Visting my Not-so-Distant Future

 My mini vacation ended. But that’s okay. I only got one in the first place because my house sold faster than I expected and I woke up the morning after accepting an offer a bit shell shocked with no reason to get out of bed. I did it anyway. I wandered the house looking for things I could do that would get me back to normal living but at the same time would still keep the house as neat as nun’s habit because the appraiser is still on the docket to make an appointment. (Inspections got waved as did a survey so this is the only thing coming up between now and closing day.) I’m sure an appraiser won’t care that my bottles and jars of ‘products’ and my electric tooth brush made their way on to my bathroom countertop or that my In Case of Emergency notebook is back on the kitchen countertop or that I’m not locking up my computer after each use like I was doing when the ShowHome app could request a showings at any time.  

After a few days I walking around in a haze I started the process of getting back into The Great Moving Project mode on Sunday by making a list of everything I need to do between now and October fifth. It’s two pages long and maybe if I’m still in a lazy mood the next time I have a blog post due, I’ll just post the list. Besides making that list the only other thing I did Sunday was to water three house plants and grill myself a steak. I didn’t even get dressed.

Monday I had an appointment to go visit my future home including the parking level of the building. I was the 24^th person to sign up to live in the new section of this continuum care campus and it was just an artist’s renderings back then. The first 25 of us to sign up got a lot of perks and one of those perks was we got to pick our own parking spots in the same order we made our first payment. If I had been number one I probably would have picked the same space I scored. How cool is that! It’s directly across from the elevator doors and when the doors open, right in the line of sight, is a huge picture window with a view of the lake---one of only three down there. I can't believe my luck! I got my lakeside window! Why did 23 others passed it up? Maybe to put in a bigger storage unit in front of their car than the one that comes free? I'm hoping I’m not missing something because I love the joke of being able to say I have a unit with a lake view and I truly couldn't see any downside to that space.

The other views in my actual unit frankly suck and I’m going to mourn the loss of solitude and peace I get when looking out my back and side yards---the wildlife, the flowers, the birds, the grass and trees. The amphibians coming out of the cattail bog in the spring. At my new place I’ll only have a few feet of buffer between my deck and the sidewalk where “landscaping” will go---shrubs and flowers, according to the woman who took me on my the tour this week---but the buffer isn't enough to give you any sense of privacy. 

Across the street from my windows is a field that will be turned into a butterfly and flower garden, with mature woods in the distance maybe the length of a football field away. Sounded good on paper but directly in front of my den window across the street before the garden space starts are 5-6 pipes/vents coming out of the ground that stand 2 to 4 feet high. Supposedly they’ll have evergreens planted around them to cover them up (and block my view beyond). Touring other continuum care places, before buying into this one I’ve seen far worse views, though, and I’m happy I’ll only be a half block away from paved two walking paths that go around the lake or through the woods. The campus itself is tucked off the main road, making it feel “countrified” without it being in the country. The very first time I drove down that entry road I said, "This is where I want to be" and that road through mature trees still calls my name, connects me to my youth when we'd go to our summer cottage.

I’m not good at taking photos with my cellphone (my hand is too shaky) and my new computer and my decades old digital camera aren’t speaking so please forgive the quality of the pictures below. The lights are not working in my apartment yet either so these pictures will have to do for now.

The photo at the top is of the window at the end of my main room which is a living room, dining area and kitchen combined down the center of the apartment. The master bedroom and bath are on one side off the main room and a laundry room, half bath and den on the other side. The walls (except for the master bedroom and bath) are bright white so these photos are deceptive.  ©

Den/hobby room

 

kitchen - on the left not in view is the door to the common hall, to the right out of view is the refrigerator and where the workman's cart is in the foreground is where my Amish oak table and chairs will be.

bedroom wall with pocket door to the maser bath - the color here is stop on.

other side of the bedroom

laundry room - originally I was going to take the doors off the lower cupboard to create Levi's cave thus the stacking water/dryer instead of the standard set. Side-by-sides looked better but by the time he died it was too late to change it. Right now my washer and dryer are so large I only have to do three loads a week. I'll be doing far more with these playhouse sized machines.

half bath

This is the master bath with the closet door on the left and a vanity with two of the smallest sinks I've ever seen on the right. They cracked me up and I joked about having a sink for each hand because they are too small to wash them both together in one. The vanity itself is big though, bigger than I have now.

Below is a very bad photo of my masrer closet.  Seeing it made me go home and downsize a large trash bag full of clothing out of my current closet. AGAIN! The room itself is big on paper but the closet system doesn't take advantage of what could have been a better use of that space. I had about 40" of things on hangers to downsize. In addition to the bag for Goodwill I had some were easy choices like sweatpants, t-shirts and PJs that can be folded and put on shelves not in the photo. Other choices were painful like some good quality, classic Pendleton wool clothing that was slightly too small. I'll put on Facebook Marketplace when the weather is cooler. I had no trouble getting good money out of my husband's Pendletons.