Month: August 2005

We’re still packing but just the kitchen and some miscellaneous items are left.  It’ll be a very busy day today.  Instead of going for a walk I’ll mow the lawn, which I have not done myself in at least three years.  Dave usually takes care of the lawn but he’s at work today, ready to do battle with the final closing documents that we’re receiving today.  I say "do battle with" since you may recall a recent post where it took 3 unnecessary tries to get our documents correct.

I leave tomorrow morning before 0600.  Dave will deal with the movers then follow.  He has to come back here on Sunday so he can go back to work on Monday.  Send good vibes for him finding a job in Seattle soon!

The next time I post, it will be from our home in the beautiful Skagit Valley 🙂

Yesterday was my last riding lesson here in SoCal.  Since Clipper has been settling into his new place for the last week, I have been riding various school horses for my last 5 lessons.  For the first three, I rode the Queen of School Horses, Sophie.  She is a 20- or 21-year old dark bay Thoroughbred mare, who is completely unflappable and very honest.  No matter how badly I muck up a distance (which I usually do if I interfere) she’ll still jump, even if it’s practically from a standstill.  Apparently Sophie hasn’t always been like that.  When she came to the stable she was a hot Dressage-Queen.  Eventually she calmed down and is the keystone lesson horse.

After Sophie’s regular rider returned from vacation, I rode Goldie, the TB mare that I leased before I bought Clipper.  Goldie is 16 years old and also very honest but isn’t sound all the time.  Even though we walked around the arena a long time to warm up, Goldie started limping once I asked her to trot.  Poor girl.  I got off, untacked her and the grooms got a lovely chestnut gelding called Seiko ready for me.  Seiko is coming back from a hock injury so I worked him on the flat then jumped him over a vertical about 20-30 times.  Seiko has a reputation for being timid so will stop if not "encouraged" to jump.  Since I’m used to Clipper also needing encouragement that was not a problem.  However, I did have to learn not to try to control Seiko too much with the reins because he’s very sensitive and too much interference makes him nervous and quick.  Unfortunately I ride like a jumper (hold, hold, hold, then release for the jump) instead of a hunter (hands on the crest, slight correction or move up with the leg, hands on the crest).  Seiko could teach me to ride properly in the hunter style, if I wasn’t leaving in two days.  For my last lesson, I rode a holsteiner named Landor, who has a bad reputation for being grumpy, resistant to cues, and a dirty stopper in front of jumps.  When I saw my saddle on Landor yesterday I thought I was being punished but actually I had a great time on Landor.  He will take advantage if the rider isn’t firm.  I insisted that he accepted my cues from the beginning and we had a great lesson.

Then I really had to say goodbye to my trainer and the friends I’ve ridden with for the last 18 months.  They had a going away party for me at a restaurant last Thursday, which was a lot of fun and I received some very nice gifts but yesterday saying goodbye for real was hard.  I’m happy to be going home but change is never easy.  I’ve been away for 11 years and thinking about going home for good in two days still seems a little weird.  I’ve een thinking and dreaming about this move for the last two years, and very seriously since the summer of 2004.  Now that it’s really happening, I feel a little shocked.  But that’s change for you, even when it’s positive and a dream come true.

What I couldn’t write about yesterday because I was so stressed out has passed and is now in perspective.  Our loan documents that needed to be signed, notarized, and FedX’d back were incorrect.  Dave had a hard time convincing the document preparer (DP, aka DipSh*t) to correct the documents, run the entire set as the program wouldn’t let her pick the forms to correct, then fax him only the 4 documents that needed signing.  DP finally got it.  She was having trouble with the whole fax idea.  Then on the second try, the documents were still incorrect.  How about a third try?  Still incorrect.  Dave was furious. And the fourth?  By now it was getting late in the day:  3:00 p.m.  Dave had an hour drive home in LA traffic and we needed to meet the notary and get the documents to the FedX dropoff before 4:30.  Fortunately the fourth try was correct.  Dave made miraculous time home (we thank the Traffic Gods that there were no accidents, road construction, or any other typical obstructions to traffic), the notary and FedX pickup spot were in the same place only a block or so from our house.  We made it with 20  minutes to spare.  Even though the stress was over before 4:30 I still felt harassed and had a tough time winding down until I made a margarita (equal parts fresh lime juice, tequila, and triple sec over ice in a martini shaker– they’re a little tart but a melting ice cube or two in the glass mellows the tartness).

