The trip south on the Dixie Highway

We'll be taking I-75 all the way from Michigan to our new hometown in Florida. We left a little late today, but traffic was light and we were able to make good time. We're almost to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Makes me think of Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam doing a "Gone with the Wind" type episode. Bugs Bunny says "General Suh, the Yankees are in Chattanooga!" Sam says "What!!! The Yankees are in Chattanoogee?!!!"

Moving Day

It's moving day in Erie, Michigan. I just got home from picking up breakfast at Tim Horton's. The moving truck is in front of the house and they had already started bringing things out of the basement and stacking them up in the driveway. I didn't recognize the workbenches standing up on end and thought they were some kind of crazy crates at first.

The moving truck crew is a jolly group. They're joking around and having pushcart races in the driveway. I can't believe all the stuff that's coming out of the basement. Where am I going to put all this stuff once we're in Florida where I won't have a basement?

We were up last night until 1:30am packing. I'm running on pure adrenaline and coffee.

Spring Flowers

My garden in Michigan is just starting to wake up. This is the first spring that the rock garden daffodils and irises actually bloomed together. There are also a few crosuses here and there. It is the last time I'll see them.

Damascus House

We're packing night and day. As I'm emptying cupboards and closets I keep finding more stuff that I don't really need to move with us. I've been accumulating household items and clothes all week. Today I took a car load to donate to Damascus House in Monroe, Michigan.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

More Donations

I took another load of household items and collectibles to the "Discovery Shop" yesterday. Today I took non-perishable food items to St. Martin de Poers in Toledo, OH. They have a program called "Food Pantry."

Sold a Bunch of Stuff

I started getting responses to the ads on Craigslist.org and AutoTrader.com already! Last night we sold the truck. We'll go to the SOS to do the transaction on Monday. The ad had been on AutoTrader.com for only a few hours.

Today we sold 3 out of 4 items that were listed on Craigslist.org since yesterday!

American Cancer Society

This morning I finally got some of our furniture and equipment listed on Craigslist.org. I'm a little behind schedule with selling this off and donating household items. I wanted to make sure I got those things listed before this weekend's web surfers started browsing Craigslist. Then I listed the truck at AutoTrader.com. We had some response about the truck from the Craigslist ad last week, but it hasn't sold yet. The truck is the biggest ticket item I have to sell before moving.

After lunch I started putting together items to donate to the American Cancer Society's "Discovery Shop" in Sylvania, Ohio. I already had a lot of items collected that I forgot to take on Thursday. I was amazed at how long it actually took to physically get the stuff piled up, boxed up, and loaded into the truck. It took all afternoon. I got to the "Discovery Shop" 1/2 hour before closing.

When I got home I found some plates in the kitchen I was going to donate. Whoops! Looks like I'll be getting another load together. Maybe I can find a charity closer to home. It takes about 1/2 hour to drive to Sylvania.

Alfonse started packing his workshop. He said that he worked on it all day and it didn't even look like he put a dent in it.

Sorting & Purging

The whole house looks like this. We're sorting and purging this week. That means we're sorting our stuff room by room and deciding what comes along and what doesn't. This weekend we start packing.

I don't clean all my dishes, pots, and pans anymore. Sometimes they just go in the garbage dirty. Ha!

Empty this house!

It was a busy day. I really want to start emptying the house of things we're not moving. I had collected items to donate to the American Cancer Society's "Discovery Shop" in Sylvania, Ohio. The stuff was ready to go. After making a delivery in Monroe for work, I had a quick lunch, loaded the truck and hit the road. When I got back I found some clothes still hanging in the closet that were supposed to go.

We had a father and son come over to see the truck this week. They found my ad at Craigslist.org. That's a free online classified service. They have web sites for different regions and cities. I'm bummed that I've been too busy to list the other stuff we want to sell. I was hoping to list it all last weekend and sell it off this week.

A Shack by the Sea

A 4 day visit to Grandma Apple's place in Florida turned into 6 days. We had the trip scheduled back in December. It just happens that we sold the house in Michigan the week before. We had to find a house this trip to be able to close on the transaction in Michigan in March. Otherwise, it would get pushed to the end of April. We really didn't want to make the buyers wait that long, because we didn't want the deal to cool off and not happen at all.

After looking at houses Friday and Saturday we found one near the Gulf that we were ready to write an offer on. I was so excited, because it was about 10 minutes from the coast. After we got an insurance quote for about $6,000/year we had to let it go. It was a disappointment, but $6000 could buy a lot of hotel rooms on the beach. On Monday we started looking further inland. I was feeling really discouraged. After seeing a few houses that weren't cutting it we went back to the realtor's office and changed the search parameters again. It seemed that what we needed to have in a house was going to be hard to find in Florida. The house up north has a workshop in the basement for the electronics business. Our garage houses some equipment for the business and a classic car. In Florida the homes don't have basements and don't always have garages. By the time we got back on the road it was mid afternoon. We had been through so many houses that they seemed to blur together. We told the realtor that if we didn't find anything by the end of the day that we'd have to book another trip to Florida next month.

We finally found a house late Monday afternoon. The house is beautiful inside and is move-in ready. No harvest gold colored 1970's tile in the bathroom to rip out, or avocado green kitchen cabinets to replace. Yeah!! There's a big shed out back with electric that is perfect for the workshop. The garage is big enough for the equipment and the hot rod.

By the time all was said and done we had seen almost 30 houses in 3 days. It was grueling, but it finally worked out. We're real happy with the new place. Now we have to get back up north and start packing.