As I said in Part 1, our go “live” goal was May 1. Realtor had explained the perfect formula: go “live” on Wednesday or Thursday to get the word out and have an open house on the weekend to get the biggest bang. Continuing repairs and parts on order and we weren’t ready for pictures until Friday, May 19. Realtor says we go ‘live” the next day anyway. I guess the perfect formula was out the window. We were all anxious to get this show on the road.

We were barely “live” by the start of the open house. That very afternoon we were struck by how little information flowed our way after the open house. How had it gone? That afternoon we got 3 requests for showing the next day. Problem was, the next day was our youngest son’s 18^th birthday. It is a royal pain to prep a house to be shown when you are living in it, especially when you are living in it with a teenager and 2 dogs and 2 cats. I told the first realtor they could come the next morning. I told the next 2 realtors that they could come at the same time as the first rather than at their requested times – I did explain the birthday thing. We only had one showing the next day, the 2 realtors I put off declined to come. We were annoyed.  They probably were too.

The next weekend was Memorial Day weekend. We had NO requests for showings. By the end of the weekend, I was sure we would never sell our house. We were panicked.

The following weekend we went out of town, returning early Sunday, just in case. We ended up having several back-to-back showings that day. We were hopeful.

Late on the next day, Monday, we got an offer. We were elated! The first page of the offer was a delightful letter from the young family who hoped to buy our house and they eloquently described all the features of our home that they loved (as did we) and how their growing family of 2 toddlers and a baby on the way would grow and thrive in our home. It brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to sell to this family. Then we read the important details: they were offering 80% of our asking price. We were crest-fallen. Then sick. Then pissed.

We intended to ignore this offer. Realtor suggested we counter. We suggested that we would sleep on it. Next morning Realtor said to hold on – we might have another offer coming in. We were cautiously optimistic.

Early that evening, we received a second offer at better than 95% of asking price. We were ecstatic. The offer was contingent on buyer selling their house (which was not yet on the market), and Realtor convinced us that at our price point that would likely be the case with any buyer and that we could continue to market our house and if we got a better offer we could send our buyer packing. So we were under contract with a “bumpable” buyer. We were happy.

Then came inspections. I don’t want to go through the gory details. Suffice it so say inspections are, from the buyer’s perspective terrifying, and from the seller’s perspective over-done, nit-picky, and expensive. We got through it and still felt reasonably OK with our deal.

Then came the buyer’s deadline for selling their house, which they hadn’t. Then came buyer’s receipt of an offer, which they declined. Then we moved on; we started over. We were devastated. We had wasted 7 weeks of prime summer selling time.

Then came two weekends of open houses, a price drop, and another weekend of open houses. On the Saturday of the last weekend, we bought our dream house in Memphis (see House Saga – Buying yet to come). We decided to move to Memphis whether we sold our house or not.

The following Monday, we received an offer – full price, cash. We were elated. It was meant to be. Committing to the Memphis house was clearing manifesting our destiny and the universe responded with a cash offer. I have learned to talk that way from my yogi daughter who refers to herself as a hippie and a fairy, and in this case I believed it. We were flying high.

Then came the end of the inspection period, and our cash buyer walked. We were shell-shocked.

Next day Realtor said our first buyer was back, they had an offer they were willing to accept if we accepted a new price. We took it on the condition there would be no more inspection business. The inspection and repairs already done earlier in the summer would stand. They agreed. We were, in the words of my Hubby, “Ready for this circus to end.” Amen.

There were hurdles – our deal was contingent on their deal closing. Their deal had to get through the inspection business. Both houses had to pass appraisal. They had to accept the repairs we had done for them. Each of those hurdles was individually passed, with our corresponding angst and relief. Closing was to be on October 12. Buyer’s deal closed on October 12. We packed our U-Haul on October 10. We hung around our empty house and signed on October 11. Escrow is awaiting some final loan docs. They don’t come in. We turn off the water and drive away on October 12 in the afternoon. There is no point in sitting in an empty house any longer – this is out of our hands.

