We are up, showered, dressed, fed and are now feeling like we're waiting for our first date ... that call from a realtor, wanting to show our house. I keep checking to make sure I haven't just missed a call on my cell phone. Is it still turned on, with the battery charged up? It does remind me of waiting for Steve to call when we were first dating. Except I don't have those fun kinds of butterflies this time!
Our realtor, Barbara Nelson, came by again this morning. She has been just wonderful to work with. She brought flyers for inside the house, and little stand up boards to list features of the house. She says we should still expect at least 2 calls, as a couple realtors had already expressed a desire to show it to their clients. Guess it will happen when it happens.
I find myself trying to think and plan in every quiet moment - while drying my hair, while doing mindless housework. So many things need to be "solved". How do we best keep in touch with family and friends while living in a motorhome? Sure, we'll have the internet and cell phones. I realize we need to really work at it. It's taken a long time to establish these relationships. Each one is a gift!
I was set to host "Needlework Night" last night. I thought about cancelling due to our house being on the market, but then decided to just go for it. Our realtor thought it was unlikely we'd have calls to show the very first day on the market. I enjoy Needlework Nights. I love not knowing who might turn up. I send out reminders to appropriately 14 or 15 ladies each month. As it turned out, all my regulars emailed me throughout the day to say that different things were keeping them from being available. No problem - I'd just get ready for bed early.
Steve wanted me to go out to the shed and see what he'd accomplished there. It's a true joy to see things disappear, especially when you had no idea who in the world would want them. A couple of our neighbors, and one set of their relatives helped us out with that. We were so thankful! Plant food, lawn feed, a few tools, plant tags -- much of it gone! Anyway, going out to admire the loss of stuff is a fun task for us.
I remember as I walked out the back door noting it was 6:31pm. Needlework Night always starts about 6:30pm. I told Steve I felt I needed to let at least a 1/2 hour pass before I'd be certain no one would show up. However, there's always a chance. We came back in to find a car sitting in front of the house, right by the For Sale sign. A realtor?!? An interested buyer checking out the house?!? I hid in the corner of the kitchen while watching the car out the window. They appeared to be using a cell phone .... Slowly, the car door opened ... It was Pauline Garney, showing up for Needlework Night! She'd only first joined us last month, and I guess it just didn't occur to me that she'd be coming again this month. Too bad I hadn't thought to call her. As it was, we ended up getting to have a nice visit. She did a little embroidery, and I finished another dishcloth. Steve even joined us, instead of going off to watch a movie behind closed doors in the family room. It's always fun to have company, and we both were thankful she'd come. The Garneys are on our list of people we want to stay connected with. John is Steve's fellow engineer friend. They need each other to share projects, etc. We find it easy to be around these newer friends of ours.
I'm reading a book called "Live Your Road Trip Dream - Travel for a year for the cost of staying home" by Phil and Carol White. It was written in 2004, by this Oregon couple doing a year's trip around the USA in a new 19' Class B Motorhome. I'm really enjoying the book. Living in an RV for a year, or living in an RV full time are not much different. She has lots of great ideas - including ideas on how to hang on to relationships during the long absences. I plan to put several of her ideas into practice... like sending postcards to our grandson, Dylan. What's better than getting mail? We will always be thankful for the amount of time we've seen him in the past 5 years. That weekly routine is changing. However, we want to stay in his life in a real way. That's another thing we have to figure out. Other than the family we have in Tacoma, we haven't had a lot of experience with long distance relationships.
I imagine we'll be calling to set up "dates" each time we come into an area where our family and friends live. I imagine we will find going for a ride in our tow-vehicle for the purpose of visiting becoming a fun routine. We'll need time away from the motorhome. The Road Trip book talks about taking a vacation from your vacation. We'll probably need those kinds of breaks, though living in an RV sounds like one big vacation to us!
No comments:
Post a Comment