Now back to the house. The move itself went off without a hitch. We settled in the new place quickly. The neighbors are friendly. The subdivision is very walkable. It has a duck pond and a little park. I’m walking distance from a variety of restaurants, a Trader Joe’s, and a Half Price Books. (In case you never see or hear from me again, you now know where to look for me.) I have a long list of changes to make this place truly mine—everything from hanging wall art to replacing the floors—and my goal for 2019 is to make a dent in that list.
Meanwhile, I still had ownership of my old place, and traffic was incredibly slow. I left for Scotland at the end of September with no prospective offers in sight. One very lowball offer came in while I was traveling, because why wouldn’t it? Another, even lower, offer came in after I got home. Both of those offers were so low that I would have ended up paying the buyer to take the house. I said “No thanks” to both. Then in early October, I got an offer I could live with. I quickly accepted it, and we agreed on a closing date of Halloween.
Instead of closing on Halloween, though, we got a series of requests for extensions. This went on for two weeks. Finally, on November 15th, the sale closed—with one hitch. The paperwork was all signed, but the funds transfer didn’t come through. Late the next morning, the money arrived and I was, at last, the proud and relieved owner of only one house.
That was about the time I was ready to collapse with relief, but I still had a monster of a project to deal with at work and a new employee to train, so it wasn’t really until this past week that I could truly exhale. Now, after a few cups of tea to unwind after the roller coaster of 2018, all I want for 2019 is a nice boring year.