Time To Scale Down

In 2003 our four bedroom house was bursting at the seams. Then one by one the boys graduated from high school and left for college or the work world. They'd come home for summers and visits, and Son Donald boomeranged back for a couple of years before he left again in 2016. Since that time it's been me, Hubby Tony, and the two cats.

The dining room became a good place for Tony to store his current project paperwork. My spot was the floor of the smallest bedroom. The cats enjoyed having a variety of beds to choose from, depending on the time of day and their mood. Often when I would vacuum the living room on Sunday I'd see evidence of last week's vacuuming because no one had walked over the area.

Since Son Tony left the nest Hubby Tony and I have talked about moving "when the time was right". It never was. Then one day several weeks ago we started talking more seriously. We had a couple of realtors come out and give us their opinion on what it would take to get the house market-ready. We liked what we heard from the second one so after taking a day to think, pray, and talk about it we made the decision that now was the time We signed a contract this afternoon.

Now the hard part begins. Even though I don't consider myself a hoarder and I've done a couple of purges over the years, we've lived in this house for 26 years. There is a lot of stuff to go through! Guided by our realtor, we'll also have contractors come in to update some things. And Tony and I will keep busy to make sure every surface is sparkling.

And, of course, in the middle of all our work we need to find a new place to live. The broker we've signed with uses a team approach, with one agent handling the selling and another the buying process. We've had a preliminary discussion with the buying agent about where and what we want our next home to look like so he can start researching for us.

The whole thing is exciting and scary at the same time.

Five years ago today: Those Must Be Some Big Fairies!