Cleaning and Packing

So it's the week before the move. This is the second farthest move we have ever made. The farthest being our move from St. Louis, MO. to Port St. Lucie, Fl. Although we aren't driving for extended hours across multiple state borders we still have to pack a moving van and drive an hour and a half south. We have to get a moving van for Saturday, fill it up and drive it to Sunrise Sunday morning to unload it. In the meantime I have to pack all the boxes, get rid of junk, set up utilities at the new house, put in a change of address for everyone (thankfully I can do that online these days!), clean and deodorize the space we are in, clean and deodorize the new place, all while maintaing the present domicile. Let's not forget I have to prepare dinner for five to six people every night too! It's going to be a busy week. I bought a four pack of sugar-free RedBull to keep me motivated. Wish me luck!

The Waiting Game

This morning I had to initial some changes in our contract to lease the house. We were able to negotiate a lower rent (Yay us!) and we needed to have the house cleaned, a sink in the master bathroom repaired and the debris from the previous tenants removed. My real estate agent emailed the contract and I had to print it, initial the changes, scan and email it back to her. What sounds like a simple task took me forever! Our printer/fax machine hasn't been networking with our computers correctly so I had to wing it with programs that were new to me. Finally she received the email and has forwarded it on to the other agent. Now I have to wait for my husband to gather the funds and put a deposit in escrow. It is my hope that we get everything together early and get access to the house a week or two earlier than August 1st. Hours of driving, coupled with long work days are taking a toll on my husband. Plus, my daughter is spending the summer with me and I would really like for her to get a feel for the place before she goes back home to Louisiana. I've done my part and now I play the waiting game while my husband and our agent do their parts. Sunrise, Florida, here we come!

Neighbors of the past

We got the house! Now for our next trick we will attempt to pull the $4,350.00, that we need to move in, out of our ass! LOL! Just kidding! We got it under control. I am nervous though. Every time we move I get nervous. I hope that my family will like the place, have enough room and be happy. I pray that my kids will meet good friends to play with and I get along with the neighbors. I hope to find like-mided people so I feel like I fit in. Plus, I am always looking for new friends. Kindred spirits who love kids, gardening and scrapbooking. My ideal neighborhood has homes with tons of kids, happy kid-loving wives/mothers who let the kids run from house-to-house day-in and day-out.
I have lived in so many different places and I remember friends and neighbors from twenty years back. Some I'll never forget, like Donny Paulson. He was such a sweet, fun-loving soul. The poor guy broke his back in a car accident but still dressed up as Tinkerbell for my Halloween party. He died way before his time and is missed, and remembered, by many.
Then there is this girl who lived across the street from me in Ferguson. Amy McFadden. She was such a cute, skinny little thing. She ended up having a baby with another boy from the neighborhodd, Scotty (one of my little brother's friends). They were such a sweet, loving little gangster couple. I think of them and their baby often and hope they are doing well. Amy had a little brother, Jeremy. The last time I saw Jeremy he was wearing a blue bandana, a plaid tee shirt, and some saggy jeans. I hope he knows better these days.
One of the best friends I've ever had in this world came from that neighborhood. Brenda. She lived right across the street from me with her husband, Bud, and two kids, Nicole and Mitchell. We are all long since gone but I still keep in touch with the whole family. Nicole and Mitchell have kids of their own now. Brenda and Bud are divorced but I love them all with the intensity that good times, hard life, and laughter provide. I would do anything for these people.
I've lived in an apartment where I never knew anyone and a neighborhood where I never made a friend. When I met my husband we moved into a house that changed the course of history for everyone in our lives. We moved into 185 S. St. Jacques St. We got married while living in that house. We brought two children into this world while living in that house. We had seven Christmas', seven halloweens, seven Easters, and most of us celebrated seven birthdays in that house! That's about thirty-nine birthday celebrations in one house alone! We raised ducks, dogs and kids, had guinea pigs, hamsters, fish and a bird. We had life and survived a few deaths. We LIVED in that house. Even now there is a part of every one of us that is attached to that house. My husband met one of his best friends while living there. Mark Kolbe moved back into his childhood home, with his wife and daughter, right next door to us. Mark and Kevin were two of a kind and remain close friends even four years after we moved over a thousand miles away.
These days we live in Florida. It's been a huge adventure! We lived in a seasonal rental on Hutchinson Island for a couple of months then moved into the biggest, nicest house we have ever lived in, in Stuart, Florida. We made a few fair-weather friends in that neighborhood and moved on to Port St. Lucie. Possibly the most diverse neighborhood around! We had Marie and Gabe next door who are Bahamian, Marylin and Rich, who are from Haiti, Lissi, who is Puerto Rican, Jussimara, who is from Brazil and Rene and Felo who are Italian and Puerto Rican. I got fresh coffee, right off the plane, straight from a Haitian farm! Puerto Rican style coffee, and brazillian cooking, and a little lesson in Spanish. My son made some of the best friends a kid could make and I loved that neighborhood! The different accents, experiences and food! Man, what a trip! I sure won't be losing those phone numbers. From Port St. Lucie, you know the rest. Our next adventures lie to the south.

Looking, Looking, Looking

I spent all weekend looking at houses again. We saw a couple of townhomes/villas and several single family homes. Some were in good neighborhoods and some were definitely not! The problem I am running into, over and over, is that the house is either too small and updated, big enough and falling apart, updated with no backyard, good backyard not enough bedrooms... I wish I could put pieces together of different ones to make the perfect home. Townhouses and villas have no yards what-so-ever. They have little pieces of concrete screened in off the back of the house. They call this a patio. I call it pitiful. Anyway, we found a house we like. The back yard is small but is enclosed by a privacy fence and has two seperate patios, plus a Florida room. I will have a little room to garden and will have plenty of patio space to become an adept container gardener! The downfall of this place is that the boys will have to continue to share a room. That is really the only complaint I have about it. So we put in our application and they have until the 7th of July to eithe accept or reject our offer.
Here is the link if anyone is interested in checking it out. Copy and paste into your address bar.
http://sef.mlxchange.com/Pub/EmailView.asp?r=263481258&s=SEF&t=SEF