Thursday, August 19, 2010

Lists, lists and more lists

The plan is for us to leave Pittsburgh in September 2011.  Between now and then there are so many tasks that need to be accomplished, that I am in need of multiple lists. The big things that need to happen include, but are not limited to: downsizing all our possessions; digitizing all photos, music and important paperwork; re-homing our chinchilla; buying an RV and selling our house.

The downsizing has been ongoing for the better part of at least a year.  Some things that we simply cannot bear to part with, will be stored for a little while in my brother's attic.  For me, that includes many of my lighthouses and Labrador retriever items, while for Raymond, it means a bookcase made by his Dad especially for him along with some books and three orange crates full of vinyl LPs.  I think, in time, we will both be ready to leave these items behind as well, but the time is not now. One of the great things about RV living is that the motor home includes most everything you're going to need as far as furnishing, so there's no need to keep that love seat, or dining room table.   

The process of digitizing has also begun, but at a woefully slow rate. One hindrance to the process is that before scanning our pictures to the portable hard drive, we must first sort through the numerous boxes and rid ourselves of crappy, or ugly, or, as in the case of my sunsets & sunrises, multiples. Most music that we already own has been transferred to our iPods, with the exception of many of those LPs that Raymond won't part with. We have the technology available to transfer them to our hard drive, but it is an extremely time consuming process. Plus, since many of those albums are in less than perfect condition, they bring along hisses & pops that you won't get if you simply download them from iTunes.

Buying the RV has proven to be a challenging task.  We thought we knew what we wanted until we began to actively look. After many, many false starts, we think we have found the RV of our dreams, but time will tell. We hope to visit the RV show in Hershey this fall to finalize our plans.

Re-homing CC, our chinchilla, is going to be a heartrending undertaking. It requires the admission that perhaps our adoption of her was more hasty than we thought. She needs to be re-homed because she deserves a more appropriate home than we are currently providing. In addition, the motor home we will purchase simply will not have enough room to accommodate a cage of the size and weight of hers. That said, even if we weren't moving into an RV, she still deserves a more chinchilla friendly environment. 

The biggest thing on any of our lists is the selling of our house. We have lived here for over 20 years, but have never been "real" homeowners.  By that, I mean that when Raymond worked nights at UPS, he had neither the time, nor the energy to keep up with such a large house.  As for me, because I never wanted to live in this house at all, I fear I became a bit passive-aggressive where the house was concerned.  I spent too many years simply hating the house.  Then, when I was a stay at home wife, I had the delusion that watching all those home improvement shows on HGTV, PBS, et al, somehow gave me skills that I didn't really possess. And lastly, there's the bad trait that many in my family have...we never finish what we start. There. I said it. They say that admitting your failures is the first step toward recovery, right?  Anyway, the house is far less than perfect, actually far less than good. Our neighborhood is still in a downward spiral (see previous post) and I can't imagine that anyone is actively seeking to move into it. That scares me more than anything else about the whole process; who might buy our house?  I'm praying that God will send just the right person, at just the right time. 


Now that I've committed this to paper, I suppose I had better get started on those lists...

2 comments:

  1. Good luck! :) If you need any help getting the house ready to show, you know my number. :)

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  2. Niki, I may take you up on that! What I need is a workable plan at the moment.

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