Then later in the evening we got a phone call from our agent.  A couple who had viewed our house the other day got approved for financing and made a signed offer!  Around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. our agent andher business partner came over to present and explain the offer.  It was completely acceptable, mostly because our agent told the other agent what we would accept.  So we close on this house on September 18, providing the house passes inspections.  The four of us sat around our table, all thinking, well it’s about time this house sold.  Then our agent looked at when we signed the listing papers: July 18.  Our house had only been on the market for one month, which is great.  In SoCal the market has been so hot at times that houses only stay on the market for a few days but the entire time our house was on the market, we had daytime temperatures of over 95F every single day, which kept the traffic down.  Finally we got a few days of cooling and our traffic and interest in our house increased.  The one month we’ve had our house on the market seemed like 2 1/2 months because we fretted so much.  Now, with perspective, a month doesn’t seem long at all.  Just not knowing how long our house would be on the market, plus having already purchased the house we’re moving into stressed us out.  Looking back it seems like everything has gone quite smoothly.  Of course it hasn’t, given the near fiasco we experienced yesterday with the DP.  Best of all, the lockbox is off our front door and I can tell people who want to see our house to go away.  I even left the house without making the bed this morning.  Ha!

While I occasionally blog, my main place to write is in my hand-written journal.  I’ve always enjoyed writing my feeling down on paper in a bound book and can remember when my mom worked for an insurance company she’d bring home some bound books with the company logo.  Each page was for one day and the size was approximately 5 x 7" thus perfect for adolescents to scribble down private thoughts.  Of course, I never trusted my younger sister so didn’t dare write about the crush I had on Mark M. or Steve H.  It’s funny to think of I had a crush on Steve H. back then.  Of
course I saw him at my class reunion last fall.  He’s shorter than I am
and is developing a pretty good spare tire.

Mostly in my diary I made lists of my favorite things and the things I hated.  The list of favorite things was far longer than the things I hated because generally I like most things.  In fact, of the things I hated I can only think of a couple: cooked carrots and garden slugs.  Maybe I had more on my list back then but that’s all I remember disliking passionately.  I suppose I could add a couple more things to that list.  I still don’t like cooked carrots or garden slugs and I’d add mosquitoes, wet feet, sticky armpits, summer in the San Fernando Valley, bad breath, vet bills, credit card bills, and writing about my research.  Maybe to my favorite things I’d add blueberries, white peaches, my husband, Victorian mysteries, cat and/or horse mysteries, my inlaws, winter, rainy days, walking along the beach, good compost, rose buds, and my younger sister.

Today I’d like to write in my journal but I’ve been very stressed out about each of the gazillion steps of our move.  I can’t write when I’m stressed.  At least I can’t write about what’s causing the stress.  I’m much better about writing about the stress after it’s behind me and put into proper perspective.  Only then can I tell the story about stress.  As an adult my journals have been primarily about contemplation, figuring out a puzzle or problem — as long as it’s not particularly stressful at the moment.  I gave up my journal as an adolescent and threw them out so that my younger sister would never find out about my private, though harmless, thoughts.  I took up writing in a journal again in 1990 and have kept each volume since then.  Now I have a trunkful of volumes, which I go through occasionally.  I’m not sure why I keep them except those journals are sort of a measuring stick of personal development.   They’re not anything I’d like my future children or any relatives to read, except perhaps my little sister.  I think I can trust her now.

Moron Moving????

Now that I’ve finished all the mysteries by one of my favorite authors, I can get back to the business of moving.  For the past few days I have literally spent every spare moment finishing the Irene Adler mystery series, which could only happen after I finished the Midnight Louie series.  No more excuses.  I need to finish packing what I can as our moving date is less than a week away.  I still have to tackle the scary garage and may have missed a good opportunity while we had a break in the hot weather.  Today the temps are expected to climb again, which is not good for going through a stuffy garage.

I meant to post about Clipper getting in the big Bob Hubbard Horse Transportation horse van and driving away (the horse van, not that Clipper was driving) two days ago but I was too upset by it.  Clipper doesn’t get hauled much so he was reluctant about getting in the horse van plus there was a horse in it already, who nipped at Clipper when he came in through the door.  The very competent groom got Clipper in the van and into the right stall, which was deeply bedded with straw.  Clipper should have arrived in Auburn, WA last night at the layover facility.  He will be delivered to his new, permanent home today around noon.

We’re still waiting for a written offer on our house.  We have some interested buyers who are working on financing right now.  The wait is torture to both Dave and me but what choice do we have except to try to live our lives as normally as possible while we wait?  I suppose instead we could give in to the stress and start yelling at each other.  Nah.

