I've got about 75% of the house packed and I'm living with boxes everywhere. Scarlett follows us from room to room and has to quality test each box before we pack it. We are running so fast that the cats (and dogs) are getting stressed out already, so we're making a point of stopping for a few hours each day and just planting ourselves in front of the TV so they can have peaceful times in our laps.
Everyday is so packed full of things we need to do - yesterday we had a termite inspector out and was told that because the house doesn't really have a crawl space they can't inspect it so just assume it needs to be treated (they come out in April after we get all the outside cats removed). We got a guy working on repairing the old chimneys (they leak when it rains), another guy bidding on some painting. The phone rang all night long with movers wanting to come out and bid on moving us (Steve pulled his back out last weekend and we realized he is not going to be able to move the pool table, piano, china cabinet, fridges, workbench, tiller, tractor, etc).
Today is supposed to be nice so I'm going to paint the front porch and the storm cellar entranceway. Then pack most of the clothes that we won't wear in the next few weeks. Got a woman coming by to pick up the cat habittrail (she is relocating feral cats to her property down the road).
If the packing gets mostly done this weekend, we start on some interior repairs next week - we're going to put new wall tile, paint and floor in one of our bathrooms and we have to repaint the kitchen cabinets. We're trying to get a contractor out to fix some things that are easy to do but time consuming. Monday is the gutter guys. Thursday is the hot water guy (they messed up the installation a few weeks back).
It's exhausting, but the really good news is that the realtor told us to ask about $60,000 higher than I thought we were going to ask. Apparantly real estate has gone way up in the neighborhood in the last 7 years since I've had the house last appraised - it's gone up in value about $120,000 in that time. She gave us a number and Steve and I just laughed in joy. We can afford the movers and a new kitchen at the new house!
And thru all of this, our biggest conversation is around how to get the critters moved and how to acclimate them quickly to a new house. Poor babies don't know any other house than this one and I can see that they are going to freak out for a while. We decided to first move their cat trees and some big area rugs (familiar scents) to the new place, then move the cats and lock them in the sun room the day of the move. That way they don't have to hear/see the sounds of big burly strangers moving furniture and boxes all day long.
It's going to be an interesting and exhausting few weeks.
Oh, and did I tell you that I am moving across the state line? "Auntie Em" will be somewhere over the rainbow in Kansas.
Everyday is so packed full of things we need to do - yesterday we had a termite inspector out and was told that because the house doesn't really have a crawl space they can't inspect it so just assume it needs to be treated (they come out in April after we get all the outside cats removed). We got a guy working on repairing the old chimneys (they leak when it rains), another guy bidding on some painting. The phone rang all night long with movers wanting to come out and bid on moving us (Steve pulled his back out last weekend and we realized he is not going to be able to move the pool table, piano, china cabinet, fridges, workbench, tiller, tractor, etc).
Today is supposed to be nice so I'm going to paint the front porch and the storm cellar entranceway. Then pack most of the clothes that we won't wear in the next few weeks. Got a woman coming by to pick up the cat habittrail (she is relocating feral cats to her property down the road).
If the packing gets mostly done this weekend, we start on some interior repairs next week - we're going to put new wall tile, paint and floor in one of our bathrooms and we have to repaint the kitchen cabinets. We're trying to get a contractor out to fix some things that are easy to do but time consuming. Monday is the gutter guys. Thursday is the hot water guy (they messed up the installation a few weeks back).
It's exhausting, but the really good news is that the realtor told us to ask about $60,000 higher than I thought we were going to ask. Apparantly real estate has gone way up in the neighborhood in the last 7 years since I've had the house last appraised - it's gone up in value about $120,000 in that time. She gave us a number and Steve and I just laughed in joy. We can afford the movers and a new kitchen at the new house!
And thru all of this, our biggest conversation is around how to get the critters moved and how to acclimate them quickly to a new house. Poor babies don't know any other house than this one and I can see that they are going to freak out for a while. We decided to first move their cat trees and some big area rugs (familiar scents) to the new place, then move the cats and lock them in the sun room the day of the move. That way they don't have to hear/see the sounds of big burly strangers moving furniture and boxes all day long.
It's going to be an interesting and exhausting few weeks.
Oh, and did I tell you that I am moving across the state line? "Auntie Em" will be somewhere over the rainbow in Kansas.
