the truck, Brute Commercial Fifth Wheel Tailgate Tool Box. Since we will be in the RV at least 7 months this year he wants to have his tools with him, can't say as I blame him. We still have to figure out if we are going to keep the tailgate and tonneau cover on.

I'm feeling good about what has been accomplished in the last month or so. We are much more ready for D day whenever that gets here, since we still have to live here we do have furniture and such still around in some rooms, but don't look in the cabinets and such they're pretty empty.  We have a few more places to go through but they all require Dave's participation, since it is his weekend off we plan to tackle the laundry/furnace room and garage, after that it's the shed and shop. Come on buyers we're ready to move.

I was looking back over our bank statements from last year, on 3/21/12 we put down the deposit for the Mountaineer. What a difference a year makes, can't wait to see where this journey takes us!

Until next time...

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Purging Almost Done?

By Monday evening the main floor of the home had been gone through, stuff had been sorted,if we were going to store it I moved it to the pile to be boxed up, other stuff headed to the garage sale pile and then a few things made it to the room we are storing all of the stuff we've accumulated over the winter for the RV. I then went into the attic to start the migration of  30+ bins and other assorted things to the first floor. I had made a bit of headway when Dave came home from work, OT day so he gets out when he's had enough. At work Monday Dave discovered over the course of your career you can take a total of 3 years of leave, Dave's mind started going. Well another scenario has arisen, once the house sells he would take the first winter off for 6 months, come back in early May then apply for another 6 months once winter gets closer, this would provide us with enough to spend 6 months with out working, just touring around the warm sunny spots in the country.  Well after discussing this new scenario and running the numbers I went to shut up the attic, Dave insisted we finish emptying it. If we finished then it would be the last time we would have to be up there, 20 minutes later we had it emptied, our last trip to the attic. How good it felt to do something for the last time.

After waking at 11:30 and never getting back to sleep Tuesday started with all the 30+ bins sitting in our bedroom,it's 24'x24' so we had the room, since it wasn't a gym day I got started on moving the boxes downstairs right away. By the end of the day it all had been gone through, there's now 2 bins for the RV, 4 medium (16"x16") boxes of Hallmark ornaments, 1 medium box of Christmas decorations and 3 small boxes of Christmas decorations, still have to finish boxing some of it but that's what the final result will be. That's still a lot of Christmas stuff I know but when you consider there were 20+ bins stuffed full of Christmas stuff it's not bad. There are now 8 bins of stuff for the garage sale and 6 bins of stuff for my mom, hope she's ready. I plan to take the boxes to my folks house before I go get them in FL. Now to figure out a time for the garage sale.

A lot has been accomplished over the last few weeks towards the goal of purging. The laundry room, garage, a shed and shop still to go, most of the stuff in those places will not go with us so it's a matter of junking it or selling it. I look around the house and don't see anything that needs to be boxed up, just gotten rid of. The garage sale pile is huge, starting to tell friends about looking through it, it would take at least two truck loads to get it to Goodwill. When I think about how much we got rid of a few years ago and now this new pile it's just mind boggling. Lots of dollars, but so far haven't really missed anything we've gotten rid of. If we had thought about it we might have kept the big screen TV, pool table and card table for staging the first floor, 20-20 hindsight is great.

Today was a gym day, still tired from not sleeping Monday night but working out has helped the energy level. Spent the afternoon catching up on other blogs and looking forward to dinner out with a former co worker.

Angela and I worked together at the bank, while I'm at the tail end of the baby boomers she is nearer to the beginning. We worked together just over 6 years and enjoyed each others company immensely, we haven't seen much of each other over the last few years but with my new found semi retired status I am trying to catch up with some old friends. Angela and I have rowed Dragonboats together, walked all night in the Relay for Life and when I would go away on a road trip she was right there along with us. Angela would hang a US map in the break room, as I would update friends and family of our travels she would mark our route, when I returned we spent many a lunch talking of the things we had seen, some places she had been earlier in her life so she could really imagine them, she so enjoyed when we did Route 66. Because of Angela we always were aware of being in a new state, had to find Angela a rock, I'd then put them in a ziploc and write the state where we found it. In 2011 when we went on our 6 week 14,000 mile road trip I was no longer at the bank and hadn't talked with Angela much so there was no collection of rocks made though lots of discussion of ones that looked good, even did it last fall walking along the ocean. Recently while cleaning out the curio cabinet I pondered what to do with all the sea shells we collected over the years, Angela!!! Sure hope she wants them, don't want to throw them out.

