Tag Archives: packing

Straight From the Bottle

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m about to drink wine straight from the bottle. Because I don’t have a glass that’s not packed. I feel like I need to sit back and relax.  (There’s only about 1 glass left in the bottle.)  I’ve been going full tilt since 8:30 am and it’s now 5:30. Vacuumed and mopped the basement floors, and cleaned the fridge in there. It was my sons fridge, he’s 24. That should be enough to explain how much fun that was. I did score 4 beers out of it, lol, but I don’t really like beer. Oh well. Someone will drink it.

My two besties came over this morning and cleaned out my pantry and freezer. Their husbands cleaned out the garage. By cleaned out, I mean that they took all the food that was edible out of the pantry, and all the stuff from the garage that I couldn’t sell or give away.   Snow blower, weed wacker, space heaters, gas cans, all sorts of stuff.  Then the husbands helped me disconnect the TV, and put it in the box it has to go in for moving. Also the mirror which is attached to my dresser.

Then I packed more stuff. Like my printer, jewelry box, jewelry that doesn’t fit in my jewelry box, DVD player, hand soap dispensers and toothbrush holder. Cleaned two bathrooms.

Done for today. Done. Especially after talking to my sister for an hour, and my son for a half hour. I’m pretty spent.

I don’t have TV to watch tonight either. I can watch it on my computer though. So many people are asking to come by and say goodbye one more time. It’s really heartwarming. Because I don’t have time to go see everyone, but they are all willing to come here. I am grateful. Doing all this stuff alone has proven to be very hard.

The one person I really kind of hoped would say goodbye has remained silent. I’m not surprised, he couldn’t do the right thing on his best day. And neither could his girlfriend. Match made in heaven. Or maybe the other place. I’m over it, just think it would have been nice to leave things on a more positive note. He’s never been able to do things that are uplifting to anyone but himself anyway.

On the other hand, Addie, whose heart I broke over the silent one a few times, has been in touch, and still makes mefeel his   unconditional love.   I am so hsppy to hear from him. And happy that his girlfriend is secure enough and mature enough not to try to stop him.  Blessed to have that sweet man in my life, takes the sting out of the other one.

Well, onward. Not much left to do here. Thankfully. Wind it up and get my butt down to the land of sand, salt and palm trees. I’m ready.

Love and light.

Gettin’ In The Groove

Posted on by learning to live like water

It took me awhile to get in the groove today. But I did, finally. I slept well last night, but woke up still exhausted. I guess it’s just emotional exhaustion. Goodbyes, so many. So many well wishes on FB. Of course, there is one person who has remained silent, but I suppose that’s for the best.  Whatever….   I hate leaving things on a bad note, that’s all.  But again….maybe it’s just for the best.  You know, I heard from Addie, the man whose heart I broke a few times, but not from the man who caused me to do it.  But you know, that’s who they each are.  I was really pleased to hear from Addie.  He’s always been there for me.  He understands what love always means.

I got a good amount of stuff done today. I think I’m ahead of the game. I got more stuff thrown into the pile of stuff getting hauled to the dump. Also got my floors vacuumed up and downstairs. I’ve been neglecting the normal housework stuff.  Got the two rugs I’m taking rolled up. And have about half the kitchen packed. So really…not that much left to do. I have to finish my clothes but not until I know what’s going in my suitcase for driving down.

I decided starting in Monday we will be on paper plates and plastic cups so I can get the dishes packed. And when I come back from CO, no more cooking. Pots and pans are gonna get packed that weekend, and finishing my clothes and bathroom stuff. I’ll have to stay at my friend Susan’s who is driving down with me for a couple nights before we go.

But I’m ready. I have the plan, I have the schedule. I think I’ve thought it through and not left anything out. When I get to FL, my friend who lives there, and my friend who lives across the state in Daytona will be there. Susan will stay until Monday afternoon. So I have some people to help me move in.

I stopped working today at about 3 PM and promptly fell asleep on my couch. At 4 I got up and decided to run some errands and get a few things at the grocery store. And now, I’m starting dinner, but also sitting with a nice Gosling’s rum and coke with a half a lime squeezed in. Feeling relaxed. Content. I have so much to do this week, the fact that I’m not working is incidental, really. But the fact is, I’m pretty relaxes about it because I don’t have to work.

Which still friggin’ blows my mind.