We are now 1000 miles away from “home” with about 1500 miles to go. Loan docs did not come in on Friday, the 13^th, so now we wait until Monday, in limbo. Buyer has released their earnest money to us in an effort to show their confidence that all will be well. We declined to give them occupancy (“just to the garage”) until the deal is done. We are exhausted by this process, in a constant state of anxiety over it, and clearly older and greyer than when it began.

We decided shortly after January 20 to pursue the idea of transporting ourselves to Memphis. In addition to living in the same city as our now 1 and 2 year old granddaughters (as well as our eldest daughter and son-in-law), it was an economic decision. Hubby’s job of over 30 years had abruptly ended and retirement (the kind where no money is coming in) is at least 10 years off. Retirement (the kind where we kick back in our recliners) is NEVER happening.

Property values in Memphis are about half what they are around Portland, Oregon. Memphis is a tourist hot spot – or warm spot anyway. Our daughter and son-in-law had made some good money hosting AirBnB guests in their 3-bedroom townhouse about a mile from downtown. Their AirBnB venture was our introduction to it, and at first it freaked me out. They had guests in their extra 2 bedrooms, on the same floor as their own and they all shared the same bathroom – freaky. Then, over several visits I met some of those guests and found the experience to be absolutely delightful! Not all of their guests were perfect, but at least they had no horror stories.

Hubby and I devised a plan. We would sell our house on the Willamette River near Portland, Oregon

and use the proceeds to purchase AirBnB properties in Memphis. Managing those properties would be our new business. Hubby would not have to look for another J-O-B!

Hubby began doing all the “fix-it” projects around the house that we had put off, some for a long time. This occupied his time and moved us along toward our new goal. He drove around our area and got realtor names from other river properties that were for sale, and we interviewed two. It took us until early April to actually bite the bullet and sign with one. The fellow we signed with walked us through our house of nearly 30 years and explained how we needed to get the house ready for promotional pictures and for showing. Virtually everything on the walls, on the shelves, on the mantle, and on the counters needed to go.

As you might know, I’m a quilter. I ran a long arm quilting business that consumed one large room in our house. One entire wall of that room was a design wall. If you are a quilter, you might be drooling over that notion. The design wall had to go. I told the realtor that my long arm (12 feet long by 6 feet wide, floor to ceiling high) and my cutting table (4 feet by 8 feet) were both staying until the house was sold – this was business! In our office, my big Bernina embroidery machine occupied a large space. Realtor said it could stay, as he now understands how important sewing is to me.

The coffee pot can stay on the kitchen counters. A FEW books can stay on the bookshelves in the living room and in the office. There was a bookshelf in our master bedroom that I went to great pains to tidy up and largely clean off in anticipation of this walk-through. Realtor took one look at it and said, “That whole thing should go, there’s not much on it anyway.”

Anticipating a going “live” date of May 1, we began packing up. During a significant remodel in 2000, we gutted the living, dining, game room, kitchen of the house we had purchased 12 years earlier. In the process of spending about double what we originally paid for the house, we moved the kitchen to a different area, finished the ground floor and created a fabulous man cave, or as we lovingly referred to it, a teen lair. We created a gourmet kitchen and great-room, added 2 full baths and a laundry room, added an office, and created lots of huge built-in drawers. Those drawers served us well housing kids’ toys at first; we could quickly clean up before Dad came home from work. Toys are pretty much gone from our house, so what in the world is in all those full drawers anyway? We quickly discovered that a lot of storage is a curse; once something made its way into one of those drawers, it never came out. I found tax returns going back to the 1980’s. I wasn’t sure how long we needed to keep records, but I was pretty darn sure it wasn’t that long.

For every box we packed (to store in the garage until our actual moving day), we took about double that volume to goodwill or to the dumpster. We tried to be ruthless. During that first packing up process, we pretty much filled our garage with boxes – Realtor said that was fine.

