We went to Walmart the other day. Usually this wouldn’t be eventful, or the cause of any emotion except, maybe, exasperation. But this time, I had a teeny panic attack. I knew the magnitude of this move would hit me eventually, but I didn’t expect it to happen at WALMART.

First we drove 27 miles to get there. Now I knew when we signed up for living the rural life that STUFF would be far away. But I’ve been on this hear-the-wind-in-the-trees high for a week now, and real life hasn’t really set in yet. Let me tell you, the honeymoon came to a screeching halt when we walked into the Warsaw Walmart. As Cinderella so aptly put it in the ’80’s: You don’t know know whatcha got ’till it’s gone…

Wait, this is not a Supercenter three minutes from my house. We’ve been in the car for 45 minutes. It looks like the old Siloam Walmart, and it doesn’t have any natural lighting…where is the Great Value kitchen cleaner? The Walmart brand light bulbs? What? You don’t carry them? I want the cheap Light Ranch–you only have Good Seasons? No Altern? Feeling short of breath…

Holy Culture Shock, Batman. I had a routine, a grocery shopping schedule. Get in, get out. Bam. Now I’m in a panic because I don’t know when the next time I’ll be able to find cheap Suave hair products, so I have to THINK AHEAD and compile this Little House on the Prairie list for the next time we head into Sleepy Eye for supplies. And what I really want to know is, why is milk 3.99??? The answer I get around here is “Welcome to NY.”

A few pictures of our journey so far:

(when we finally found the camera!)

I love our new house. I call it The Treehouse. My favorite thing to do is sit out on the back deck. I am decompressing here. I can’t believe how peaceful, how rested, I feel. Of course it’s maddening to have all of my worldly possessions half in/half out of boxes, but we’re slowly getting it done.

We have been WARMLY welcomed here. It is a small community, and people have been dropping cookies off at our doorstep, inviting us to dinner, making us lunch when the movers came, and just popping in to say ‘welcome to the neighborhood.’

Also, I LOVE the weather. Today I had to get out my wool cardigan. We had all of the windows open, and it was only like 60 degrees. Dan and I keep going outside and rubbing our eyes and saying ‘are we dreaming?’ I had forgotten how much I like to be outside.

Sadie counted it up, and she has 8 friends to date. I’ve reconnected with some old friends, and have met several new ones. The church here is really the center of the community–I feel like we’ve gone back in time, and I am loving it. Sometimes I think we are living in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon. Everyone knows everyone else, and news travels FAST. When we got here, the former owners of the house had a long haired cat. Although the house was SPOTLESS, I was still sneezing. We had to get the carpets professionally cleaned, and the next day a person I hadn’t seen in 11 years came over to our house and asked how my allergies were doing. That was the first thing she asked me. How did she know? ‘Get used to it’, I’m told.

I love it here. The fresh air has done wonders for my soul. I feel like God has given me this amazing gift of a place, and I am overwhelmed with the joy of it. I am so grateful.

So tired. Can’t speak in complete sentences. Will give highlights:

Thurs. 6/6: Three big burly women packers fly through house. Saw one smurf tattoo. Loud: tape ripping, paper crinkling, markers squeaking. Signed a contract to sell our house. Will close Lord willing on June 30th.

Fri. 6/6: Movers arrive. Father/son/cousin team. Heard angry, loud, scary shouting–dad and son in each other’s faces over placement of our stuff in truck. Yikes! No air conditioning–sweat poured all around. Slept in empty house that night.

Sat. 6/7: Left Siloam 7:00am. Heard “are we in NY yet” in Tontitown (7 miles out of town…) Drove and drove and drove and drove and ate at McDonalds and drove. Stopped in Indiana for the night 40 miles before we wanted to–I-70 was closed due to state of emergency/flooding. Got one of the last hotel rooms in Terre Haute. Wondered if we were ever going to get out of Indiana. Ate good chinese food.

Sun. 6/8: Drove and drove and drove and ate at Wendy’s. Got 40 miles away from Erie Pa (our stop for the night) and traffic was stopped AGAIN. Who the freak knows why. “Are we at cousin Josie’s yet” Sadie asked every 7 seconds. I timed it. Oh. My. Word. Took a detour, arrived in Erie 3:30pm EASTERN TIME. (Will miss the Central Time TV schedule…) Stayed up WAAAAAAAAAY too late.

Today: hanging out with Dan’s brother and fam. Went to the beach at Lake Erie. Found cool beach glass. Life feels surreal.  Will leave tomorrow am to Olean, NY to close on our NY house. Then will travel to Houghton to our empty house and stay there and wait three days for our stuff.

It’s all good.

Quick update…

Three families are looking at our house today. At least one of the three is so interested they are going to the bank, and may have an offer for us. We leave in 5.4 days. Talk about the 11th hour.

Thanks, dear ones, for praying. Now I must speed to make the house BEAUTIFUL…

I’d like to say I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been busy, but that is just not true. I’ve been rather mopey–wandering around the house wondering what I’m supposed to be doing. We had the whirlwind of getting ready to show the house and my adrenaline was running high, and now it’s like I just ate a pixie stick and am heading for the sugar crash.