Well, I think I’ll go get some stuffed olives out of the frig, and have a snack with my drink.

Love and light, all.

Emotional Packing

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

packing

I’ve found I can only pack and sort things for about 2 or 3 hours a day. I just get too emotional. So attached to some things, which it would be stupid to take, but it’s so hard to let them go. One of them….well, I just stuffed it in a box. It was a huge teddy bear that was a Christmas gift to my son for his first Christmas. I just couldn’t let it go. It’s been sitting in the rocking chair in my room since forever, even before I left his father.

So many other things. I had emails between S and I that I’d printed out, I had pieces of writing from 20 years ago, I had memories, memories. So hard. I managed to throw most of that stuff out, but it made me melancholy, to be leaving everything I have known as an adult. I lay down on the chaise in my living room and cried for a few minutes. I laid down on my bed, and just closed my eyes to process all that has happened to me in the 40 years I’ve lived here.Everything that has brought me to this moment, of packing up my life of 40 years, and sorting out the things I want to take with me.  Lay there for about an hour.

My son asked me twice today what was wrong. I just said, “You know, it’s just big changes…so many big changes.” But I decided that I was done packing and sorting for the day. I changed my clothes, put on some makeup and went to the store to get laundry detergent and limes so I could have a drink when I got back, maybe read a book or something.

I got to the store, and as the universe does, I walked through the parking lot right into my bff who I am able to tell anything to, and told her how my morning was. She knows me, she gets it. She is always, has always been there for me. Even when I didn’t listen to her about S, she stuck with me while I figured it out. So we talked, it was the best thing that could have happened to me to run into her. She said she’d pick me up at the airport on the 8th when I get home. Awesome.

When I got home, instead of making the drink I was going to, I made a frozen peach strawberry daiquiri for my son and myself. It wasn’t bad, considering it was the first time I’ve made one in maybe 20 years, lol. Then I sat on the couch and began really mapping out our trip to Denver. We’re going to do somewhere around 500 miles a day, and then the last day only have about 350 to do. I got hotel phone numbers so we can call and make reservations.

Then I did the same for the trip to Florida which is a full day shorter.

Then a girl which whom he is close friends came over, had the last of the daiquiris and they decided they’d make me dinner. 🙂  Good kids.

I think I’m at the point I can stop obsessing about making sure everything is packed up for my mover’s date. I think I’m well ahead of the game now. When I stop working next weekend, I’ll have all week to get most of the house finished. I will leave the kitchen until I get back from Denver.

It gets more real every day. Most everyone I know I’ll see again. They’ll be down to see me, or I’ll be up to see them. There are some people I won’t see again though, and some I won’t get to say goodbye to. I guess I just have to do the best I can. The love I have for them will always be. I think they know that.

Love and light, all.

Money With Wings

Posted on by learning to live like water

I swear, money is flying out of my hands. $500 car taxes, $275 for taxes on my slip, $300 for medicare, $300 to the town I live in in FL for water, garbage for 6 months. Not to mention the $5K I had to give the buyers, and the $2500 on the hot water heater. Plus electric bills, and gas bills…..I have to pay this, and get my son to Denver, and get myself moved. Yikes. Well, I’ll figure it out. I only planned to work 25 hours a week or so in Florida but may have to go for full time for awhile, and make back up all this expense. Someone told me I could Uber and make some decent money, probably true in season down there.

It will be nice there though, no taxes on my cars, tiny taxes on my house. No state income tax. People say the insurance on the cars is higher there, but there’s no state income tax on them, so in the end I’ll save money.

Money, I swear, it’s the bane of existence. Wish I could figure out how to live without it, lol.

I booked the movers last night. There went another $350 deposit on the move. (Shakes head…) I have to finish my throw away piles this week, and call someone to come take it all to the dump. I haven’t found anyone who wants my old washer and dryer, so I guess that will be hauled away by someone, and maybe my couch in the basement. Geezus.

Meanwhile, I packed up some of my artwork last night, but it’s hard to do too much at night after working 9 hours. And work has been hectic, and the people I’m training are kind of going into panic mode, realizing I’ll be gone soon. Especially, the one I’m training for my job. She seems to be hesitant to go to my boss and ask questions, fearing looking stupid or something. I ask him all the time, and it’s why we have a good relationship, because I find out how he wants things handled, and do them correctly. So I hope I can help her over that hurdle of asking him. It helps that I have run my own company. I don’t have any ego tied into my job, I just want to do it the way he wants it done.  I used to get so pissed at employees who wouldn’t ask and then screwed things up.  Or left them undone for the not knowing how to do them.