 Heard from my niece on Facebook today, next week they head to Corpus Christi. Last year my brother bought a sail boat and they spend some of the school breaks down there. If the house was sold we could plan to meet them there, oh well one day.

We have friends in IL, they used to live back in NY, he was the photographer at our wedding, it is their son's birthday today.  He's 26 today, same as our older son, they were childhood friends though I doubt either remembers. Well on Facebook Rene said something about remembering a picture taken with the mom's and their son's (there were 3 couples) and of course who just got done putting all those photos in the computer :) so off I went to find pictures and I found the moms and sons and the dads and sons and they are now on Facebook, everyone is getting quite the laugh. What memories it brought back, the 80's big hair, gold chains those were the days.

Until next time...

Saturday, March 9, 2013

This and that

Today Deb and I planned to do some running around. We stopped by the RV, things look okay there, gave Deb a look at what colors are in the bedroom. Then it was off to Best Buy, Deb has decided to scan all of her old photos getting them digitalized before they get bad. After a successful stop we headed to the quilt store to look at fabric. We had decided on a color pallet taking in the southwestern colors, we found 24 different pieces to go together :). I'm sure it will be beautiful when done and will brighten the bedroom up. After a $ucce$$ful stop at Costco we called it a day.

This afternoon I made reservations for two weddings we are attending late summer, one Labor Day weekend (New Haven CT) and one  (Salem MA) the weekend before our 6 week road trip to see the boys. Our previous road trips have been moving from hotel to hotel, early on we joined a few hotel clubs and earned free nights. We still have some free nights to use, when we go to Salem MA we will be staying 2 nights, both free. The weekend we are there is the beginning of Haunted Happenings a month (October) long celebration, we've never been to Salem so are going to head there early Friday so we can spend most of the day taking in the sights. I've also looked into what kind of free nights I can in Lake George NY, Rene and I hope to get together for a night away, it's a great half way point and lots of shopping, window or otherwise.

Played around some more with blogger trying to figure things out, wish some one I knew blogged so I could get some tips.

Until next time...

1980

Today in 1980 Dave started his career at IBM as a manufacturing operator, 32 years later he's still there. Over the years he has seen many changes, so now he is ready to get out. We are targeting June 17, 2015 as his retirement date, he will then be eligible for a small health care package that should cover us for 3-4 years. He fixes the tools (machines) that make the computer chips, he has always worked on the line. When we first started dating he worked nights and weekends, of course we were much younger and could survive on much less sleep. In 1987 he went to days and no weekends but that changed once we moved to VT in 1993. In VT he started back on nights but instead of 8 hour nights they were 12 hour shifts, 3-4 days in a row, a few years later he transferred to days, he has a two week schedule which means he works every other weekend. So thank you dear for having provided so well for us over the years, you've made it possible for me to be the stay at home mom I so enjoyed and to be able to work when and at what I want with out worrying if I was making enough money. Happy anniversary honey, not too many more to go.

Until next time...

Friday, March 8, 2013

1st blog day

Today I started the blog, since we started doing long road trips friends and family have followed along, we had used Facebook to do our trips so far. Since my folks don't do Facebook and I want a better way to record our journey, a way for our family and friends to follow along thus the blog was born. Today to practice I blogged  some of the random thoughts I've been having since we made this decision. I have to figure out the different aspects of blogger before I let anyone know I've started the blog so for now I will keep this private but soon I will have some friends take a look and see what they say.

The title of the blog actually came from our son Tom's friend. We ran into Nick at the credit union shortly after getting the RV,  he lives in the same town so passes our home often. He had seen the RV in the driveway, he said it looked like we were ready to go on tour, well we are ready to go on a long tour, to see this beautiful country, to get reacquainted with old friends and to make new ones. I've lurked on lots of blogs for the last year, the underlying theme in the RV lifestyle is one of simplifying and slowing down, time to smell the roses.

Over the last year I have lurked on numerous blogs, never taking the plunge as a follower, that will soon change. I have learned there is a great community of folks out there to draw inspiration and knowledge from, RV-Dreams.com has been a fountain of knowledge. They have not only shared the good but they have also shared the emotional, their finances (really helpful in determining what to budget for) and the bad, through it all they have never wavered in the rightness of their decision to leave behind the conventional lifestyle. Check out their website if the lifestyle at all interest you. I have gone back a read many blogs, following many on their journey from home owners to fulltimers, it helps to find hope in others stories.

