Hollow

The house if just a house now. It isn't "home" any longer. All the personality is out of the house and it is just four walls and a roof. I'm very surprised how quickly I have disconnected - it just isn't my home any more.

The last weekend in May we went to Lakeland with a load of furniture for our children that live there - 3 of our 4 - and attended our oldest granddaughter's high school graduation. We also checked out a RV resort close to Lakeland to see were we will stay when we come back in November. Things went well until we discovered we forgot the bed that we were suppose to take to our youngest daughter. Which meant they had to come up here this past weekend for one night.

We come back to Dowling Park a week ago Sunday - picked up the new 5th wheel a week ago today - came back and started loading it with our stuff. We moved it to the RV park here in the Village on Wednesday morning and have been staying there ever since. It is now "home" and I think we will be very comfortable once everything gets settled.

This past week we went through everything that was left at the house - had our HUGE moving sale on Friday and Saturday - my friend Joyce and I packed up everything that did not sell yesterday afternoon and right now I am waiting for the truck to come and pick it all up. We did really well with the sale - all the big stuff sold except the living room couch and the swivel rocker. Not too bad considering it rained off and on the whole weekend.

We have just about gotten everything out of the house now, we still have a few things that will be going to my mother's house in Atlanta and a couple of things that is going to my oldest daughter in Atlanta. Those will be loaded in a U-Haul trailer on Wednesday and we will leave on Thursday morning - set things up in Atlanta, spend the night, and come back here on Friday. Rest on the weekend and close on the house next Monday. So far, everything has been going on schedule - I just hope it stays on schedule.

Some things have changed as far as where we will be going and how long we will be there, but I'll save that for my next post - keep you guys in suspense. Tomorrow I will do laundry and go through the pantry. When the housekeeper comes on Wednesday EVERYTHING should be out of the house and I don't want to come back in after tomorrow.

We have changed all our direct deposits to our bank in Lakeland - we have our address ready to change - when we leave here we are going to have to make a trip to Pensacola - this will be our new home base address and we discovered that Dan's drivers license will expire on his birthday in August so we will have to make a little detour and have his license renewed (mine also probably) renew our tags and change our regristration for voting to the new address. Just a few of the little things that you may not think about having to do. We have also taken care of all the insurance needs on the truck and 5th wheel, notified our credit card company that we will be traveling so they don't put a hold on our account (which they have done in the past because of the charges in different cities). I've also gotten an air card for my computer - but I'm using the internet at the house right now - I mean I'm paying for it until the 15th I might as well save my time on the air card until we leave.

I'll sign off for now - just know that this is not the part of this transition that I have not been looking forward to - I've read that most people take a year or more to make this transition - we are doing it in 6 weeks and believe me - it's HARD work and many decisions have had to be made quickly. Maybe for us it's better to do it quickly and not drag it out, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone! Let me go see if there is something I need to pack - Oh! Dan is calling me, he's hungry - why am I not surprised!