Here's The Thing About Adventures...

Here's the thing about adventures....nothing is really planned and when you plan something, you don't expect that it goes the way you think it will.  And true to form, most of what we had planned this week....our first week of "The Adventure"...didn't go quite as we expected.  And with a healthy attitude of letting it all roll as it comes, we had very few meltdowns.  OK...*I* had very few meltdowns...The Cowboy never has a meltdown.  

We officially moved our bodies out of the house on Monday night, staying with dear, dear friends.  (Thank You, Zs!)  We spent our evenings saying good bye to as many as we could, and packed late into the night.  We had packers/movers at the house early in the week and by Wednesday afternoon....all of our worldly possessions, minus what we could pack into our little cars, were in storage.  We had a painter/handy guy patch/paint the walls where there were nail holes left behind.  Let me tell you, it pays to label paint cans and to keep a list of the colors you use throughout your home.  It saved us in many cases, but where it didn't...well...let's just say, it can be difficult to match a color, especially if you do something like a denim look on the walls.  You just can't successfully patch holes on a wall that has had some specialty painting technique.  As cool as it once looked....I don't think I'll be doing that again..ever.  Because of this, the painter took a lot longer than he should have.  Our fault, really, not his....he did a great job matching color/technique...but it looks somewhat patched...I cringe thinking of it.  

This doesn't looks so bad in person...but it is far from perfect.

I hope the new owners decide to strategically place pictures on this wall or just paint over it.

But I think this is one of the features they liked about the house, as they are renting it to 

college age guys.

The cleaners were there a lot longer than we expected, but it worked out okay and the house was cleaner than it was the day we moved in.  The carpet cleaners were late getting there making the Cowboy late for work and I had to take off to track them down, but again, we rolled with the punches and the carpet looked great.  Friday night, we shared a bottle of wine and said goodbye to our house that we made a home that became a house again this week...and now we look forward to our next home.

The last time my car will be parked in front of this house.  This is the first home we owned together.

Another unexpected thing that came up was when some jack hammer knocked off our mailbox...luckily our next door neighbors happen to be the best darn neighbors ever.  Since this happened after all our worldly possessions were out of our house and packed away in storage....we had no tools to fix the mailbox.  But our wonderful neighbor, who has done so much for us, came to our rescue one more time.  

Thanks, you jack hammer!  We appreciate it!

Harleigh, our bulimic cat, has been coping better than we expected.  I thought she'd be traumatized....

Proof that Harleigh can sleep anywhere.  She is unfazed!

Notice the tags/collar she is wearing.  She has never had a collar...but we had her chipped and got her a collar, on the off chance that she decides to venture out without our notice during this ordeal.  Cowboy wanted her to have a collar with a bell...she got a bell.  Really?  Mr. Manly wanted the cat to have a tinkle bell around her neck.  Are you kidding me?  He wasn't...so we bought it for her.  She hated it.  It scared the crap out of her every time she moved.  She would run through the house trying to get away from herself, nearly ramming herself into walls at speeds she hasn't moved to since she was a kitten.  She hid from us under the bed, scared of what fresh hell we'd put her through next.  We had to squirt her with water before she would come out.  She eventually got over it and it has helped us find her in interesting hiding spots in our friends house now.  Who knew that man was so smart?  (okay, I did, that's why I married him!)  Now she just scratches her neck constantly.  If you didn't know better, you'd think she had fleas or something.  No fleas...just a bell...around her neck...

We are now on a week of vacation, more or less.  Quin's grandmother passed away in March, at the beginning of this whole moving ordeal.  Now as it's coming to a close (more or less), we will officially say goodbye to Wanda, as she is being inurned at Arlington National Cemetery this week.  Our trip out here to DC went well, and we ran into Quin's Uncle and his wife who were on the second flight of our trip.  We had an enjoyable evening catching up with them over dinner and will see more family tomorrow for a bit of sightseeing together.  There were some initial plans for dinner, but nothing was solidified...so once again, we rolled with the changes and continued with the adventure.  

Now we are relaxing in our hotel...which is our home for the next few days.  I think this is the first time I have been able to sit down and not be continuously thinking of something that had to be done before we were officially homeless.  I enjoyed the day of travel, because it was an excuse to put on my noise-cancelling headphones (Dear God, thank you for Sony and their wonderful noise cancelling headphones.  It makes flying enjoyable!) and read.  Hours upon hours to read and escape.  And with that...I think it is time to escape again.