I'm sitting in the kitchen of my home in Vestal NY. Correction - the relocation company's home; we sold it to them and they in turn will be selling it to some buyers from Texas. Chris & I arrived here on Saturday to hang out with family for the weekend then meet the packers here on Monday. It's Wednesday and Chris has left for DC to work and I am here with the movers, watching them load our life onto a 40 foot tractor trailer.
I envy the Texas buyers - they have found themselves a great home (and got a great deal to boot, but that is a story for another day.) We started building this house in March of 2009 and moved in in August. We picked the tile and the countertops and the floor and the plumbing fixtures and the light fixtures and the toilet paper holders. We christened it playing beer pong, Civil War-style over Labor Day weekend, hosted Thanksgiving, and put a 15 foot tree in our great room that first Christmas. Then Chris's new assignment was offered: London for 2 years. Wow. In the year and 1/2 since Chris had started his job in Owego, the economy took a dive and projects were terminated. The areas of Owego & Binghamton NY were particularly hard hit, and jobs were lost. Thankfully Chris still had his job and the prospect of the new assignment was welcome - wherever it was. London was an amazing option, and we are still loving our time there and making the most of our remaining few months before our return to the US.
That return will put Chris in Bethesda, MD, however, not Owego, NY. Hence the sale of our house and the storage of all of our household goods in a warehouse in Northern Virginia. Before going back to London we'll be in DC on the back end of this trip continuing the house-hunting process. Our hope is to find something then that we can move into close to the time we come back for good at the end of August.
In the end, our tenure at this fabulous home in Vestal was 7 months. Despite the short stay we managed to have some great times here - mostly the family parties that we hosted just before we left and just about every time we came back to visit. If walls could talk, the ones at 130 Red Fox Run would certainly have a lot to say. Moving house is something of a surreal process, and despite our vast experience having done it, it doesn't get any less surreal, or emotional or surprising, especially when you can literally take inventory of all that you own right in front of your eyes. Do we really need that dog blanket anymore? Penny's been gone 4 years now. Curtains from 3 houses ago? Seriously? The packers this time around were unpacking and repacking boxes that we'd never unpacked ourselves after the last move. 3 years ago. What the heck is in there that wasn't important enough to unpack but important enough to keep? I guess I'll find out when we move into the new house. Which we have yet to find - but we will. It's there waiting for us to buy (or build) and I can only hope that it will be as fantastic as our 7-month house on Red Fox Run in Vestal, NY. Another chapter is over. And another just beginning... What do you think the chances are of unpacking all of the boxes this time?