I’m trying not to panic about my depressed state. I have a lot of things changing in my life in a very short time, and that is bound to bring on the blahs. I feel suspended, like time has stopped for me, but I’m watching the world race by at lightening speed. I’m trying to live in the moment, but each moment brings me closer to the precipice of the unknown.

I’ve been thinking about how quickly life as I know it can change. One day I’m sitting in my friend’s kitchen having coffee and in a blink nothing is the same anymore. I rely on routine and familiar so much, and the truth is, life as I know it is precarious at best. The stability I feel is as solid as vapor, really.

Which brings me to the solid truth: Only God is stable. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. And all I really have is Now. So I’ll be thankful for that, and trust the rest to the Rock (and I don’t mean Dwayne Johnson…)

Well, first of all, the Nibblers made an offer on another house. We were next in line if the sellers rejected their offer, but alas, offer accepted. We have now lowered our price and are hoping that will make a difference. We’ll be okay even if we don’t sell before we leave, but life would be a teensy bit easier if we sold it. Or at least had a contract on it.

I cleaned my house today in preparation for all of the traffic we’re hoping to get. I’m getting to be a real pro, by the way. Today I didn’t even realize I was cleaning. I totally tricked myself. WHAT did I DO before I had my ipod? Oh yeah. Nothing. At present, we have spatulas, knives and other kitchen essentials in the garage, and everything else (except my coffeemaker) that used to grace our counter tops now live in Dan’s car. This could get dicey since I need the canister of Splenda for my coffee…but you do whatcha gotta do.

11 days and counting.

I pulled out my french press and made some good strong iced coffee. Too strong, maybe–it’s a little grainy…

I’m just sitting here thinking: 15 days. 15 days to say good bye, sell our house, change the oil in the car, get stuff of the attic, and oh, did I say ’sell the house?’ Here’s an interesting development: a couple is coming to look at our place from out of town TONIGHT. They want to make an offer on something this weekend. They have seen our house online and are verrrrrry interested.

Oh the suspense.

So we had the Big Open House on Sunday. Here is the number of people who came to see the house: ZERO. Even with the balloons and the ad in the newspaper and the big sign at the end of our street. BUT, all is not lost. I didn’t clean the closet doors with a toothbrush (actually it is more like a dish washing brush, but you get the idea…) or wash down the baseboards for nothing. Yesterday we got a call at 4:30 from our Realtor saying that someone in her office wanted to show our house in fifteen minutes–could we be ready?

Why yes, we could! Because we spent hours and hours scouring the house for Sunday, it would only take about 10 minutes to whip it back into ship showing shape. I was at the library at the time with Sadie and her friend, Taylor, so I called Dan and he was on it in a flash. (I knew there was NO WAY I was going to get there in time–one 5 year old is slow enough–just imagine TWO of them who really think it’s funny to hide from me then run away when I say it is time to go…I needed at least 30 minutes to get them out of the library and into the car…)

A quick side note: yesterday morning (before I had any knowledge that someone would want to see the house later in the day and only give us 15 minutes notice to get it ready) I had the urge to vacuum. What?! I know! Sadie had been eating Cheetos in the living room, and I happened to notice. This is QUITE unusual for me. Normally I just let the orange crumbs lie until they start sticking annoyingly to my feet. But I thought, oh, since we already vacuumed the whole house, all I need is three minutes to make the living room look really nice again. Painless, really. Also, I made Sadie’s bed. Again, unusual. I normally just close her door and not think about it until she’s ready to go to bed again, and then I remember that I should be training HER to be making her own bed, but it’s too late since it’s bedtime, so I just throw it together so her covers can be right when she sleeps. Providential? I think so.

I don’t know what the young couple thought of our house, but as Dan keeps saying during this entire MADDENING process “It only takes one buyer.”

We shall see.

Here’s what I should be doing: getting my house ready for our Big Open House tomorrow. Even after two cups of coffee and a lovely stroll around the neighborhood garage sales, I still can’t seem to gather up my motivation. SO MUCH needs to be done. Over and above  the normal stuff that already makes me cranky (i.e.  unloading the dishwasher…) It is just so painful. You’d think someone was making me staple my tongue.

I feel all this pressure, like if everything is NOT perfect, it will be my fault that the house doesn’t sell. This is irrational, like most thoughts that run through my head. And with a little effort, we can achieve a state of house bliss, but I must say, this house selling thing is getting old. I’m just tired of it.

I’m boring myself with my complaints. Bleh.

Here’s my question: WHO puts fluorescent lights in a coffee shop?? What is up? Lamps, people! Lamps or indirect lighting. First of all, there is a glare on my laptop screen. Second of all, have we NOT heard of ambiance?

I am aware that I have lighting issues. ESPECIALLY if it has to do with fluorescent lights. But I also have a problem with unbalanced light (too bright in one part of the room, and not enough in another–like maybe I’m facing a window or something.) I’m just not a fan of overhead lighting. Yes. I realize that there far more legitimate things to complain about (like the foul odor emanating from SOMEWHERE near the coffeshop chair I’m sitting on…GROSS!) Or maybe starving people in the world or global warming or something. It still baffles me how someone would open up a coffee shop without thinking about lighting.

That’s all I’m saying.