Pack, move and goodbyes…

These past few weeks have been filled with many hugs and a few tears. We have been so busy going through our things, having the garage sale and getting ready for the movers that I did not get a chance to send proper thank you notes to my RWCC friends Pat, Diana, Mandy, Dale and Robert who took us to dinner and for the gifts, our Realtor and friend Tanya for selling our house (a second time) and for the gifts, Diana and Dale for lunch,Tricia for dinner after the movers packed, and Ted for dinner before we left Maryland. Thank you also to all the friends for the thoughtful cards and Kris, Ron and Helen for stopping by to say goodbye. We will certainly miss you all and hope to have you come visit us in Arizona.

I don’t think I can ever thank my parents enough for driving up to help with everything. Mom washed the clothes and cooked delicious meals and dad took down blinds and curtains. They helped go through our things with a fresh eye so we could see if we need to keep or sell things at the moving sale. It’s difficult to part with things when you think of the memories or remember how much you paid for something and sometimes you just need someone to say “that would be good for the sale”. It took all four of us to man the sale and we made about $700 on our small items, not including the pre-sale large items. Whoo hoo, money towards a new bedroom set! I think what helped most was the love and support I felt having them there and the laughs- anyone who knows my mom knows how she can make everyone laugh. I have to add a little story, and I know I can’t make it sound as funny as it was, but after the garage sale we were getting things ready to donate. Let me set this up by saying that we are limited in the amount of space to move things in our cars. Well, as we were laying things out to take photos of the donations, my mom found a few “treasures” to take back for herself. Then the next batch of donations, my mom found a few more “treasures”. Then my dad found a few “treasures”. Then my mom found a few things to take back for her garage sale that she will have at her house in the Fall. Then a few more things for her garage sale. By this time I am really getting a kick out of it and call my sister to tell her that mom is filling up the truck Eric is buying from Glenn and there may not be enough room for Eric! By the time Eric was ready to leave with the truck, I had it filled with two huge boxes of beanie babies for Brittany, two boxes of memories for Brittany, two boxes of cleaning supplies, 6 sets of blinds for mom and Britt, and the rest of the truck was filled with mom’s new “treasures” and a good start of items for mom’s garage sale. Thanks Eric for taking all the stuff we couldn’t part with back to Florida!

The day finally came when Moyer and Sons pulled in with four movers to pack up all our treasures (and a bit of junk, lol). They tell you to have everything you want set aside or it will get packed. We learned this twice during the packing process. On Wednesday I realized that my textbooks were packed. Uh oh! How can I possibly teach in September if all my textbooks are packed? Thankfully, the boxes were still at the house and labeled so they found them in the second box that was opened. After they left on Wednesday, Glenn asked me where were the Comcast cable box and two remotes that he asked the packer to leave. I had no idea! We asked on Thursday when they arrived and they could not find them. Thank goodness Glenn found it in the same box they checked earlier. I think we remembered this time to make sure all the garbage cans were empty this time. (At least we hope! Last time we found a little garbage during the unpacking.) On Thursday, seven movers arrived to load a huge 53’ semi trailer with all of our household goods, Glenn’s motorcycle and motorcycle trailer.

On Friday we took one last tour through the neighborhood, looked around our house to make sure everything was in place for the new owners, and said goodbye to my BFF in Maryland Tricia, then stopped by to say see ya later to our friend Kris. I know there are many friends that we missed saying goodbye to, please know that it was not intentional, just a busy last few weeks. We will stay in touch and you never know… we may return in a few years 🙂