Until next time...

Friends since forever

Rene and I met toward the end of 9th grade, we had almost every class together in 10th grade, what a year we had. We've gone through a lot and have kept the friendship alive all these years, I am so fortunate to still call her my sister of the heart and one of my best friends. There are so many memories with her, my recent scanning brought back so many of them, parties (volleyball & fondue to name a few), bowling together for over 15 years, all of her visits to VT and our concerts and so much more, from my teenage years to today she has been a special part of it, the sister I never had. After all her parents were my other parents, her dad and our son David share a birthday, always easy to remember to call him. Now if I could just get a better clue for her mother's birth date writing it down would probably help. When she ever reads this she'll remind me again I'm sure.
1976 Rene & Faye 
2010 Faye & Rene



 Although we haven’t gotten together as much lately as we’d like too when our lifestyle changes maybe we’ll get to spend a little more time in NY  or the west when she heads out to see a grandson and his parents. Sure hope we can get together as planned for a quick visit in April, we usually meet in Lake George, do some window shopping, no buying these days, just some girl time. We haven't had a girl since 2010 and then I needed major shopping after loosing so much weight. 

Until next time...




Gym Day

And then there is my other friends, Mike and Carol. We met Mike when his son Michael became friends of our son Tom in the 2nd grade. Mike helped us put in our heating system back in 1997 when we made a major renovation to our home. When we play spades with them I follow Mike, while he ponders his next move I watch him, trying to psyche him out, depends on how much Switchback he's had how well my efforts pay off.  By the time the evening is done our sides are usually hurting so much from laughing. Of our immediate friends Carol is the only native Vermonter in the group, the rest of us are from NY or Jersey. Dave loves to tease her when she starts speaking french.   Last summer we they came and visited us at one of our campgrounds stays, they spent the night in a tent. Recently after gym one morning we headed to the RV Show, we found a few travel trailers she liked.Who knows what may be in their future, a travel trailer?

2010 McDonald Family


Carol and I have recently become some what not working (that will end for me when the weather gets warmer) and have started going to the gym together. In 2010 Dave and I together lost 120 pounds, well of course over the last few years a few of those pounds miraculously found there way back. So now Carol and I go 3 times a week to Planet Fitness, and slowly my body is responding. The gym is located in the town where I used to be Branch Supervisor for a large bank, at the gym are a few a my former bank clients, it has been great to catch up with them and when telling them of my future workamping plans I receive some very positive feedback as far as customer service skills and how much different things are where I once was. After Carol and I do our gym thing one or the other of us usually has a stop they need to make, of course we always get ourselves into some kind of trouble. Today after gym we exchanged trucks with Dave, we took the big truck to get inspected. Who knew it would take all 3 of us to inspect the truck. Carol and I had to help the mechanic figure out how to change the odometer display, then had to help him with the lights, good thing he is a friend though I do think we should have gotten a discount. We'll see what Monday has in store for us.

Until next time...



Are We Crazy

There's the ones who understand why you want to live this nomadic traveling life and then there are the ones who don't. They wonder how you can live in such a small space, have no "real" home, move away from everyone and pose all the what about and what if questions. Those questions will always be there in one form of another, it's how we choose to live our lives in response to the questions.
So far nothing has been posed to us that we haven't already thought about and researched.


Over the last year I have read and learned so much from so many different blogs and forums that I think we have most things figured out or at least discussed to some extent. As far as the size of our home, our sticks and bricks house is over 3000 sq ft, we only use the kitchen, office and bedroom, we have that all covered in the RV and we don't have all the maintenance and upkeep that comes with a conventional home. So yes 300 sq ft will do nicely and it is as real of a home as any with the added bonus of wheels so if we find we don't like where we are we have the ability to change our location on a whim, driven only by what ever constraints we put on ourselves.. Of course we know we will have maintenance and upkeep on the RV but it should be so much less than our sticks and brick home and no yard work. 

As for moving away from everyone, well our boys have headed west already, we have family and friends all over the country, some we haven't seen in 20 years but we're hoping our travels will let us reconnect with many of them.


My brother has been after us for years to chuck it all and move west, after our first trip to CO we were hooked on the west. Over the years when we get together he was always asking what we were waiting for. He was one of the first ones we called when we made our decision. He now has a sailboat moored in Corpus Christi, can't wait till we can meet up there.

