So, as I’ve hinted on Twitter (and freaked a few people out doing it — sorry about that) I’ve been in the middle of a big change. And unfortunately, it’s impacted my blogging frequency (though not so much the newsletter, hint hint). This situation of being very busy and less visible / available is going to get worse before it gets better, so I thought I would come clean about what’s been going on and lay out my plans through the solstice.
While everyone was locked down waiting out the pandemic, we listed and sold our little house in the city and had an offer accepted on a new much larger house just outside of town. The new house has enough room for multi-generational living, for my husband to have a fully functional forge (www.auleforge.com), and a large yard (a third of an acre) where we can grow more of our own food and have chickens and bees. It’s in a quiet neighborhood away from busy streets. It’s not a farm, by any means, but it’s a lot more space for all of us (that means the kid too) and it gets us closer to the life we want without an impact on our monthly budget (or my income).
I know that this sounds crazy. After all, people are confined at home, venturing our only under duress for critical activities. So how did this happen?
The last time we were house hunting was during Venus retrograde back in 2009 and while our house served us well for 11 years and got us through some difficult times, we’d been feeling like it was getting close to be time to move. We knew that we had one shot to do it and that it would likely be the culmination of the EBER project — but nothing had solidified. Then I joined the RSPM working focused on desire. It was a very powerful and positive working for me, and soon after I realized that what I really desired was more space for creative projects, more space for my husband to launch his business, more space for the kid to stay with us if he needed, more space for socializing, and more space for gardening. This was an early sticking point with our current house, which was in a great location and completely renovated, but also really tiny.
So I did this desire working and the next day, the kid said that he’d like to continue to live with us while he attends college locally for a year, but he feels incredibly cramped in our small space was thinking he’d need to get his own place. And the day after that, a colleague mentioned their excellent realtor… And from there it all just kind of came together.
Of course, it wasn’t entirely smooth. The day we were supposed to leave while the house got painted was the very day of the lock down. It was really disconcerting! We’d already packed a bunch of our stuff to put into storage for the painting and listing. Now we couldn’t move forward, but we also couldn’t live as usual. While everyone was getting all domestic our home life was up in the air.
After about a month, the housing industry began to adjust course based on the current circumstances. In addition to photos, we got full a 360 degree video walk-through, showings were confined to specific times with strict rules about how they were conducted, and there was lots of required mask wearing and disinfecting and the like. While showings were happening at our house, we were effectively homeless, driving around with the dogs in the car. We showed the house 20 times that first week, in three big chunks of time, and it was an exercise in discomfort frankly. But we got an offer and started looking ourselves.
The house we found was, appropriately, listed just after Venus retrograde, a revisit of what we really desire. I even got to write the buyers a note about our desire for this house and they actually accepted our offer over a higher one.
We’re not quite at the finish line yet, but most of the hoops have been jumped through, the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. With luck, we’ll be signing about three seconds before mercury goes retrograde and handing over the keys to our current house (to a lovely couple of first-time home buyers who are thrilled with our little house) just at the Summer solstice.
This is all great, but honestly, it’s been A LOT. A lot of work (and you know, we’re not as young as we were 11 years ago — how the fuck did that happen?) but also a lot of stress and uncertainty… during a time when certainty and calm stable at-home life is like THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER. There’s a lot of personal space invasion involved in selling a home. You have repair people and painters, then the photographer, then the open house (virtual live stramed), then the showings, then the inspection, and then the appraisal. It’s intense! Our joint quarantine plans with our son and his boyfriend really came in handy, as he could go stay at their house while all this was going on (they consider him one of the family, just like we do with their son).
This was also hard because I was keeping a lot of things close to the vest, while also blogging regularly and doing week in magic posts and dealing with a shockingly busy time at my my awesome day job. Oh, and rolling out the permanent version of the Planning is Magic course.
Obviously, some things have fallen through the cracks. And that’s going to continue in the run up to the big double signing and move (for which we have procured a crop young burly movers, who I hope will provide a scenic move day, wink wink). But I wanted to give you a status update, because I’m tired of not talking about it and having everything on hold.
First, the Week in Magic posts will relaunch soon with a new format. Frankly, I’d been getting a little bored with them, and want to expand what I include (more detailed spell-craft and ritual and the like). That’ll be more fun, but also a lot more work, so I’m considering that expansion under a Patreon or similar model, where the expanded versions can be had for a reasonable amount. The goal would be kind of a printable magical planner, with both a monthly overview and weekly suggestions for workings that you can adjust to your specific path and add to. Like a printable version of my Bullet journal with more detail. This will free up the blog to contain more general offerings on PMPM, habit formation, and expansion on the Mind Wars series.
Second, the move has pushed me deeper into magical habit formation and that will eventually become… something. Maybe a small course (more Lunation Rite than Planning is Magic) maybe a sharing and support group. I haven’t figured it out yet. But changing environments is a great time to change habits, and I’m going to really put my ideas on using magic to make habit change easier to the test.
The newsletter will continue. I’m continually gratified at the readership and the feedback I receive. One bit of feedback I’ve gotten is that my household magic posts are really useful and helpful. So what with moving into a new house, my newsletter readers will get more of that sort of thing, along with the 5 Things monthly magic posts and insider peeks into my habit formation work.
Finally, I’m still supporting my long range clients, who have been great about being flexible with my availability and who won’t have to be for much longer. Thank you all! I won’t be taking on any new clients or doing one off consulting until after the summer solstice.
Thanks all and wish me luck!
