Where am I?

My poor neglected blog. I have been wanting to write again, but I feel uncomfortable because my blog seems so scattered. Sigh. I'm going to try to just jump back into things, so if you have any questions, please ask.

Were are we right now? Still living in Maine, still in the house. We had the final, final, last lawn sale today. This time it really is the last one, because we were bought out! What a dream come true! Gary was just starting to put things out for free on the corner when a couple (regulars!) came and bought some things, then asked how much we wanted for everything. We threw out a price and they said they would think about it. They returned not much longer, bought a few more things, then gave us the difference to make the agreed upon amount and started loading up. Gary and I joked that we should have paid THEM to take everything as it really did relieve us of such a HUGE burden. So, no more lawn sales.

We took the house off the market with the goal of renting it. The timing seemed to be off for renting, and we just didn't feel good about it, so we decided for now to keep the house and re-evaluate in the spring. We literally don't have anything for winter, so we must be somewhere other than here.

This process has changed me in ways that I cannot yet articulate. When we began to rid ourselves of all worldly possessions my biggest fear was getting stuck in the middle of the process. I felt like I could stay where I was with all my stuff, or come out on the other side with none of my stuff, but I didn't want to get caught in the middle with some and not all of my stuff.

Originally we were pushing to be out of the house for the summer. It felt like I was killing myself getting things out of the house. Then everything all summer was on hold because of the lawn sale. If it was a nice weekend, we had to stay home and sell, and we couldn't make any plans. That was really hard and made me feel very out of control. The date was pushed up for leaving, but still the house was in chaos. All energy going to getting it ready to be rented or sold, getting things ready for the sale, and very little energy going toward daily maintenance because there was just no energy left over. At one point I complained that I was missing the baby days of my very last baby and I just wanted to slow down and enjoy.

So here I sit. In the middle with some and not all of my stuff. It isn't as bad as I had imagined it to be, but I still feel just out of sorts. I don't quite have my balance in this new (partially material-less) location and I just feel sort of off. The lawn sale was very overwhelming for me so I spent most of my time inside cleaning. It feels really good getting the house back into order a little bit. For a long time I was being brutal in my purging, and now I'm not really sure what my relationship to material goods is. Need it, want it? I'm figuring it all out.

Anyway, that's sort of where we are at. We hope to leave soon. Most of the major hurdles have been crossed. We have a few more project that need to be completed but they are scheduled. Right now we are hung up on a tow vehicle. There are few makes and models that can be flat towed, and so far NONE of them seem to be 8 passenger models. We aren't sure if we should keep our van and store it (probably not), trade it in (for what?), or sell it outright (not sure what we would drive around in). Everything is complicated. If you have any suggestions for a tow vehicle, PLEASE share them!

Thanks for reading!