Yesterday we found out that the property we’re buying is in an open space program, which is complex.  I was under the misimpression that a conservancy would be interested in receiving development rights by donation or sale and that would be good enough.  The rules are more strict than that as the intention is to keep agriculture or timber land in production.  If we want to keep it in the program, which has a tax benefit not to mention a greater good of keeping farmland in farming, we have to make a minimum income per acre per year from the land.  I had planned to dabble in farming but I’m not really prepared to farm for real.  Well, now I have to.  This is just the push I need.  Today I’ll be calling the local extension office to find out more about farming.  I’ll post what I find out.

It’s Wednesday night at approximately 8:40 p.m.  I am wearing my p.j.’s and loafing on the sofa, unwinding for bed.  I hear a knock on the front door but I’m not going to answer it because the porch light isn’t on and I can’t see who is out there.  I holler at Dave that someone is at the door.  The someone can see in because it’s light indoors but not out.  They can also hear me because only the security door is shut, because it’s hot.  Dave has also been unwinding and isn’t wearing a shirt.  The people on the other side of the door have seen our real estate sign and want to know if they can look at the house.  Dave looks at me to see if it’s okay.  I roll my eyes and say sure, why not.  I refuse to get up off the sofa.  An entire family comes in to have a look around.  The kids want to play with the cats.  Dave disappears to put on a shirt.  The family goes outside to look at the pool.  I worry that they’ll leave the back door open a little too long and the cats will escape so I holler at Dave to watch the cats.  He does until they come back in.  From the sofa I indicate that they should take a flyer from the pile on the kitchen table.  They do, thank us, and leave.

It’s Friday at approximately 7:30 p.m.  The phone rings.  Another couple has seen our sign and wants to know if they can have a look.  Sure, I say, but we’re just about to have dinner so if you don’t mind, we don’t mind.  They say thank you and that they’ll stop by.  I just put a forkful of salad in my mouth when I hear the knock on the door.  I’m trying to chew and swallow discretely while I let them in.  Mmmmm…, smells good the woman with the baby says.  We invite them to have a look around while we fiddle in the kitchen.  They go outside and are out there for a while talking to each other.  We eat more salad.  I finish my salad and dish up the main course when they come back in.  They are very complimentary of our house, say they love it.  The baby is very cute.  I’d like to see them in this house.  They say they’ll call our agent right away and leave us to our dinner.

It’s Saturday at 11:30 a.m.  Our agent has not heard from the enthusiastic couple with the cute baby.

It’s Saturday night at 8:15 p.m.  The phone rings.  Dave answers.  A family parked in front of our house want to know whether it’s okay to come in and have a look.  Sure, he says, if the door to the second bathroom is closed please knock because my wife is in the shower.  I’m sure she won’t mind showing you around though.

Okay, I’m just kidding about that last example.

This open letter to the Kansas School Board is a great example of why matters of faith should be kept in churches and homes, while mattters of science should be taught in schools.  Churches should not preach about science and and schools should not teach about matters of faith.  Each has its area of expertise and it would make sense to stay within the realm of that expertise.

I packed 4 more boxes this morning.  I’m not sure how many we’re up to now.  At last count we had 21 then our realtor wanted us to move a bookshelf from one room to another so we decided to pack those books instead of moving them then packing them.  We still don’t have enough book boxes.  I had to call the movers to ask them to deliver 15 more book boxes.

So now we’re moving Aug 23, which is the day after our house is supposed to close.  The inspections both passed so the only thing standing in our way is getting the financing paperwork done.  After we move our household, Dave has to come back down here because the job for which he interviewed last Thursday was offered to the other serious candidate because the attorneys thought that person would fit in better.  Whatever that means.  I mean, Dave isn’t a freak or anything.  We were really disappointed but we’re over it now.  Back to the drawing board for employment for him.

Our house is still on the market but we get people coming by almost every day.  One couple has been through here 3 times already.  They can’t seem to make up their mind but it’s fairly clear that this house isn’t winning them over.  Another buyer came by late yesterday.  He seemed pretty interested and his agent said they’d be in contact with our agent, which would indicate that an offer is forthcoming but I’ve learned not to get my hopes up even if the signs look good.

Moving several states away never used to be a big deal to me.  I’d just pack all my belongings into the back of my Toyota pick up and drive.  Moving a household and spouse several states away is several orders of magnitude more complicated.  I really didn’t expect this much drama.  At least I get to move and get my part of our life in order in less than 3 weeks.