Tag: moving

No Going Back

Last week I was reminded of a lesson which I learned a long time ago. We decided to take a trip back to our home state. Our trip began by returning to the community which we left when we moved to Texas. We had a wonderful car ride through four states and both dogs did very well in the car. In fact, the trip was a pleasant one all around. We were able to see friends and family. We were also able to see the damage that an August storm had done to our former community. However, as wonderful as our time there was, we both clearly felt that moving back is not what we wanted.

Once you have left a place, moving back to that place is seldom possible. Visits are nice and nostalgic but you cannot pick up where you left off when you moved away. A person’s life and the lives of those who you knew in whatever community you left move forward in different ways. You adapt and change. Nothing from before stays on hold. It is truly never the same again. When you are living there, this change happens each and every day but goes unnoticed because it is just part of life. After being gone from the community for a period of time, the change is noticeable and creates a much different dynamic for relationships within the community.

I first learned this lesson between my freshman and sophomore year of college. I had lived in my home community for eighteen years. Going to college meant going to a larger community approximately a hundred miles away. I came home for weekends and breaks but when I returned the following summer, I found that while my closest friends remained, they had moved on with life. I also discovered that I had changed some while I was away at college. The hometown was never the same because I had experienced something significantly different.

Like many others, I have experienced this truth over and over in my life. During a time of reminiscing, it is easy to desire to return to what we have experienced before. Thoughts of going back to a place which is filled with memories might enter a person’s mind. However, when you return to that place, you find that it is not the same. In fact, it can never be the same again.

I am grateful for our trip back. I have missed the family and friends we left behind. I enjoyed seeing people even more than the places where we used to go. However, I was glad to come back home. I cherish the life we have created in our new home. This is now home and going back to what we had before is no longer an option.

The Unexpected

I hope that some of you have noticed an absence in my posts over the last two weeks. Let me explain why you have not seen any posts from me lately.

When we moved to Fort Worth almost a year ago, we made the decision that we would rent a house for the first year. This would give us the opportunity to learn our new community and decide which areas would be a good fit for us. It was a fantastic idea. We quickly came to realize that we enjoyed the area of Fort Worth in which our rental home was located. We also came to understand that the neighborhood in which we were living was nice but not the one where we wanted to settle permanently. Our original time frame was to start seriously looking for the right house in November and if we did not locate the one, we could always extend our lease month by month if necessary. However, our plans changed and events occurred very quickly.

The first catalyst for our change of plans was receiving contact from the rental company on behalf of the owners of our property in September. The woman who spoke with my husband indicated that the owners wanted us to consider purchasing the home from them. This offer took us by surprise which led us into a discussion about our permanent home sooner than we had anticipated. The conditions which the current owners were placing on their offer seemed unreasonable to us even if the price sounded very good. My husband contacted the realtor who we worked with during our hunt for a rental home, and the one who we had decided would be our choice during our search for a house to buy. She agreed that the price was right but the terms were not. She also informed us after hearing our original plans that if we were to go to a month-by-month rental agreement, the owners would likely raise our rent approximately $300 a month. We were not willing to pay the additional amount so our timeline was moved up. Our lease was over on December 31, so we would need to vacate by that time.

Along comes the next catalyst for change. Since we were going to have to find a home quicker than planned, we moved up the search process start to be October and hopefully locate a house by November. If this time frame worked, we would not have a mortgage payment until January, so no month would have a rent and mortgage payment at the same time. The last weekend in September we decided to begin attending some open houses. The first home we visited was nice. It had great curb appeal along with some amenities which were inviting. The asking price was well below our top target price so that was a plus as well. The major drawback was that it was a two-story home, and we were hoping to find a single story home. The location was also outside of our preferred area. We went to two more open houses that weekend. One home was definitely not viable for us. The third was a possibility but once again was outside of our target area and the price was at the top of our budget. Since we had agreed that it would be unwise to buy the first house we viewed, we planned to move on in our search. My husband did contact our realtor on Sunday night to update her on what we had seen and set up a time to view some houses with her.