So here I am just muddling through this stuff, again. It will be nice when I’m on my way, and all this stuff is done. Just need to remember to breathe. Just breathe.

Love and light.

Selling Off A Bit of My Sacred Space

Posted on by learning to live like water

deck furniture

I have a few things that I need to sell or give away, large items, before I move. Yesterday I put some ads on a FB page that is a never-ending tag sale for my town only. I put my deck furniture and my grill up, for $50 each. I could have sold the deck furniture 10 times in 3 hours, it was amazing. A guy is coming by today to get it. I think I paid Walmart $150 or something for it when I moved in. It needs new cushions, they are all thread-bare now.

But I will miss it. It’s where I sit in the summer, in the morning, in the evening. It’s where S and I used to sit and talk, or star gaze for hours. We watched the meteor shower out here one night. One night we saw moondogs, it was my first time. But I digress. There are so many memories for me, every time I start sorting and packing. This will be good to let go of. One less reminder of what was and wasn’t.

Still, it feels like I’m selling off pieces of my sacred space.  Gotta let go of stuff, like the Buddha says, Non-attachment is the way.

For the next few weeks, I’ll just have to pull another chair out here, and maybe a tv table.

I didn’t get any bites on the grill, which needs new burners. My son said they are not a big deal to put in. The grill cost me $350 or so, It’s in good shape except the burners. It’s a really good grill.

Today I have to clean up the washer and dryer in the basement, the spare ones, and get them listed. I brought them with me from the condo I had been living in, they are perfectly good. I thought my son might want them if and when he moved out, never forseeing the moves that would happen 5 years later. And I have a couch and loveseat in the basement, that he uses. They are both pull-out beds, nice green microfiber. I also bought those for the condo I rented for 4 years. I need to sell them too. Or I’ll have to just give them away.

My neighborhood is having a tag sale next Saturday. So whatever is left, I will try to sell then. I have a lot of just stuff I’m not taking. Like a door wreath for the winter with a snowman on it. Not really appropriate for Florida, LOL. Snow shovels, maybe a rake.

This morning I need to get to the grocery store, and clean up my kitchen counters and floors, then continue with the packing and sorting. It feels overwhelming at times. So much to do.

Last night my girlfriend who is also moving when I’m moving, went out with me for a bite to eat. I just could not put together a meal. Tired, I guess. And needed some human connection, after being alone all day with my thoughts and memories. So we went to a local Mexican restaurant, I had shrimp and bacon quesadillas, it was good. One glass of wine and that was it. It’s been so great to have a friend going through this same thing, albeit she is only moving 15 miles from here, and not stopping working, and her kids will stay with her. So not the same, but still, similar.

At least I’m moving along down this path, getting things done. I hope I don’t have to be at the closing, and can leave a day or two before the closing. Gotta get an answer on that from my atty.

Onward….. Love and light, all.

 

Picture at top is my deck furniture.  🙂

Finding My New Path

Posted on by learning to live like water

Yesterday was a day from hell, at work. Friday is always the hardest day at my job, and I’m training two new people, and it just got crazy. At the end of the day my boss called me and one of my new people out for not responding to an email earlier in the week. Now, yeah, we should have. The thing is, we get about 400 emails a day that we have to sift through. This one I saw, and planned to responod to but in the craziness of training 2 new people, I let it go. It was not a big deal. I had it on my desk Friday to show the new person what we needed to do with it. But bosses big brother, who is a complete control freak, jumped in and made a mountain out of a mole hill. When I got called into my bosses office, exhausted, after working 45 hours last week, full tilt boogie, I came very close to saying, “you know I have one foot out the door already……” I did not, because of the new girl who I could see was totally blindsided and taken aback. But when I left work I was wondering how I would make it 4 more weeks there.

You know, I like the job, when I’m just doing my job. But to have me training 2 new people, one at a job that I only backed up at, and never did on a full time basis, and bitch at me about one email that was not even urgent…I mean, how thin can he spread me and still ask me for complete competence like he’s used to? GRRRR.

