Waiting. But Not Idly. Part 2

We put the house on the market on a Monday. That Friday as I was driving to Florida for vacation I signed the sales agreement via docu-sign. I would have three weeks from the time I returned from Florida to the time we closed to pack and move not just but the Lee and I, but three kids as well.

About a week into the trip I received a phone call from my mom. She has a small cottage on her property in Rhode Island that she has been renting out for a decade or so.

"My tenants are going to move out at the end of May. Do you know anyone who might be interested?" she asked. Believe it or not, I didn't jump on it. She wanted a year's commitment on a lease. Minimum. Our future was up in the air. Would we be renovating the cider mill soon? Living the van life? There wasn't any room for the kids there, either. (That seemed like a plus and a minus simultaneously.)

The rental market was hot. Year-round rentals were scarce and rentals for people with two dogs were even scarcer. Appointments were being made for showings. Lee was the one who ultimately made the decision. “I think we should take your mother’s place,” he said. “Where else are we going to go?”

When he put it like that and that reality set in, well, what else was there to do? As you can see from the photos it’s hard to imagine we had to think about it for more than a second or two.

The kids made plans; James rented a place in Charlotte, NC via zoom, Danielle made plans to move to Rhode Island, and Robert moved to upstate NY for the summer. He has since found a new job and is in agreement to purchase a house in Richmond, VA. They are all where they want to be. So maybe the moral of the story here is to kick the damn birds out of the nest and they won’t crash. They’ll take flight.