Then came the early Monday morning call. Our realtor had contacted the seller’s realtor to get more information on the first home which we liked. She called my husband as he was leaving for work to inform us that the sellers had received an offer over the weekend and were planning on determining if they would accept that offer or not by noon on Monday. Now what do we do? After a conversation, we agreed to make an offer a bit higher than the asking price. By early afternoon, we had received word that our offer had been verbally accepted by the seller. Now it was time to scramble to lock in financing and begin the endless amount of paperwork. We were on the road to becoming homeowners once again and October had not even begun.

I am not going to go through the nightmare of all the paperwork related to securing financing for a home in this post. I will save that for a future post. However, the next two weeks amounted to telling the lending company everything about us in minute detail and providing documents to prove what we said. Then it was wait time to see if we were approved for the loan. In the meantime, I had to set up an inspector for the home, secure a moving company, and begin getting utilities turned off at the rental while turning them on at the new house. The closing date of November 15 was our agreed upon target. At least we had decided to let the moving company pack us so that was one item off our list of to-do’s.

Everything was approved and our timeline was going to work out. Our official move date would be November 26 (which I had mistakenly thought was the week after Thanksgiving). Because of my mistake in planning around Thanksgiving, we were packed on Monday, moved on Tuesday, and celebrated Thanksgiving with friends on Thursday. Now you understand why my posts were less frequent for a few weeks and non-existent for a couple of weeks.

Throughout this whole process, I again discovered God at work in our lives. Through the Lord, we maneuvered the unexpected and found more than what we had originally hoped to find. We are now settled into our new home and as of this weekend, decorated for Christmas. The anticipation that accompanies Advent became a real experience for us as we officially began establishing roots in our Texas home. Thanks be to God!

I am back on track and will resume my writing. Please look for future posts on a more regular schedule.

Making Friends

When a person starts kindergarten, one of the pieces of advice that a parent usually gives is to try to make a friend the first day. For some children this is an easy task, especially if they are social and outgoing by nature. Others tend to struggle with living out this piece of advice because they are shy and more introverted. Whichever the case might be, most children seem to be able to make at least one friend by the end of their first week. Aiding this task is the reality that there is a captive group of children in one room with the same piece of advice and dealing with the same challenges. They have some automatic commonalities.

Moving to a new community usually places a person into a similar situation as the first day of school. The person is in a new environment and is encountering people who are not familiar. Making new friends is easier if certain conditions create natural connections. An example would include having children who attend the same school and are part of a school group together. Parents who go to support their children in an extracurricular activity often engage in conversations at the various events so a bond begins to form and friendships develop.

Another example would be if the person joins a community group or faith community. Attending meetings, fundraisers, and activities provide a natural opportunity for relationships to form. In this case there is some shared interest which brings people together. Already having an interest in common with another person makes conversation easier. Sharing of personal information and stories becomes natural. Friends are found.

However, if you are an adult, do not have school-aged children or an opportunity to join a local group, making friends becomes much more difficult. This is something which my husband and I have experienced since our move at the beginning of the year. We have begun forming relationships with a few of our neighbors but schedules and commitments do not always allow for time to interact in more than just friendly greetings. Previously we were part of an awesome faith community which allowed us to establish many friendships. My husband also had been actively involved in a YMCA swim program as a coach, so he had some pre-established friendships before I moved to join him. To date, we have not been able to find a faith community which connects with our spiritual needs. Nor have we found a community group in which we have shared interests.

I share all this because I have come to realize that even for a more extroverted person, making friends is not always the easiest. As we prepare to move from our rental home to own our home, my hope is that we will be able to find connections in our new neighborhood that will assist us in developing meaningful and lasting friendships like the ones we still have back in Iowa.

