A lot has happened in the few months since I've posted. With the pandemic still raging in the U.S., Paul and I are still being pretty cautious, but we've made some serious changes to our lives.
A few weeks ago I asked Paul, "so what's keeping YOU here, from moving close to Jenn, Dan & Ellie?" He said "you". I realized, although in my heart I knew it all along, that he wasn't complaining or even hinting at moving an hour and a half away because he knew how important my friendships were (and still are).
One of the things I do is once a month I get together with 16 ladies whom I'm close to and we play Bunco at each other's houses. We've been doing that now every month for over 6 years. We also play Left Right Center once a month, although there's usually just a few of us. We get together for lunch or dinner and go to craft shows together. We go to Kelley's Island together and play at one of the lady's houses on the island and party and have fun. I also have season tickets to Playhouse Square downtown Cleveland. And you know what? All of those things have not happened since February. Those things aren't happening but every other week we go out to the Toledo area and babysit the cutest, most precious grandchild ever!! We started doing that again in May or June. Every time we come home, my heart aches to be around her once again.
So, I've given it a lot of thought along with much soul searching and I've discovered that if we don't move out there we will miss a hell of a lot! Ellie is getting a brother in January!! I've decided that I want to be there for their soccer games, their school plays and recitals. Their needing someone to pick them up from school because they aren't feeling well. I don't want to miss a minute of any of it. I was lucky and blessed to have Logan and Emmy living here for a few years and I got to pick them up from the school bus and watch them in their school plays etc., but they moved back to Virginia Beach in 2014. 6 years ago and they were only 6 & 8. We still get to see them for a week or two each summer and I'm very thankful for that.
We've made the decision to move! At first we were going to have a house built but after discussing with the builder and not until we got the final plans (after putting a deposit on the lot) we discovered that it was just going to cost waaaaay more than we wanted to spend. Of course we didn't find that out until we gave them more money and then and only then was when they gave us the floor plans! We discovered several items we had on our list of must have's weren't in the plans and cost extra. We had no idea the kitchen appliances weren't even included!! So we nixed the idea of building and we did get our payment back for the plans although not for the lot. It was a small price to pay in the big scheme of things.
We've sold our house which I LOVE and always will. In the same week someone fell in love with our home, we found a house for sale only a 3 minute drive from Jenn and family we bought it! The great thing is it has 3 bedrooms on the first floor! Yay!
We close on our house on October 29th and our new house November 5th. It's been a whirlwind for sure! I'm going to miss our New Year's Eve parties in the basement with our friends and miss the barbecues, but we're only an hour and a half away! My friends and I drive further to play bunco on Kelley's Island every year. And I've also discovered since we sold our house, we've made many day trips out there. Like yesterday for instance we had the inspection at the new house. We met him at 10:00, went and visited Jenn and Elliott afterwards and we were home by 2:30. So it REALLY isn't that far. I plan on coming back for bunco and playhouse square plays etc.
I'm hoping Stephen realizes that we probably won't see any less of him than we do now. Plus we'll have a king bed upstairs for guests (hint-hint).
So, that's my BIG news.
Small news is I'm knitting our future grandbaby a blanket. It's a surprise so I can't show it here. I'm also knitting my friend Debra a pair of socks with this scrumptious bamboo yarn she picked out when we went on our trip last year to Kelley's Island. We always stop at this adorable shop that has some awesome yarns.
As always...thanks for stopping by.