Anyway, on the way home, I called my friend who is also moving, and bitched to her about my inspection and she bitched back to me about hers, and how people want to just empty your pockets out into theirs. We ended up laughing with each other, and went out for a drink and some fried calamari. Three single guys were sitting at the bar next to us, being a little raucous, but funny. About our age, probably closer to hers than mine. But they ended up engaging us in conversation, it was fun, and just a wee bit flirty. They told us about a band playing across the street from where we were on later this month, a well known country artist. The venue is outdoors under a roof, on the banks of the Connecticut River, next door to a 200 year old opera house. We may try to go. They kept saying they hoped they’d see us there. They were joking about how it could be my send off to Florida.

i

I came home all relaxed. I only had one glass of wine, and I slept like a baby for 7 hours.

This morning, I came out side at 6 AM, and felt so refreshed. It is a lovely morning. A friend wanted me to go to the beach but I am going to begin my sorting and packing today. Just can’t do it.

I told my realtor to offer the buyers $1000 and the couch and loveseat in my basement, and my snow blower. Then they can do all the inspections they want. She seemed to think that it was fair. I haven’t heard back yet. I just so need to be done with this.

Feeling good about it all this morning. I did my morning meditation and had the sensation of floating down a clear stream, in which the water was warm, and luxuriating in it. Soon I’ll be in my “Avalon” and all the stress of the last year will just be a memory. And most likely, not all that important. Every day I feel myself finding a new, lovely path in life.

Love and light, all.

Tidying Up

Posted on by learning to live like water

tidying up.png

I’m pretty happy tonight.  I was alone, really alone,  all day, but it was a good thing.  I got a bunch of paperwork done for my mom’s estate.  I did my taxes and filed them!  Yay! I paid all my bills, and that felt really good!!!  I wanted all that stuff done before I went to FL.  Now I can get ready for the trip and relax.

So, then I went through my summer clothes.  I washed what I felt needed to be.  I packed.  I was trying to to the small, carry-on.  But I’m going for a week.  Don’t think I can do it. I never understood shoe fetishes, where people were like Imelda Marcos.  But honestly, I am her for flip-flops.  I am taking maybe 6 pairs.  I am NOT taking maybe 10.  Geezus.  I do love flip-flops.  They just speak summer to me.  I even have a pair of flip flop earrings and a necklace with a flip-flop mother of pearl pendant.  I can’t wait to live somewhere where I get to wear them every friggin’ day.

While I was packing I started throwing stuff out again.  Literally, another 10 pair of flip-flops that are beyond wearable, lol.  I threw out 6 bras that are way too big for me, from when I weighed 30 or 40 lbs more.  I am not done.  I am going to keep throwing stuff!

I was told about a book last night by Montana, called something like , “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” And then, my friend Emma talked about it in her blog today.  So there you go, it’s a sign, I need to buy the book .  I hope it’s available on kindle.  But it will be so much easier to pack for moving if I just purge and purge first.  So I was doing that today.  Purging.

Maybe more than clothes, lol.  Next is my kitchen.  That’s gonna be a trip.

I’ve made a nice dinner for my son and I.  I’m going to watch the final Downton Abby.  Dang, I will miss that show so much!!!   I’m having a 2nd glass of wine, because, dang, I got a lot done today.  I’m going to find a realtor in the town in FL I have my heart set on tonight and make an appt tomorrow for Friday.  FRIDAY!!

I talked to my sis today.  She paints, she is really good. She sells her paintings for some decent money. Anyway, they are having a show at the art center in her neighborhood, the night I get in.  So…I’ll have a place to wear my new dress!!  She is showing a painting there.  We’re going to drive around and check out the other neighborhood I might like.  It’s a village arts center.  It’s closer to her, but she doesn’t think it’s as nice as my first choice.  This trip is going to be so much fun, because it’s really going to give me a feel for living there, not just vacationing.

My sis is taking Tai Chi.  I hope she’ll show me some of what she has learned.  I have a CD, that I used to follow some mornings.  Maybe we’ll go to the beach and do it together!  That would be cool.  Tho I think she’s too shy, lol.  I am looking forward to walking on the beach every morning, swimming in her pool in the hot afternoons.  Clearing my head of the old, making room for the new.

Two days of work this week.  I can do this.

And here is the coolest thing about today!  I got my 200th follower!!! I am so excited.  I know in the scope of blogging 200 is a pretty small number, but I’m very excited about it!  So thank you America On Coffee, for being my 200th follower!

Life is so good.  Love and light to all.