HOME SWEET HOME

I am sitting at my computer in one of our spare bedrooms in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When I look out the window, I can see the Jemez Mountains to the west.

After all this time of preparation and planning and waiting, WE ARE FINALLY HERE!

Parts of the move went smoothly, parts did not. Parts of it were the week from hell. We didn't kill each other but we came close.(LOL)

Getting finished with the repairs, remodeling, and cleaning at our house in Kansas in preparation for putting it on the market was not fun. It was hard work and very exhausting and stressful. But it got finished, and the house was officially put on the market on May 16. It looked good.

On that same day, Friday, May 16, we pulled out of our driveway for the last time ... loaded down with a U-Haul trailer packed with some of our belongings, and with our dogs in the back seat of the truck, unaware of the long journey we were all undertaking.

The move itself went very well. The teams of packers and movers from United Van Lines were just great ... efficient, quick and friendly. The packers finished their work on Monday May 12, and the movers came on Weds. May 14 and got the truck loaded.

During that packing/loading week, I had time to spend a few lunches with Kansas friends saying more goodbyes. It was not nearly as hard as I expected. My focus now was on the move, and I was ready to go. Saying goodbye to the house where we lived for 28 years was a little sad, but not heart-breaking.

The first night, we got to Wichita, Kansas, and spent the night. The next day we drove through the rest of Kansas and crossed over the border into New Mexico at Clayton at 2:00 p.m. Mountain Time. The feeling was a little overwhelming ... after all these years of dreaming, the dream was a reality ~ we were New Mexico residents! We were going home!

We got to our house here in Eldorado at Santa Fe about 6:30 p.m. HOME.

It is hard to describe how it felt. Mostly it seemed like we were on one of our usual visits of several days and would be going back "home" to Kansas in several days.

The movers arrived on Monday morning, May 19, to deliver all of our household and personal belongings. They filled the house with furniture, washer, dryer, boxes, boxes, boxes, and still more boxes. The whole rest of that first week was spent unpacking, getting things settled and put in place, running errands into town for groceries, necessary stuff at Home Depot, Lowe's or Walmart. We were still tired, but now it was a nice we're-home-and-we're-making-a-new-life-tired.

Brian and Katy arrived on Friday of this past weekend, delivering my car from Kansas. We spent such a nice weekend with them. We ate at several New Mexican restaurants, did a little shopping, drove up to Taos to show them some of the spectacular scenery in this part of the state. We had several cookouts at the house. It was fun ... and a break from the unpacking for a few days. We took them to the Albuquerque Sunport on Monday for their flight back to Missouri.

Life is falling into a comfortable wonderful routine. Morning coffee on the front portal, looking at the mountains and watching the birds in our courtyard. Watching Starman hunt for lizards. Making runs into town for errands. A visit to my new endocrinologist for the first time. Enjoying the great weather here. Puttering around in the flower gardens which need a lot of work. Watching the sunsets and the stars at night. Getting back online and getting caught up on the two websites where I am moderator, answering emails, and finally getting to write this blog entry.

At I sit here typing, we are under a tornado watch ~~ didn't I leave the tornadoes behind in Kansas? I can see the storm moving from south to north across the Jemez Mountains. Quite a show.

Each day seems more and more like we are *home* here. Most mornings when we get up we look at each other and say something like "Just another typical day in Paradise" and smile.

HOME. Such a lovely lovely word.

The long, long goodbye

We are down to less than two weeks before our departure to Santa Fe.

This has been a long goodbye here. There is family here (my son and daughter in law) and many many friends. And the goodbyes are tough. Tougher than I was expecting. Every now and then a troubling thought enters my mind: "Are we doing the right thing?" But it is too late now to change anything even if we wanted to ... and we shall find out.

We know we will be coming back here at least every year to visit family, but I also know when we do there will not be time to see everyone we would like to keep in touch with.

On May 5, I will have my final weekly Monday night Whine & Dine dinner with my friends from Heart Bandits American Eskimo Dog Rescue. We are going to the Cheesecake Factory, and I know it will be a sad time and I am not sure I am ready.

This coming week will be my last visit to Curves and to my water aerobics class at the pool. On Weds. my pool friends are taking me out to lunch before class.

I am seeing doctors for the last time, and taking my dogs to the vet for the last time for their annual immunizations.

Tonight we go to my son's house for a last dinner with him, my daughter in law and her parents. I know it will be fun but the underlying sadness will be there.

And meanwhile, the endless work of getting this house ready to sell goes on and on and on. John's cousin was here from New York to help out a week ago for five days, and he is coming back this coming week for 5 more days. There is packing to do, getting old furniture picked up by the Catholic Charities folks, and getting the trash company to come for an old recliner and our old refrigerator. And packing packing packing cleaning cleaning cleaning.

