And how was the move, Mrs. Calabash?

The move is still not forgotten...the garage has not seen our cars since the weekend before the truck arrived with all of our goods. Phil's clever line: there is room in the garage for a car, but it has to go in sideways.

At this point, we have set up the house, painted a wall in the kitchen (moss green) and a wall in the dining room (golden yellow), and will paint two walls in the living room tomorrow (with luck) the same color as the green kitchen wall. The green is great with the kitchen curtains, which I have augmented with glass curtains (made of cotton), though the glass curtains need shortening.

The green will be wonderful with the drapes in the living room, which also need shortening...they pool on the floor right now. The ones on the neighbor's side reflect the same colors as Tan's painting of PEI, and the curtains on the patio side reflect the same colors as a painting I did long ago...turquoises and yellows. The painting over the fireplace needs a frame, as does the turq painting.

One discovery lately is Jerry's Artarama down in Willowbrook (18 miles away), and through the good graces of two Groupons, we have framed three items and bought frames for most of my oils (pre-made frames are lots cheaper, and hopefully will still look great).

But the garage is definitely more organized, with some more things to take to the storage unit (computer desks) and more boxes to open.

I wish I had the flat file here...it is still (I think) in Norwood. I have lots of things that could go into it.

But the move is still in progress. Rugs cleaned and on the floor, curtains hung (even those that need shortening, lengthening, etc.), and furniture arranged. Not too much extra, though some of my antique chairs will not be on the floor for a while because they need repairing.

I would put the chairs on the wall, if I had wall space. Between bookshelves for books and music and the artworks...Rafa's, mine, Joanne's, and inherited and adopted art, there is not a lot of wallspace left. Of course, up near the ceiling....

...always in the last place you look...

Found it!

New, one-floor, etc., etc. Video at 11 (not really).

Opportunity Cost

If you've ever bought something for a specific use and employed it successfully for that use, then stored it and kept it and moved it and eyed it and moved it again, workshop to basement to barn to storage to yard...think about it.

That item probably owes you nothing at this point, and paying it homage by paying to move it across country is a fool's errand. That thing has done its job and needs to cycle its way along the path. Craigslist or Freecycle come to mind as great avenues of disposal.

The recycle dumpsters and 1-800-GOT-JUNK come next.

Don't try to realize any money at all...don't expend your time and effort but throw your remaining resources into getting the things into someone else's hands.

Wurlitzer 4600 goes to new home

Waiting for the guy's friend now so they can move it out the front door and into the van...

...and it's gone!

Have you ever vacuumed your attic?

The things we do for love...

Offer received, countered, countered...

Accepted.

Closing June 16, God willing and the Creek don't rise...

Off to the SW to track a new teepee.

Make an Offer!

We're eagerly awaiting word from the folks who came through the house on Wednesday last, then came back on Saturday to measure and conjecture with their son-in-law the Master Builder. (I thought that term had been reserved for G*d, but hey...)

We expect to receive an offer on Tuesday afternoon, hopefully a good offer...that is, high enough to consider! As they indicated that they would 'redo the kitchen' and lay oak flooring down in the back room, they will probably expect us to 'pay' for those upgrades out of the price, but we are basically disinclined so to do.

Our Realtor let us know that they will be interested in a 30-day timing on the paper-passing, so we are moving into high gear.

Today we contacted an auction person, who came over immediately and speculated that one of his contacts would handle auctioning the glass display case, the horse-sleigh, and the baby snow sleigh. He also has found someone who will buy ALL of the old shutters from us at $3 per shutter. I figure there are maybe 75-80 shutters. Although that will not be a lot of money, it will clear them out of the barn, which is worth something more to us.

I still have to figure out how to get rid of old cast iron stoves and old file cabinets. Mostly everything else can be shipped to us or taken to Goodwill, if I get out there and sort through it again.

Now that we are 5 months into the new year, I am finally getting work again, in addition to moving labor. And looking for a new house.

But some of it (ALL of it!) is a good time.

Always liked the stage(ing)

If I could take them to Houston with me, I would. To set up that new house that I am homesick for.

The stagers did a miraculous job with the pictures I saved out from packing and the furniture we have.

How nice to see that box truck backing into the d'way

Sold a load of furniture last week; enough to furnish a small apartment. I think we owe them a couple of pieces, still, but they also took all our tropical plants. As Ren says, maybe the plants would have been happier in Texas. But I wasn't interested in finding out how to pack and ship; we can grow more.

Washing dishes and packing to move

Before I got waylaid by a detailed description of doing dishes, I mentioned a similarity between that activity and packing to move.

I described packing recently as "the lists of the past..." We've packed over 57 boxes of books so far, and have found (of course, did you doubt it?) an additional 6 boxes full to give to the church book sale in January. I have also noticed the cookbooks in the kitchen, and have wondered where the knitting books are. So we are not done with books.

F and I went through ALL of M's research and resource material, as well as manuscripts and drafts of her book. That has been reduced to half of its original quantity, which (though half is a big reduction) is still a lot of boxes.

P has packed many many boxes of china etc., and there is still more to come, but we have also given away a lot of dishes. It's harder when it looks familiar or I remember using it when I was a child...easier when it is ugly or otherwise immemorable.

I have looked through and organized much music (see my December 3 post), and have been able to give away some of it, earmark some for Batahola Cultural Center, and throw out partial copies of some things...surprisingly few partial copies, considering that much of the music is at least 50 years old, and most of it is more than 70 years old.

We have packed all beads (I think) and are in process of consolidating sewing tools, etc.

We have given away another bookcase and a set of drawers. We have an alarming amount of furniture and bookcases and filing cabinets yet to go.

