I realize that I have been MIA for the last week, here is a brief overview of what has been going on {as Daniel informed me, he had no idea what was going on in our lives, because he hadn't been reading about it online}.
The biggest bit of news is that after 152 days of living in two different states, Daniel and I are back to living in the same place again.
The closing on our house in Charlotte happened without a hitch. I was even allowed to bring Sophie into the conference room at the lawyer's office. Three days after signing the papers {and getting our check}, we found out that after the buyer moved in, there were a couple of outlets that were not working in the bedrooms. This led to a discovery that a circuit breaker was tripped. When they flipped the circuit back on, it caused sparks. They had an electrician come out to assess the situation, and they think that the siding crew must have hit an electrical wire with a nail when installing the siding. By that time, all of our stuff had been moved out of the house and I was not using the outlets, so there was really no way for me to know there was a problem. Anyways, all is well and we don't have to deal with selling a house any more.
After the closing, I drove a fully-loaded car {with Sophie crammed in the front seat} to Chattanooga to see Daniel {briefly}. We unloaded the car, spent the night and then pressed on to Searcy for a visit with my parents {I was able to stop in Nashville for lunch with my brother at the Yellow Porch - good food, poor service}.
I had an amazing visit with my parents. I love them so much. They have such a wonderful marriage and have been such good parents to me and my siblings. I am so thankful to have them in my life. It was nice to sit around and discuss books and play scrabble and visit.
Friday I headed back to Nashville. I spent the evening with one of my oldest friend's, Kristalynne, who was married back in May. I am so happy that Nashville is only two hours away from Chattanooga and we can have more of these visits in the future.
Friday night I crashed at my brother's apartment. Then Saturday, my sister and her husband and my niece came over and we made Chicken Cordon Bleu, Fried Okra, a salad, bread and these amazing Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chip Bars.
Saturday evening, I headed back to Chattanooga. Daniel's aunt and boyfriend had brought their camper over to Raccoon Mountain on Friday to set up. When I arrived on Saturday, everything was ready to go. Daniel had been cleaning and had started the unpacking process.
We spent all day Sunday unpacking {it is kind of nice that we were able to unpack ALL of our belongings in a day}. We made one trip to Chris and Courtney's to get a final load of boxes {we are probably the only people to move INTO our camper AT the campground}.
Everything is now unpacked. We are making lists of things we still need and have a load of things we DID NOT need to take to storage later on.
The campground is nice and quite. The views are fantastic. There are go carts to ride. Caves to explore. Trails to hike. A pool to lounge by. A laundry mat. Internet. Cable. We are pretty content here. The quarters are tight {about 300 sf to be exact}, but we are thrilled to be back together.
We could not have made this transition without the love and support from our family and friends. Thank you all, but especially to Chris and Courtney, who took Daniel into their home; Benjy, who helped Daniel finish our house renovation and then also was available to walk Sophie any time the house was being shown; Sally, who invited me to dinner {for all of the drinking holidays}; Rob and Amy, who let me and Sophie stay in their garage apartment the final week of our house selling; Trine and Corey, for letting us use their camper. All of you {and many others} made this separation and transition bearable. Thank you all!
I can't imaging giving up another 100 sq feet at this point, very impressive! The big question is... how long are you planning on living camper-style? (With views like those, I might be able to last a while.)
ReplyDeletePart of my hubby's moving package (with his new job) is that we get 3 months of FREE storage for our stuff. When we are ready to move into a house again, we just call them up and they deliver it.
ReplyDeleteWe have discussed being open to paying for the storage for an additional 2 months (so December is a tentative target date).
A lot is up in the air. We are trying to decide if we want to 1) buy a new home, 2) renovate again or 3) buy some waterfront property and build a house (where we would work as the General Contractor and sub the big stuff out, then finish up the inside - kind of what you and Mystery Man are doing, except we would start from ground zero instead of with a shell of a house).
If we build, we would cont living in a camper - though we might invest in a bigger one (current camper is on loan from an aunt).
My hubby really wants to build a garage/apartment first to live in and then build the house of our dreams and cash flow the project...
We will see how it all goes. In the meantime, I am def blogging about the new experiences.