Then, on top of all the working on the house, saying goodbye to our family and friends, and squeezing in appointments...my computer crashed and burned the other night, and I was not able to save it. So I have had to say goodbye to it, too, and start all over with a new computer. I am gradually getting back my favorites to bookmark, my email program, etc. The new computer has Vista ... so far no problems ... seems user friendly enough... neat graphics! All of my pictures and my emails/email addresses are on the hard drive of the old computer. IF there is a way to save them all, I haven't had time to figure it out.

BUT! With all of the hard work and mixed feelings, I KNOW THAT New Mexico is waiting up ahead, just down the road....and that makes all this stress and distress okay to go through. I am SO READY for the laid back, quiet, renewing life in the Land of Enchantment. I think I am going to become one of those New Mexico "mañana" people!

Looking forward, but looking back

We’re into April now. We are planning to move in May. So we are down to one month left before we actually make the long-awaited move.

So why am I consumed with mixed feelings? I WANT to move to New Mexico, I have dreamed of it for years now, and it is finally really going to happen.

But what I am feeling these days is a mixture of joy and excitement …. with some bittersweet thoughts and memories intruding.



We have lived here in Kansas for almost 29 years. 29 years! That is such a huge portion of my life. This is the longest I have lived anywhere. I know every inch of this house and yard, every part of this neighborhood, I know where all the good stores and restaurants are. All my doctors and dentist and the vet and most of my friends are here. My son and daughter in law live here. This is the house where my little kids grew up, where we lived through all the wonderful times and the difficult times and the sad times. Christmases and birthdays and Easters and proms and graduations and visitors.

My daughter is having a very hard time with the fact that she can never come home again, she can never show my grand-daughter the house where our family lived for so many years. I understand her feeling about it. I am feeling some of that, too, these days.



I am thinking it is normal…. a part of this process…..but one I forgot to expect in all the plans for this move.

In the home stretch

Okay, we’re ready.

The end of March is here, the emails and phone calls are winding down, the paperwork is in, our loan is approved, the repairs to the house have been made by the seller, and we are in the home stretch for closing.

We will go to Santa Fe on April 9, do a walk through of the house on April 10, and sign the closing papers on April 11. Then our dream becomes our reality ~ we will own our home in New Mexico.

John has told his boss that he is moving out of state, and that he would like to postpone his retirement for several months and work from the remote location, so that he can continue working on the project he loves at work. They were receptive to his idea.

We have not set the moving date yet. At the top of our list: call some moving companies for bids. We hope to move in the middle of May, if not just a little sooner! MAY!!! That is right around the corner!

We are working like crazy to get our house here ready to put on the market, and we are tired and trying not to bitch at each other. The major remodeling is almost done, and there are a LOT of little jobs to be done. I am cleaning every inch of this house.

We have a great second hand furniture store near us, so we wandered around it last Thursday night and bought a couple of chairs in like-new condition. A stuffed comfortable chair for relaxing and reading. And a dining room chair that we didn’t need but that we liked the almost-Southwestern design of. All purchases now are planned according to how they will look and where they will go in the new house.

There are two guys here today installing new gutters on the outside of the house … and my dogs are barking insanely….this could go on for several hours. It is very windy here … I am watching to make sure they don’t blow off their ladders.

Tonight I am going out with some of my friends from dog rescue for our weekly Whine and Dine at a local restaurant. I need the chance to sit down and unwind. We are going to a Mexican place … imagine me voting for Mexican when in a month or so I can eat New Mexican cuisine to my heart’s content.

Oh … and one more thing…. MY KANSAS JAYHAWKS ARE GOING TO THE FINAL FOUR next week! ROCK CHALK!!!

The waiting game

I started this blog five months ago to chronicle our move to New Mexico.

Now I am getting impatient; things seem to happen so slowly. I feel we are doing more waiting than actual activity.

We ARE working on our house here in the midwest to get it ready to put on the market in a couple of months. Because the real estate market is SO depressed, we feel like the best way to compete and get a somewhat quick sale is to have the house in perfect condition. It’s an almost 50-year old house and so there is a LOT to be done. We are getting there, but sometimes the progress seems so slow. And you have to spend so much money in remodeling to make money. Right now our kitchen is undergoing remodeling - it's easy to see the dollars add up!

The other activity we are able to do is downsizing our belongings and packing. I have been doing this for way over a year now, but I am still finding things to toss out or give to my favorite local charity.

We will take a trip to Santa Fe in less than two months to look at the available houses in Eldorado, and hopefully (fingers crossed) find the perfect one! It’s a buyer’s market, so we have a lot of houses to choose from and some have been on the market for a long, long time, and some have had their price reduced several times. So not only is there a pretty large inventory, but I think we can offer a little less than the asking price and possibly get it accepted.

Once the house is bought, we can actually plan the date for our move. I am hoping for May, but I think June will be more likely. Gosh, that still seems like a long way off! I am trying not to be impatient as we play the waiting game...