Well, this account is breaking down in its clarity as anxiety begins to take over, so maybe I'll go pack something.

Dish 'n Dat

There was a neat little shop on Wethersfield Road on Natick (years ago) that Aunty J told me about. I hied myself thither and picked up such delights as a set of (now-identified and gone out of production) Towle flatware, some nice blue soup plates that we use constantly, and some fill-in pieces of my Arabia Valencia stoneware. I don't think it's there anymore, but it was fun while it lasted.

All this by way of trying to think about my china/stoneware/etc. obsession. We have worked our way through the nice white wedding Johnson Brothers stoneware (gone out of production/business long since) that I gifted to Kris years ago. I'm sure it's not around anymore.

And then the white Japanese china/stoneware that has the embossed calla lily on it...most of it also gone (it's lived in a house with twenty-something men for a few years).

I think my Valencia is my favorite...dark blue swirls that are reminiscent of the folk majolica in Valencia Spain...I never had a full set (the cups are dorky anyway) but white and dark blue always go together, and I have accumulated four of this yellow and white ware and four of that other blue and white ware, and now have an interesting set up. Cobalt blue and white go with ALL COLORS!!! hee hee

Martha Stewart made much one Thanksgiving of setting a table with all mismatched antique china. Well, mine is not so antique, but pretty well mismatched.

My love of many-colored china may have sprung from Uncle F and Aunt E's set of Fiesta Ware, back in the 1950s. I suppose they had it from before, when they lived in Indianapolis and Worcester, etc., but they moved to Portsmouth NH in 1947 (my year!) and that is where I knew them. Of course, we continue the tradition of place settings that have NO matching colors...I have nine colors of Fiesta, bought new a dozen years ago (I'm missing the newer color releases, if you're looking for something to burden me with...).

But back in the late winter last year, when we were packing up the china (well, most of it, anyway), I discovered that I actually DO have mismatched antique china on which to serve my "Martha" guests...both Grandmothers' china have landed in my china cabinet...neither set either intact or in production. I can identify both on Replacements Inc., but have no plans to fill out the sets. I also have a delightful chocolate set, possibly from the 1890s, and a pretty pink-blossomed tea or coffee set. I still don't know the difference, china-wise.

About the time we were packing things up, I tossed out the cats' icky plastic food dishes and began serving them twice daily on clean china...at first my grandmother C's, but now on Fiesta ware...much healthier for the cats. So the good stoneware and china that we don't use, our furry friends (the counter-culture) get to use.

I'm sure I'll think about china again, but for now, would you like that muffin on the GOOD old china?

The elephant is out of the living room

Actually, it isn't an elephant, it's a piano, and it wasn't even in the living room, because I don't think the beams would have held. 

But my childhood piano, the Hardman baby grand, has now embarked on its trek to its new home with Pete's family in RI.

When I was six, I started piano lessons, and, having no piano, practiced at the neighbor's. I do not recall the event of the upright piano arriving in our house, but I do remember that it lived in the dining room. Being a smallish dining room, the piano was nearly smack up against the corner of the room, leaving just enough space for a small child (me) to hide from our babysitter. THAT was a whole other story, involving police and never seeing the babysitter again...I think everyone was pretty upset. But I was only hiding, not running away.

Sometime after that, our friends the Harrisons were replacing their baby grand, and sold my parents the Hardman aforementioned for some small amount of money. Of course, we had to move it, and I do not remember that, either. But it took up residence in our living room, there being not enough room in the dining room for it along with a dining table. And there it stayed, until about 1973 or so, when Dad and V shipped it to me in Massachusetts. THAT was a big event, and I had a tuner come in and recondition it...at least to the extent that one can recondition a piano in situ. She said it was nearly concert quality, despite the cracked soundboard.

I don't remember how we moved it to our new house in 1976, but we did...I seem to CONVENIENTLY forget the heavy lifting, as befits the princess that I must appear to my public... LOL. And then, sometime in the late 1990s, we moved it to Portland. Well, we had its insides reconditioned (the technician removed them and took them to his studio in the back seat of his pickup truck) and new plastic keycaps to replace the split and missing ivories. And when we built the addition in the back of the house (with the only actually LEVEL floors in the whole place), we had movers move it from the front room to the back room.

So imagine my surprise when, upon my gifting it to our grandniece and nephews, their Dad and his brother came to move it in a U-Haul truck. They had carefully and thoroughly researched the project, and deliberately and painstakingly wrapped it, shrinkwrapped it, bound it to a piano dolly, and hauled it right out the back door on the truck ramp, which luckily fit right in through the back door!

I guess this post is in memory of my many happy hours at the keyboard. The sightreading exercises stood me in good stead for my amateur singing and my typing...my eye-hand coordination is super. I am sad to see it go out of my life, but happy for its sake...as it moves through its 9th decade on earth as a Hardman baby grand, it is going to a young woman who will play it every day, joyfully. I also hope that she will play duets on it with her brother. What fun.

I will content myself to again practicing at the neighbors' house...K has invited me to use her instrument, and I have started to imagine scheduling myself to do so. I will assuage the guilt I felt when I came across my old practice schedule (hardly filled in at all), and I am looking forward to it.

CAPITALS AT LAST!!!

No, this won't all be in CAPITALS, but I have wanted to quote Archie the cockroach for many years now... (thank you, Don Marquis!).

This is the premier entry for our Stroudwater 2 The Woodlands blog.

Even as I type, Philmar is packing yet more books for our big adventure/move from Maine to Texas. If you want to see what we're taking with us, go to www.librarything.com/catalog/zabeth69  Although there will be more, this is the bulk of our library. I think we have finally discovered what has been holding our house on its foundation...keeping it from floating off into the ether...books!