During most of the month of February, we spent much time pulling up roots in San Diego, preparing to embark on our nomadic lifestyle.
Our friend, Cindia Shaw, was once again in charge of selling our house,
since she did such a good job with our Carmel Valley house. After several
open houses and three weeks on the market, a couple made an offer. They
wanted a quick close, so we worked hard to meet their deadline.
What to take on the trip, what to sell off, what to entrust with friends,
and what to put into storage? This was a difficult decision process, as
we were moving from over 3000 square feet into a little over 140 square feet.
What will we need to live on in the trailer? What will fit in the trailer's
limited storage space? Will it be too heavy, since we're close to the towing
weight limit? Can we live without that fancy kitchen doodad that seemed
so indispensible at home? What about a television in the trailer? What
about storage for all the 'stuff' we've accumulated -- the movers charge
by the pound per month... And they certailnly won't store the plants! With
much deliberation, we think we came up with a good selection of items to
take with us, things to sell, and stuff to store. We chose to take a small
TV and DVD player with us, although it is stored away in a place that is
purposefully difficult to get to. Perhaps we might need to while away some
rainy days somewhere by watching a movie, or maybe a NASCAR race?
Through 13 years of marriage and six houses, we accumulated a lot of
stuff. Since the moving and storage company was charging by the pound
to store our belongings, we decided we needed to sell a bunch of it. Classified
ads got rid of a few things. A few other things went to GFI-ers.
Then we had the yard sale.
At first we were wondering what would happen if we held a yard sale and
no one came, but people finally did show up, albeit in spurts. Over
the course of five hours, we managed to sell most of the stuff we had out
-- enough that the movers only needed one large truck and one day to move
our stuff, rather than two large trucks and two days. Its a funny
thing to see your stuff get sold.
Over the course of about three weeks, we managed to get all of our stuff
sold or packed and moved into storage. We officially moved into
the trailer and cleaned the house the day before the supposed close of
escrow -- it was a funny thing to see the house completely empty. It
turned out that the buyers and their agent weren't as ready to close as
we were. They missed the closing date (and were subsequently subjected
to a penalty), but we sat on pins and needles to see if the house would,
actually, close. Finally, the evening before we were supposed to leave
for Death Valley, escrow closed. Luckily in California there is no big sit-around-the-table-with-a-bunch-of-lawyers
event for closing -- instead, the escrow company takes care of getting
everything done. If we'd had to schedule one of those meetings,
we'd probably still be there!