So are we crazy, yes but then those who know us aren't surprised. Do we have all the answers, no but then when have we, we'll figure it out. Do we want to live life by our own rules, yes we're tired of others having control over the roads we travel.

Until next time...

A quilt

2010 Deb, Jim & Les
Some of our best friends since we moved to VT are Deb and Les, we met through their son Jim, . Over the years our families have become intertwined, we have made memories to last a lifetime. Deb wants to make us a quilt to remember her by, like we could forget them, what great friends they have been and what wonderful times we’ve had bringing up our boys. We’ve celebrated and mourned together for many years, they are our family. I know the effort and time it takes to make these quilts, she does them to raise money for her Relay for Life team every year. It means the world to me she wants to make something so special for us. I'm looking forward to our search for the right colors, think we'll have to pop into the RV tomorrow to look at it's colors again before we head out shopping.
 
So Deb if you think that we could forget all of the camping trips, vacations (even though we both lost the DC pics I know we went-I think), evenings spent hanging out playing cards or dominoes, we've done so much over the last 18+ years how can we forget such an important part of our life. Just wait till you get to your next place, we'll find a nearby campground for a visit.

Deb has collected prints from my brothers gallery, he's a photographer in CO, he's done a lot of the national parks, you can see his prints at Rocky Mountain Reflections I of course also have some of his prints, well there isn't enough room in the RV for them all so we asked Deb to pick out the ones she liked, when we sell the house those prints will find a new home with her.
 
Until next time...


Friends



We have been very fortunate in our life to have made some very good friends, the ones you know you can call on for anything. For much of our life we’ve lived away from family so while living here in VT we have made our own family from some very good friends. We’ve raised our kids’ together, done trips with each other, had fondue parties, we’ve spent many a night playing spades or Mexican train.

Most of us are transplants so we spend holidays and family celebrations together, it thanks to our kids we all met. We will miss these dear friends so very much but hope as they all get out of the rat race we can make plans to get together somewhere or two, I know some will be leaving VT also but others will remain, who knows maybe we can convince some of them to RV with us one day.

One of the things we look forward to is catching up with friends from our past. When we lived in NY we were part of a large group of friends and some, like us, have moved away to other parts of the country. With Facebook we have reconnected with some of them and hope to see them before too long. So now we need to find a place to moochdock in NY so we can spend time visiting friends and family there. We are from the Fishkill area of NY  which has no nearby campgrounds, or at least any that get good reviews, it will take a bit of planning when we head there with our house on wheels.

Until next time...





Purging



What to keep and what to get rid of, ideally we would get rid of everything that won’t fit in the RV but at this moment I’m not ready to make that move. However I am working to rid the house of most of the stuff we won’t be taking with us or storing, figure if I’m not keeping it I might as well not have it hanging around here.
When we first decided to sell the house we hadn’t figured out the RV full time part yet so I packed boxes thinking things would be stored until we had figured out our next home base. Now that our home is going to be on wheels and space is limited major purging has to be done even to the stuff already packed.
February 2013
One of the things Dave and I treasure most is our photos and mementos from our trips and family. When we put the house on the market I had to take all of my pictures out the hallway to the bedrooms, often referred to as rogue’s gallery and all of our photos went into storage.I finally decided it was time to find all of the old photos and scan them into the computer, 5900+ later our lives have fit into a 32g flash drive, lot better than all the boxes they were in. Now I enjoy them all the time, I set my screensaver to randomly show pictures :).   Now we are working on getting our old VHS tapes to DVD before they deteriorate anymore. While sometimes mind numbing it has been fun, reliving our lives a photo at a time.
When we first put the house on the market back in 2011 we had a massive garage sale, as time has gone by another pile of stuff has grown, as soon as the weather turns another garage sale is in order.
March 2013
The transfer of VHS tapes to DVD is done, didn’t edit them at this point, just wanted to get it onto DVD’s  for the time, I’m sure some rainy day I’ll be inspired to but at this point I’m satisfied with what was accomplished.
I’ve been doing a deep clean of all the rooms with new eyes this year. We have let our last realtor go and will be trying to sell the house on our own this summer. As we also get ready to head to Johnson for the summer I am doing another purge of the things in the house, going with the mindset we won’t be returning to this home. As I go through each room things are evaluated and if it’s not going in the RV or stored it is sent down to the garage sale area. I’ve also started going through the packed boxes and reevaluating what is there, is it worth it pay for storage; don’t think I will have as much as I thought.
Until next time...