Yeah.  After last night's election results, I'm not even going to try.

Updates

 We sold our house without having to go through the formality of formally listing it. While we are absolutely delighted with the ease of the sale, it has started a stopwatch on our family. We are committed to getting out of our current home by December 30. With the stroke of the keyboard, our life plan became very real. 

I would feel so much better about this if we had a home to move to. It has taken a few weeks longer than we anticipated because we were looking in the wrong areas. Now that we have our future location narrowed to a few towns, the home search is yielding better results. At least the accelerated timeline has forced my attention away from the elections.

Speaking of elections, there is a lot at stake today. Please vote.

Hotdog!

 It was odd celebrating Halloween without Robby, but I refused to let my missing him deter from making it a special day for Timmy. From a special Chick Fil-A breakfast to homemade cookies for his Halloween party, I tried to infuse his day with little surprises. His bedroom was filled with giggles and shrieks throughout the afternoon as he celebrated Halloween with his classmates. 

I made "Monster Mash" for dinner while Timmy artfully carved his pumpkin. After watching the minutes tick down until 6 pm, it was finally go time. Timmy pulled on his costume and he and Scott headed out to trick-or-treat. (Unlike his brother, Timmy asked his dad to take him out of costume this year.)

For our first Halloween in this house, Scott and Robby dressed as hotdogs. Last night, for our final trick-or-treat on our little road, Timmy dressed as a hotdog. 

I like when things come full circle.

Happy Halloween

 Happy Halloween!

The holiday feels strange this is the first year for so many reasons, among them preparing to move and Robby going to college. I realized this morning that this has been the first Halloween since becoming a mom that I haven't had to tackle a costume for Robby. Thankfully Timmy is still a huge fan of trick-or-treating and has been planning the route for months. I'll unveil his costume tomorrow morning, but it is safe to say that he has stuck with his food theme.

Have a great holiday!

Pressure

 It seems that my new schedule now includes nightly trips to West Virginia to find a new home. I am trying to take the entire experience in stride. As soon as we discover our new home the constant trips will stop and I can concentrate on packing. Until then, the back-and-forth treks are necessary so we can discover the perfect new home for our family.

Thankfully, we selling our current home was considerably easier than we anticipated. On a lark we invited realtors in so that we could start to sort through the to-do tasks before listing. To our delight, we were offered as-is contracts.  As soon as we sign (which we plan to do on Halloween), the countdown starts. We will have 60 days to clear out the house and move.

 Talk about pressure!

Packing

 I spent the weekend packing (and purging) around the house. I started in my closet and, once finished, moved into the basement. I've been delaying conquering the basement because of the sheer quantity of 'stuff,' but it has turned into an easier project than I anticipated. Because I am not emotionally attached to the items in the basement, I found it easier generate a healthy donation pile.

I have been so productive with packing that I have now run out of boxes. I ordered more to be delivered later this week. I'm hoping that I estimated correctly and that this will be our final box delivery. In the meantime, I'm just going to continue to sort items into piles. I don't want to lose the packing momentum. 

While I have been busy packing and organizing for the move, Scott has been focusing on finding our new home. We have signed with a realtor and have packed schedule of walk throughs scheduled for tomorrow. Fingers crossed we have better luck this time!

Mountain Valleys

 Our house hunting expedition was not fruitful but we were successful in accurately identifying features that we don't like. Trying to remain optimistic, I keep reminding Scott (and myself) that we learned a lot and made progress towards our dream home simply by discovering where we do not want to live and what we do not want to have to manage in a house and yard. We were hoping to fall in love with one of the homes we saw yesterday but were instead left feeling deflated and worried. What if we never find a house as much as we have loved this one?

As it turns out, neither Scott nor I like 'mountain living.' We aren't fond of dirt roads that are relied upon by residents who live up the mountain.  Driving up the gravel and dirt roads, Scott and I couldn't help but focus upon how we would feel doing this drive several times a day. Not only would it be miserable, but our cars are not equipped to live up a mountain. We would need new 4-wheel drive vehicles, which would add to our expenses.

We are not mountain people, we are mountain valley people. We are now seeking a home that looks out at the mountains, not down upon them. Hopefully narrowing down this huge difference will help us find our home.

Wish us luck this weekend!