Closing and Recollections

Another cabinet conquered and more boxes packed.  A bunch of stuff to throw away and another box started for Goodwill.  This seems to be the repeat pattern of life these days.  I'm not complaining, but find myself rather excited and full of anticipation because the plan we began way back in February is coming closer to fruition.  We've bought a refrigerator and as of last night a washer and dryer is added to the list of things to cross off the list of things that need to be taken care of for the move.  I'm glad that we've gone ahead and made theses purchases because nothing that we picked out at Lowe's were part of the in stock, next day delivery promise.  We would have been sorely upset if we had gone in on August 5 to buy these things only to find most items are on a 7-10 day waiting list.  We weren't even planning on going to Lowe's last night.  We had eaten dinner, gone to the Container Store and still had time before stores closed, so we headed over that way. 

Our sales consultant emailed this week asking for our electricity and insurance providers.  The closing date for our house is August 5.  We went out to the house late Sunday afternoon and were pleasantly surprised to see all the trim work up, doors hung, granite installed in the kitchen and in our bathroom and some of the detail features on the outside done.  Peggy came over and took the tour with us and then we met Bill and Peggy later for dinner at Fuddrucker's.  Fudd's have those new Coke drink dispensers where you have all kinds of choices and mixers to put into your soda water.  It was kind of cool. 

Of course Saturday was the wedding of the century for First Baptist...well, since I tend to hyperbole, maybe wedding of the decade.  John and Paige got married and the ceremony was beautiful.  It has to be one of my all time favorite weddings.  As a favor for friends, I volunteered to take back all the cake decorative pieces to Who Made the Cake.  Did that this morning and then ran a couple more errands before returning home...right before the rain shower.  Yesterday, I attended the funeral of a friend and former co-worker at HFBC.  Her funeral was so honoring to a life that glorified God. 

Tomorrow I'll meet David Bain out at our house to measure windows for blinds.  Another item to cross off the list.  Roy has booked our movers, got an electricity provider lined up, given notice to our landlords and booked the elevator here for the day of our move.  It's all moving along. 

I am reminded to stay in the moment of transition.  There are always joys we overlook when our focus is onto the next stage of the journey.  Of course sometimes it is easier to dodge the momentary transition vision because the very moment of time doesn't seem to possess joy but pure anxiety and aggravation.  Since several new families have moved into the condos in the past week or so, it has been easier to remember when we were so excited to make the move here.  We were so close to everything and we were just so sure we would be at Memorial Park every minute we could spare.  We've not spent that much time there.  I only stood out on the street the first two years we lived here to watch the trail riders mozy by on their trek to Memorial Park.  We even thought we would walk over to Uptown Park for dinner every once in awhile.  Never did it.  But we did ride our bikes all throughout the neighborhoods, we were thankful to be so close to church, we were just a hop, skip and a jump from the Galleria, Memorial City and Washington Avenue.  I have loved living here.  In the winter months when it seems everyone is more inclined to cook, the hallways were filled with delicious fragrances of dinner on the stove.  I was really glad when our neighbors who loved to cook corned beef hash moved.  We have seen the cyclical pattern of residents.  When we moved here, we were the young people.  Some of the old people who lived here when we moved in are no longer with us, whether their absence is due to moving on or passing on.  The man and wife who lived in the corner unit down the hall who never looked liked they loved each other anymore moved to Florida.  I found out quite by accident when I worked at that horrible company briefly in 1993, that the man down the hall was a Harvard graduate.  The crazy lady who lived downstairs finally had to be moved into assisted living.  This year Fern and Deloris have given up the pool domain.  They were fixtures every summer, spending almost every sunlit moment out at the pool.  The grouchy, older gay guys moved away from over the pool to a first story unit off the back.  Don't see them much.  The engineer who helped tremendously around here died in the spring. The mean lady down the hall has become friendlier over the years.  The crazy lady at the end of our hall had to move elsewhere.   Of course casserole lady is still around and from time to time I hear the loud talker out by the pool.  Seems like the condos are in a young people cycle, so maybe all the older ones have retreated until the next old person wave.  This was a respite from our townhouse that we lived in that quite unexpectedly became part of the hood.  We rented it out to others until we were able to finally sell it in 2004.  That is when we began to ponder moving.  The recession hit and it seemed to be a buyers market and we found ourselves finally ready to begin the arduous process of sorting, throwing, giving and packing.