Hello from the other side of the move.
Apart from some Twitter and the #RSPM road opening journey, I’ve been completely incommunicado for weeks. Apologies to the newsletter readers and folks looking forward to the Magical Planner launch. I’ve been so behind and stressed that I haven’t even managed to listen to the H2 Space Weather forecast with Gordon and Austin — which is pretty symbolic if you think about it (things have been too crazy to learn about the crazy space weather!).
Despite my excellent spreadsheet, it’s been crazy for weeks. And this past week was an utter blur, where every day lasted a year and yet went by incredibly fast. The first part of the week was frantic final packing and dealing with the money stuff. As usual, there was some last minute bureaucratic flailing (in my experience, buying and selling houses always involves some kind of crazy stressful nonsense at the last possible second) but we managed to sign the paperwork on Tuesday. Wednesday we got the key about 1 second before Mercury went retrograde and the boys went and camped in the new house overnight. Thursday was moving day, with a team of really cool movers and a large truck.
Despite their heroic efforts, we spent Friday through Sunday getting the last stuff out of the old house (mostly stray garage stuff and jeep-load after jeep-load of plants, more plants, and garden supplies). Saturday (Solstice / Eclipse) was actually the worst day with communication problems and stress galore. The new house felt chaotic and imposing, the old house felt sad, everything awful and off balance. Plus it rained like crazy the entire time we were trying to empty the green house and load plants — we were filthy and completely covered in mud! We were exhausted enough to actually hire someone to come clean the empty house, and boy that was money well spent. I wish we’d done the same in the new place because the previous owners weren’t nearly as thoughtful.
Sunday though was much better. We cooked our first food in the new house (damn we were sick of takeout) and celebrated a quiet Father’s day. The old house was officially handed over to the new owners and we made our peace with and said our goodbyes to our little Elf House. Despite no longer meeting our needs, it was a good solid little house for us for many years — good and bad — and I hope it’s that way for the new owners. The garden was the saddest thing to leave.
So yes, we moved house during a Mercury and Venus retrograde and seem to have survived with our goods and marriage intact. Interesting side note, my husband has the most difficult Mercury in the family and he was also most negatively impacted by the move (I broke his welder, he smashed his finger, a cabinet almost crushed him, etc.).
The last part of the move happens today, when the storage unit that we filled with all the things you pull out of a house before you list it (anything that indicates any kind of personality actually) will be arriving. So books, art supplies, pictures, and all my atropaics. This will be the fun part, despite the fact that there’s still a crazy amount of boxes to unpack and things to get for our larger house (prosaic stuff like more bathroom trash cans as well as larger stuff like a sofa). But the house it starting to feel the way I’d hoped.
We have these local friends who owned a house in the West Hills (TM) of Portland (had I should say, she got friend custody of us after the divorce). Gorgeous mid-Century modern style home on a hill with a wall of windows and a lovely quiet neighborhood. We used to jokingly call this house the “peaceable kingdom” based on the Adrian Belew song. We couldn’t have afforded that house (and still can’t), but we seem to have found our own Peaceable Kingdom. Quiet neighborhood, nice people, low traffic, plenty of space inside and out.
There’s a whole year of house stuff ahead of us already (garden stuff, organizing, getting some places to sit in our new larger space) but I hope things will start to calm down after this week and you’ll be seeing more regular updates. The next newsletter will be all about moving a magical household.