Jumping ahead, we loaded the biggest U-Haul we could rent 2 days ago. Concerned that we wouldn’t be able to fit all our “stuff” into the truck, we were willing to leave most of those boxes in the garage – after all, we had lived without them just fine for nearly 6 months; we could probably live just fine without them forever.  In the end, every single one of those boxes is in the U-Haul.  I imagine I will be unpacking them and taking more to Goodwill in Memphis.  All of my sewing “stuff” made it, including my entire fabric stash organized in bins by color, and all of my unfinished projects.  I’m not completely sure that is a good thing.

I pray that my relationship with “stuff” is forever changed. I think that we will have much less storage space in our Memphis house, and that will be a blessing. I learned that I liked being in my quilting room much better with only the essentials left in the room. I could breathe; I could move. We discovered how much easier it was to clean the house without all the clutter. We joke that we have become minimalists. I hope it is true.

Pumba spent half the day at Pet Smart today, mostly because she does not smell very good and the U-Haul cab is pretty darn small. We got her a new bed that is smaller than her old one, and smells a lot better. That was the only alternative since our washer/dryer are loaded in the U-Haul and inaccessible.

Here she is after her long, hard day at Pet Smart. She will sleep mighty fine tonight!

It’s Tuesday, October 10, and loading day. A 26-foot U-Haul Truck is ready in our driveway, and the entire house is boxed up and ready to go. It’s raining. Moving labor arrived around 10 a.m. They took a walk through the house and immediately opined, “It won’t all fit.” They suggested another 16 foot moving Pod. I immediately got a quote: another nearly $3,000. Hubby and I decided, nope. We would rather purge more of our belongings than pay $3,000 to move old “stuff” we can live without.

We got up early this morning to do a couple very last minute things: box up our 65 inch flat screen TV and wash our bedding before the washer/dryer got loaded up. We like our TV and enjoy watching it every night. I’m not sure how we will live in this house for the few nights left until we actually drive away, without a TV. Wonder what that says about us. I was happy that I had time to wash and dry our sheets. It is somehow comforting to know we will have clean bedding so we can sleep in our own bed again as soon as possible, even if that is over 2,500 miles away.

So what is this all about and why is it worth blogging about? Nearly 9 months ago, on January 20, my husband came home from work at 3 in the afternoon. He never came home early. It was Friday. It was raining. It was inauguration day. I was doing yoga in our living room. Turns out his job of over 30 years ended that day. A new president at the company wanted his own people. Hubby was the last man standing and January 20 was the day he was told to sit down.

To say we were shell-shocked would be an understatement. On January 20, Hubby was 57 and I was 58. We had often talked of early retirement, but security mattered a lot to Hubby. I’m not sure he would have ever felt that we had put by “enough.” We sat together near our fireplace that evening and considered what might come next. Hubby said, “We don’t have to stay here, we could go anywhere.” We checked Google – what places in the USA have low costs of living? Then we looked at each other and together said, “Memphis; we can be grandparents!”

In 9 months, we could have birthed a baby (well, in our younger years anyway, when we actually did birth 5). Instead, we have completely transformed our lives. At least we are well along the way. There is more to tell from the past 9 months, and there is definitely more to come, but this is a start. From thinking we would retire and live in the Oregon house where we’ve lived the past 30 years, the house where we raised our 5 children, our dream house, to moving 2,500 miles away to inner city Memphis, Tennessee, into a 100+ year old historical home where we intend to make a business hosting AirBnB guests. And, to where we intend to be grandparents to our 1 and 2 year old granddaughters, and a blessing (NOT a curse, we solemnly swear) to our eldest daughter and son-in-law.

The U-Haul is loaded. Movers were, of course, correct. It didn’t all fit.

The saddest thing thing that didn’t fit is our couch – it is 20 years old, was ridiculously expensive at the time, and then I spent more time with my interior designer (paying her the whole time) to try to find a less expensive alternative, all to pay for the couch that Hubby loved.  It served us well for 20 years, and we had hoped to deliver it to our eldest daughter in Memphis to serve out a few more years.

The cushions are in the U-Haul, but the couch just wouldn’t fit.  Sorry, Honey.

If you are interested in following along with a couple of nearly 60 year olds as they remake their lives, stay tuned.