Off to the PNW

We survived the last ever garage sale of our lives. Barely, and I'm not even being dramatic. Ibuprofen, ice packs, wine, hot baths, and 9 hours of sleep every night except the one before, but we did it. Our first goal was to clean out this place and we succeeded at that. Our second was to make $500 to put toward new patio furniture at our next home. We more than doubled that, and honestly everything was dirt cheap, but there was a lot of it! 

By Monday we'd loaded up the back of CS's pickup, full to the top, with all the leftover stuff and we drove straight to Goodwill. We were honestly amazed that 90% of our stuff sold, and we still had a pickup load. Goodnight, nurse but we're a nation of pack rats!

And let me say the people watching almost made it worth all the work. Amazing to see who comes to a garage sale, what they want to buy, how they barter with you, what they wear, what they say, what they steal, etc. I had fun watching the woman who bought two of my old bikinis. The man who bought our old buffalo head, and I had to tell him the buffalo's teeth were a bit loose, so hold him carefully. The people who asked us if stuff worked and why were we getting rid of it so cheap? The lady from the senior center who I gave several hundred dollars worth of knitting books and fabric, just to have it leave my house, and she told me the ladies there will be so thrilled to have something new to work with. Best was the woman who showed up to buy our chest freezer, by herself, and told us her husband was too lazy to get out of bed and come with her. So CS and our son had to load the thing for her, into the back of her husband's pickup. I don't know how she was planning to get it loaded otherwise?

After holding a garage sale it was hard to have the energy to do another blessed thing, but we hosted Easter dinner on Sunday, and yes we are a bit weary of ham. And broccoli salad. And crescent rolls. But that's what was in the refrigerator and when you're leaving town soon, you eat what you have.

I spent a bit of the next few days admiring empty corners, cleaned out and ordered closets, kitchen drawers that have nothing in them. It feels so good to have that behind us. I do not miss a single thing we got rid of. Good riddance to all of it.

So we're off to our little place in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, for all of April and half of May. When I begin to pack clothes to last me six weeks, and it all has to fit in one suitcase, I realize how very little I actually need. I'm wearing one pair of earrings and one necklace, taking one dressy outfit (to celebrate our 35th anniversary that fell on Easter so it got a raincheck), yoga pants, and a smattering of t-shirts, tennis shoes and one other pair, and not much else. One book. After cleaning out so much from our house I just didn't have it in me to fill anything to the top, even a suitcase. We'll make do with what we take.

Of course Miss Lily will go with us, riding in her little travel bag at my feet, wearing a bark collar and filled up with nausea and anxiety meds. Flying the friendly skies is not her favorite thing to do, and they will not let her stick even her nose out of the bag. If they'd just let her sit on my lap you'd never hear a peep out of her, but this 8 lb dog that doesn't bark even once a week will bark constantly as soon as we zip her in. Unless we drug and threaten to shock her, which makes her anxious so she has to have anxiety meds too.

When we bought Miss Lily two years ago, from a woman named Mona, she spent her day in a kennel, waiting for her owner to come back home and let her out. She walked around her neighborhood, had a little yard, but mostly she stayed home alone. So when I brought her home with me I first renamed her (her name was Diamond), and then I told her she was going to have a life of adventure. Lots of little kids who would love her, car rides, long windy walks here and there, two constant companions and lots of traveling. Tomorrow Miss Lily will have her first cab ride, with Cowboy Cabs, to the airport. I told her we are connecting in Phoenix, Arizona - a new state for me and her (not that it really counts when you never leave the airport) but she didn't seem overly impressed. Hopefully she'll be in dreamland and completely unaware that she's on an adventure, til we touch down and she wakes up in her other little home in the mountains.

Plans while we're there are to see our 6 grandkids and two son in laws we haven't seen in six months, give both sets of parents a break away while we hold down the fort, drive up to Sandpoint one day for a prime rib sandwich and killer view, take Steve (our antique camper) our for his first overnighter, take the four oldest grandkids to see Jungle Book when it opens, buy a fridge and storm door for the place, and chill. Mostly just chill with each other and those we hold dear.

I'll be back in touch soon as we unpack and get our bearings a bit.