Selling your house + moving = Total exhaustion

I don't have internet access at home right now so I'm not able to blog as much as I would like to about all that has transpired over the past week. Right now I'm sitting in the dark at my work office (which is a five-minute walk from my house). I came back here after to dinner because I had to get online to complete a transaction. I figured that I was here, so I really should write a quick blog post. So here goes!

This post is not going to be a masterpiece. I will be lucky if I make complete sentences (please pardon my errors). That is really what this blog is about. I am completely and utterly exhausted. The events of the past four days have left me in this state. And the glass of wine I had with dinner isn't helping. I have no doubt that I will recover, but there is a good chance it's not going to be this week.

It sounds like I'm complaining. I might be. I don't mean to be, but the reality of the last few days is that closing on a house can be a very stressful situation as can moving. I really had no idea. And it's the culmination of weeks, months even, of stress leading up to selling the house. Just because you come to an agreement on price, doesen't mean that things will be smooth sailing. You really don't know if the sale is going to go through until a week before close. Crazy!

On Friday, I was waiting to hear from my lawyer about the amount that I needed to bring to closing. Yes, unfortunately we had to pay to sell our house. When I did get the number, I will be honest here, I freaked. We didn't have it. I did not anticipate that I would have to have so much at closing. I'd run the numbers and come up with a very different amount. And even what I did have was not available. The transfer of funds I made from my IRA to my checking had not come through.

Thank goodness for dear old mom and dad. They really came through for me.

In a panic, I called them to see if there was any way they could transfer a large sum of money to my bank account to cover me for the bank check I need until my money came through. The could and they would. Even my sister pitched in. Thank goodness.

But there were other complications in the process - like when it seemed for a while that even with the fams money we wouldn't have enought at closing. All this while people were coming to pick up our washer and dryer and I'm thinking we if we can't close, we won't have any way to wash our clothes.

Other activities of the day involved paying off water and electric bills, calling and canceling other accounts, arguing with lawyers, going and picking up the Uhaul and, oh yes, packing. I'd left most all of the packing to Friday and then this closing thing took over my body and soul.

Story short (because I'm about to fall asleep here at my desk) is that the last few days were some of the most stressful and laborious (box after box to the 4th floor of our new building) that I've ever experienced. And the level of tiredness I feel is like nothing else I've known (because I've never had a baby), but it is now OVER and we are settling in to our new place. Ahhhhhh.

Here's the good news. We are thrilled to be out of the house and done with the whole process. And the best part of it all is really the view from our apartment. The water is beautiful. It's so calming. We left one beautiful place for another.

Now we have half the stuff (maybe even less than half) that we used to. We don't have a mortgage hanging over our heads and we have more free time to do the things that we love and are passionate about. Life is very good.

The move is just the beginning of this journey. We are excited about what the next chapter of our lives will bring.

Trying urban living for a change

It's time for a little urban living for the Black family. That's right, we are moving to the big city. No, not Boston. We are moving to Lowell. I'm smiling as a I write this because so many people have asked, "Why Lowell?" They just can't understand why we would move there.

In the words of the recent PR campaign for this very city, "There's a lot to like about Lowell!" It's really true. Ryan and I are more than an hour away from Boston right now and during the past five years have found Lowell to be a great option when we were looking for food and live music. They made so many great changes in the city starting with inviting artists in and turning many of the old mills into lofts or office space.

Here are some of the things we like about Lowell: Good restaurants (Life Alive, Mambo Grill, Blue Taleh, Centro to name a few), great outdoor seating (that can rival Newbury!), mom and pop coffee shops (Cafe Paradiso, Brewed Awakenings) a stellar concert series in the summer, the Lowell Folk Festival, the film collaborative, the Merrimack River, and more.

Perhaps the best part of living in Lowell will be what it will do to our commutes. If all goes as planned, I will have a five minute walk to work (no more driving!) and Ryan's commute will be knocked down to 15 minutes. Sweet!

We have a deposit down on a new loft apartment that overlooks the river. It's on the fourth floor and is a corner unit, so there are lots of BIG windows. The ceilings are 18 feet which will help to make the place feel bigger than it is (1,000 square feet). And did I mention that my work is a five minute walk away? Uh, huh. That's right. I'm doing a little dance right now.

It is going to be different for us. I will miss our beautiful piece of land here in the country. I'm listening to the crickets as I write this. No more big back yard (although there is a great park right outside our door that leads to a river walk that goes for miles). And no more back deck to chillax on.

I've never lived in an apartment complex that feels like a hotel. All those doors on the same floor. Thank goodness that they double soundproofed the walls at this place. I've heard bad reports about thin walls in these old mill buildings.

We are very excited about the new place. We are still in limbo until that financing for the buyers comes through. There's always that chance that we won't be going anywhere, but in the meantime we are purging (that's what my next post will be about) and spending a lot of time in Lowell getting ready for the change we hope to make in less than a month.

Trading Down

A few years back a book called Trading Up came out. I was taking a marketing class at the time, and while it was not required reading for the course, the professor suggested it as a "must-read." I have to admit that I did not read the book, but the title and the description always stuck with me.

The basic premise is that more and more people want luxury these days. And with more disposable income, (this was written before the current financial crisis) they are willing to spend more for perceived luxury. I certainly have seen this to be true for myself.

But today's economy has had its impact on all of us. In fact, it's the kind of economy that makes even the biggest spenders question their habits. It was the sudden and extreme drop in the stock market last fall that got me thinking more about simplicity. And it was the bad news that's been on the radio during my morning commute ever since, that has reinforced that this is the right way to go.

But it's really become more than that. Even if the economy were in tip-top condition, my mindset would stay the same. It goes to show that hard economic times can help us push the "reset button" and get in touch with some better ways of living our lives.

Borrowing the language of the book I mentioned above, I think that what my husband and I are doing now is "trading down."

We decided this past year that we wanted to sell our house. We didn't want to be slaves to a mortgage in such a challenging economy and we wanted to, once again, experience the flexibility of renting. Owning a house is a real time and money drain (although we thoroughly enjoyed it and will most likely own again). In addition to our full-time professions, we both have passions we are pursuing. For him, it's writing and for me, music. Renting would mean more time to do both.

Also, the opportunity to save money was very attractive. With the house, we have the mortgage (which is way more than we would ever pay for rent and very little of it is building equity) and then add to that the money we've put into the house over the past five years. We would continue to improve the house if we lived in it longer, so that would mean more money.

And then there is that little thing called freedom. At this point in our lives, we want to be free and flexibile to do what we want and/or need to, when we want and/or need to. To do this, we have to have a lot more saved that we do right now.

That desire for freedom is a big part of what motivates us to make our lives more simple. When you own a lot of things, you can be owned by those things. They can weigh you down.

One thing I haven't mentioned (but you probably know or have figured out) is that we don't have kids. This makes it really easy to make these kinds of choices. I'm sure it is more complicated when you have children, but I've heard plenty of stories that tell me anyone can simplify.

Our thinking is that we will rent for a few years and save as much as possible. We do have the idea of owning again, but we are talking about building a "green" house. That's the other piece of this equation-going green.

If I wrote this post well, it should communicate that there is not just one single thing that is motivating us to make this life change, but a perfect storm of things. I'm grateful for this storm, because it's helping us to make changes that we believe will result in a better quality of life in the years to come.