March 16, 2007

• Moving is becoming a reality

  Well, today is the day we sign the agreement to sell our house here in Port Charlotte, Florida.  This was supposed to be our last stop in life when we had this house built but we didn’t take into account *The Beast* (my husband).  He has always been hyperactive and he was running out of space on our lot to plant his trees and stuff.  I should have known he would never be able to relax and just let things grow.  *sigh*

  First he started really complaining about the heat and humidity here during the summer.  Well, duh, it’s Florida for cryin’ out loud.  Then he started taking trips to places like Northern Georgia, Tennessee and even Kentucky to look at *cabins* and stuff for a *summer place* for him to stay where he could keep busy planting trees you can’t grow in Florida.  Surprize!  Surprize!

  It was a nice respite for me to have him gone from under my feet.  He couldn’t seem to start any project that didn’t somehow involve MY help somewhere along the line.  He had a buddy that lives in Brunswick, Georgia that would meet up with him along the way and the two of them *batched* it in our travel trailer while looking at various homes, trailers, lots and a couple of real cabins.  Amazing.  Of course, nothing suited.  Now his buddy is married to a successful psychiatrist and lives in a house that is probably worth a million dollars.  It’s an incredible house on the water and he has this dock that he built that makes your mouth drop.  He’s a perfectionist by nature and people who build docks for a living are in shock when they see what he did with almost no help.  I kid you not, he missed his calling.

  Anyway, his wife is within a couple years of retiring, so he was looking for something smaller for them that didn’t require so much maintenance so they could do some traveling when she retires.  He also wanted it to be within a day or so travel so they could find it now and still use it for those three and four day weekends that come along. 

  When The Beast found the house in Albertville, Alabama (it’s up in the NE corner of Alabama near another town called Guntersville), I was shocked.  First of all, it’s ALABAMA, for cryin’ out loud.  Not exactly known as a vacation site that I was aware of at all.  This town is near a huge lake called…..drumroll…..Lake Guntersville!  Are you surprised?  He was all set to just up and buy it and I had a hissy fit.  I said, “not until I get up there and see it, you don’t.”

  He tried to assure me that the house was brand new and that he and his buddy even crawled underneath it to inspect how well it was built.  Now I trust his buddy to be critical and know what he’s looking at but I know The Beast.  Once he decides he wants something, it takes an elephant gun to stop his charge.  I almost flew up the road to get there before the scheduled closing on the house.

  Imagine my shock when I found this perfectly nice, comfortable 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with two car garage on almost a half-acre of land.  It has a small front porch area and a nice size deck out back and the back of the lot is all trees.  I was shocked and amazed.  I really couldn’t find anything wrong with it, even the price ($89,000).  So I was there for the closing, signed the papers, wrote the check and we then owned two homes. 

  What is truly amazing is that, here we were, just two *kids* that grew up in the city of Chicago, blue-collar background and we owned (no mortgage) TWO homes!  Some things we just did right as we went along.

  The idea of actually selling the house in Florida came slowly because of the high cost of insurance, taxes, etc. versus what it cost us for the Alabama house.  No comparison.  We decided that we could tough out the winters there because they have virtually no snow (four days is normal and it doesn’t stick on the ground).  So…………here we are.

  We have slowly brought up a lot of stuff to the Alabama house.  The living room set, the guest bedroom set (which we use when we go up there but this time OUR set comes with us), the tv in the living room, you know…the essentials.

  Now it’s time to pay the piper.  This is the next-to-last load we will bring up.  The Beast is returning in two weeks with his brother to get whatever we can’t manage to squeeze into the trailer this time and because his brother wants our leather living room set that is too big for the Alabama house.  He could use it and I am glad it’s getting a good home.  All the other stuff I had to get rid of I freecycled (a great organization.  Check into it where you live).  I’m sure I’ll be joining the one closest to Albertville once we get there. 

  We will be leaving here on the 24th of April.  I won’t be returning until we accept an offer on this house and we have to return for the closing.  Wish us luck.

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