My apologies for disappearing for so long. I can't believe that my last post was almost 2 weeks ago!
I've been fully engulfed in the throes of house selling--cleaning, planning, getting the pups out of the house during showings, etc. The house has been on the market for 1 week and we've had a number of showings, which my agent assures me is appropriate for our price-point. Until a final contract is signed, I am not going to say much more about the process, but we are happy with how things are going up to now.
One of the things that has been rattling around in my head is just how we've gotten here.
When C and I met, I owned a little 3 bed/2 bath house; it was new construction and the perfect size for a single woman in her mid-20s. C and I dated for 4 years and shortly after we married, I sold that house and we bought our first home together. We found a small neighborhood that was currently building new homes and we picked all the things that we wanted for our lives there. It was a great house and where we brought all of our children home. As you can imagine though, what was perfect for 2 people became a little small for 5, so we moved again.
That move, we bought a behemoth in the "right" subdivision. We were living large, literally, in 7000 square feet with full swim and tennis amenities in the community. While we met a few great people there, the neighborhood wasn't really a good fit--which was apparent when only 2 of my neighbors stepped up to help when I was in the middle of chemo. There were plenty of reasons to move, but the thing that finally had us put the FOR SALE sign in the yard was the drive to the boys' school. As I've mentioned, traffic in Atlanta is something truly awful. At the time, we were living about 15 miles from the school that the boys attended and I had them piled into the car every morning at 6:40 for an 8:00 start time. There was one week in January 2013, when C was out of town for business and it rained every day, and every day I had to walk the boys in because they were tardy. Yes, 15 miles took more than 80 minutes to drive.
I remember the call to C very well:
"I'm done and I can't do this any more."
"What are you talking about?"
"I've sat through this same traffic light 3 times because people keep blocking the intersection and the boys are going to be late to school again. I've had it, we have to move."
"Alright, call the agent and figure out what we need to do to get the house ready for the market."
We had the house up in 2 weeks, and we were under contract in 3 weeks. We ended up renting the house back for a little bit because there was no inventory in the neighborhood that we wanted to move to, and despite the delayed move, we were still in an apartment for 8 months before we found a house.
Which brings us to our current place.
I love, love, love my house; it is similar in style to my childhood home and it is warm and comforting to me. We live around the corner from the boys' (now former) school, but the wooded backyard makes me feel a million miles away from the hubbub of suburban Atlanta. I will miss our home. Yes, I do realize that we could keep it and rent it out, but I've done the long-distance landlord thing before and it didn't go well. Not only that, if we return to Atlanta the house will be too big for us. So, selling it is the right thing for us to do.
My hope is that whomever buys our home that it continues to be filled with much joy, love, and laughter.
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