House Changes--Part 2

My husband and I are in the process of house hunting.

The Beginning

Getting the floors redone in the present house

Yesterday, I said that Ward and I are pretty good about making long term plans. Well, sort of. We are good at making them, but I am anxious about implementing them if they involve any big changes. It's the the known vs. the unknown thing. So if I can deal with what I am doing today, I'm afraid to venture into the unknown. What if it's worse? What if it doesn't work out? What if something happens that we didn't anticipate? Some people are invigorated by change and actually need it. That's not me. Predictability is the name of the game as far as I'm concerned.

So when the discussions about moving started a few years ago, I was hesitant. (Ward may have another word for it.) But I agreed in theory, so I cooperated.  We talked about what we wanted in a house. We pointed out the look of houses we liked as we drove by. So while I was nervous, it was so far so good in our action plan.

Then we started to put a timeline to the whole thing and the anxiety level shot up. Tied to the house change timeline was retirement for Ward (another story about whether the stress of the job is worth the money). We wanted to do this while there was a decent salary coming in. We called in a real estate agent to tell us what we should do to the house to get it ready to sell in a couple of years. That would give us plenty of time to work on what we needed. We carefully noted his suggestions and then set about getting caught up in everyday life and ignored the list.

As Ward was recovering from surgery, his suggestions that we call the agent back and start looking at houses became more frequent. I said not yet. I wasn't ready. He said there's not a commitment, let's just see what's out there. I said we haven't done anything on the list he gave us. We're not ready. He said, it's okay. I said we will waste the agent's time.  He said let's just look. And finally, I agreed because I knew I was balking for no good reason except I was anxious. And just three days later we were sitting around the dining room table looking at listings .

Stay tuned...

House Changes--Part 1

Plans


Ward and I are pretty good about making long term plans, not the best but pretty good--especially if the stats I hear in the news these days are true. Most Americans aren't ready for next month let alone retirement, but we're in reasonable shape.

We have always put maximum into our retirement plans and lived below our means. This was whether we had two jobs, one job, a good job, or a mediocre job. This has allowed us to mostly live debt free.

We're now in our late 50's and retirement is becoming very real--particularly for Ward who has talked about retiring for a few years now. So besides making sure our finances are in order (a trip to the financial planner recently confirmed this), we have been talking about what we want to do, where we want to live, etc. And the conclusion has been, that we want to stay in the area we are in to be close to the family here.

However, what we do want to change is the house that we live in. We want to get a house where we can age comfortably in place. And that mostly means, no steps. We have watched our parents age in houses that were not good for this and the subsequent problems that occurred. So while we love many things about where we live now (just look at the Second Looks to get an idea), three level living with a two acre lot to take care of is not the way we want to do things in the future. And this is a change we want to make before we need to, so it is not made in a pressured situation as we have seen both sets of our parents deal with.

So you can probably guess where this is going. We're in the process of house hunting, etc. This was what I eluded to in another post when I said I was pretty busy these days. I will be chronicling here, some of this process.

So, until next time...

Thankful Sunday-August 7, 2016

I am thankful for my family.

My family, both extended and immediate, have priority over everything else in my life. I am lucky that I have a supportive and loving family because I know this isn't always the case. (Actually, you don't have to look very far in my extended family to see this.) 

So what brought all of this to mind is that both of my sons are here today visiting. These days that doesn't happen very often. So for family and their visits, I am thankful.

Second Look--August 3, 2016

They always say, be careful what you ask for. After not having more than a few sprinkles of rain for weeks, we had a downpour on Saturday. Six inches of rain fell over the area in just a few hours. That caused flash flooding that was particularly devastating for a nearby town. However, we were okay here even though I measured 7 inches of rain at my house. This measurement was taken with a stick and a weeding bucket, so I'm not sure that it was totally accurate. But we did get a lot of rain. The weather is now a little cooler, so the flowers are showing some life again. And so am I.

Here a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

This goldfinch was eating seeds from the zinnia in front of it. 

Tiger lily

Swallowtail Butterfly

Day lily

Remember the little yellow mushrooms from last week? They turned into this after the rain. The big one here is about 6" across.

Balloon flowers. Guess which direction the sun is.

Swallowtail butterfly. Among its legs and antennae, notice its proboscis going at a right angle into the marigold to collect nectar.

This butterfly is not using its proboscis. Notice how it has rolled it up into a curly cue

Thankful Monday--August 1, 2016

But I still have time to watch the critters.

I am thankful that blogging is not my job.

You may have noticed that Thankful Sunday has rolled into Thankful Monday. That's because I haven't had a lot of time to write here recently. We've been very busy with things that I will share with you in the future when it all settles down. (Don't worry, no life crises at this moment like it seems to have been for the last few years.) 

So for the fact that I don't have to post here regularly as a source of income, I am thankful.