Move to Condo √

Monday, 23 May

We’ve had three sleeps at the condo and so far so good.  No distracting sounds from neighboring condos; no street noises to interfere with a good night’s rest; no fire alarms going off at 2:00a (that was a problem at the apartment building we lived in when we first moved to the DC area).

As scheduled, the moving company that we contracted with arrived bright and early on Friday.  We’d already done quite a bit of work to prepare for this day, grouping and organizing all of the stuff we wanted Quality Moving Services to transfer to the condo.  Our prep work paid off — nothing got left behind; nothing extra was moved.  The three guys assigned to our move were professional, courteous, and careful.  They did a good job wrapping the furniture to ensure nothing was damaged during the move.  We had only one breakage — a glass shade on a floor lamp; no biggie as far as we’re concerned.

Good prep work … smooth move.
(I moved what little was left in my walk-in closet, leaving the big stuff to the big guys!)

The guys pow-wow their move strategy.

By the time the movers left on Friday, all of the furniture was placed as we had directed, needing just a few adjustments here and there.  Boxes were stacked out of the way, ready for us to unpack.  Saturday started early — like 5:00a early.  By the end of the day, we were dead-tired, but felt good about our progress.  We even managed to restore our connection to the outside world by getting the phones and computers hooked up.  (No thanks to our cable company; plenty of kudos to Apple Care!)

In reasonable shape by Saturday afternoon.

Sunday was another day of hard work.  I am pleased to report that most of the boxes the movers brought are unpacked.  We’ve put the few boxes that we didn’t get to in the storage area we created for ourselves … you’ll laugh at our ingenious solution when I post a picture (later).  Time will tell if we have everything in the right place or if we need to re-arrange a few things.  For now, it feels good to have no boxes cluttering our living space.  (Sorry, no photo from Sunday; I was dead on my feet and didn’t feel like getting the camera out.)

We still have some stuff to bring over from the townhouse — plants, knick-knacks, my cross-stitch artwork, and the like.  No worries; we have all week to do that.  Actually, we have through the end of the month since closing is scheduled for 31 May, but we’re getting the carpets cleaned on the 27th, so we’d like to get everything out before then.

More to come … including photos of the new place.  This is all I can manage on my lunch hour today.

Making Headway on Retirement Plans: Step 2 √

Tuesday, 10 May

Step 1 towards “goin’ a rollin’ around North America” after retirement was buying the motorhome.  That was accomplished in May 2010.  Here we are a year later, and step 2 is also accomplished.

The earliest Mui can retire is December 2012, so we really weren’t planning on selling our townhouse this early.  Our plans changed when we went for a neighborhood walk one Sunday morning in late March.  Nothing unusual about that; it’s something we do frequently for exercise.  Except that this time we deviated from our usual path and found ourselves at the site of a brand new subdivision going up not far from us.  Hmmm!

Construction was still in the start-up phase, but the way buildings go up like Lego toys these days, it wouldn’t be long before the market was flooded with new builds.  So, we called the real estate agent who helped us sell our previous townhouse seven years ago.  When we determined that there were no other properties even remotely like ours on the market, we decided to test the waters, so to speak, and put the townhouse up for sale.  That was on 30 March.

Fast forward to April 22.  On the last day of our vacation in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, our agent called to tell us that we had an offer on our townhouse.  We countered.  The buyer countered back.  The second offer was acceptable to us, so we signed the amended contract.  We don’t usually travel with our scanner, but we had brought it along with us this time — a premonition perhaps!  Thirty minutes later, the paperwork was on its way to our agent.  Ain’t technology great!

Pleased with how things had worked out, we celebrated the impending sale.  No, not with a bottle of bubbly; but with something even better …

All of the inspections are complete; the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted.  Closing is scheduled for 31 May.  In the meantime, we’ve rented a duplex condo not far from where the townhouse is and we’ve started taking small stuff there already.  The heavy furnishings for the condo are tagged; movers are scheduled for 20 May.

Weeding down to fit into 1,500 sq ft (139 sq m) from nearly 3,000 sq ft (279 sq m) is progressing smoothly.  We’ve sold stuff on Craigslist; donated a bunch of things to charity; thrown out a whole lot of stuff that served us well, but which we no longer need; and set aside a pile of things that have sentimental value to go into storage.  Even as I’m writing this post, an estate sales guy is downstairs packing a bunch of knick knacks we no longer want.  You know the saying — one person’s trash …   Yup; things are on a roll!

Now you know why my “in the spotlight” series for our OBX trip has been derailed.  I’ll eventually get back on track.  Until then, I’ll leave you with something sweet …

No, you’re not seeing things.  In the midst of the controlled chaos of the sale and the move, Mui somehow managed to find time to make strawberry jam.  Twelve jars of it to be precise.  Crazy?  Perhaps; but it’s because he does things like this that he’s the chef in our household and not me.