Moving Day

The day was Thursday, December 27 which meant that moving day had arrived. That phrase carries with it both joy and fear. The joy comes from the reality that we were embarking upon a new adventure. We would have a new home, in a new city, and new opportunities. The fear results from the realization that we were clearly not ready for the movers to arrive. There were rooms which still had a lot of unpacked items. Some drawers and cupboards had been overlooked. How would we ever manage to make this happen?

Much to our great fortune, some of our family came over to help us. They had been there the day before and helped with a lot of the items. Now they returned and made some of those decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of that neither of us wanted to make. The movers arrived and were even a bit early. The house became busy with activity while we tried to corral our two dogs in one room and out of the way of the movers. Everyone continued packing as furniture, boxes, and totes were being labeled and taken out to the truck. On top of this, it had decided to rain a little.

The next seven hours were filled with activity. Every time we thought we were making head way, one of the movers would come and ask us what to do about something they had found. Numerous trips to get more boxes, take some unneeded boxes back, and pick up more packing tape also filled our time. Getting out of the house to run an errand was actually a blessing. There were times that I ended up questioning if I wanted to return to the house or not.

Now, the movers had the truck loaded. My husband spent fifteen minutes signing the paperwork indicating what all had been loaded in the truck. There is something strange about realizing that all your worldly possessions are in the hands of a man and a truck. You will not see them again until whenever the truck arrives in your new location. A little fear enters your mind about if the man and the truck will actually arrive or not.

Even though the movers had left, we were far from being finished for the day. There was still more than enough to finish packing. Certain items a moving company cannot take in the truck. Included among those items are houseplants, alcohol, chemicals, valuables, and perishables. We also knew that it would be at least three days before the truck would arrive and a new crew would unload us. This meant that we had to take enough clothing, bedding, and other necessities for us to live in an empty house until the truck arrived. We also had to begin the cleaning process. For the next five hours, we packed and cleaned.

Around 11:00 pm, we decided that we had to get some sleep. My husband filled the air mattress with air, and we put the sheets we had held out on the mattress. We finally laid down, sore and tired since we only had four hours of sleep the previous night. This would be our final night in this house.

Preparing for the Move

In my last post, I shared with you what led up to my recent move to Texas. In this post, I will share with you what it took to prepare for that move of 844 miles.

We found out that we were making the move in the middle of November. My husband negotiated and accepted the position. His start date would be January 2. This meant that we would have to make our move between Christmas and New Year’s Day. If you are quick at doing the math, you have determined that we had approximately six weeks to pack a four bedroom home with a garage, a garden shed, and an offsite storage unit. We also had to find a moving company that was in our price range. In the midst of that, we had to list the house and celebrate the holidays. Both of us needed to continue to work in our current jobs as well. Can you say STRESS?

The race is on. We started to get boxes, mainly from my earlier move. My husband began sorting through pictures and memorabilia which he had received from his parents after their death. I started going through boxes of papers which needed to be shredded, thrown away, or saved. Our goal was to reduce the amount items we would be taking with us to Texas.

We identified a realtor to list our house and the week after Thanksgiving our house officially went on the market. Next, we secured a moving company and set the official moving date as December 27. Our focus then turned to packing boxes. I became well acquainted with the local UHaul store as I made frequent trips to buy a variety of boxes. Astonishing how many possessions you can accumulate over the years. The moving process does have one bright side with regard to packing, you discover items that you forgot you even had.

The week of the move arrived and chaos ensued. Christmas in the midst of that week. Family came to visit. We realized that time was short, and we had a lot of packing left to do. We rented a truck the weekend before the move, so we could bring all the items from the storage unit to the house. Sorting continued along with the packing. We took one break which was the day of Christmas when for a couple of hours we enjoyed an excellent meal and the exchanging of gifts.

With Christmas over, the final crunch time was upon us. The day after Christmas, all the decorations came down and were packed away. This was also the last day of work for my husband. We had less than 24 hours before the moving company would arrive and at least three days of packing ahead of us. Sleep would have to be the one thing which would need to be in short supply. This would also mean that our patience would be limited at best.

Stay tuned, my next post will share details of “moving day.”