Yesterday was officially the first day of the week that i am officially moving out of my home of 13 years! So many little miracles (and big ones!) have happened since that fateful December day when friend S said “You could sell your house!” I was pondering the best way to support myself during this last third of my life as I grow my speaking/writing/consulting business on the theme: Making it Easier,™ and after the first shock passed, I realized he was right! A lot of my stress was coming from trying to maintain this house all by myself.
So I’m downsizing to a one-bedroom apartment in a lovely building in newly burgeoning South West DC (only 8 minutes from my beloved Capitol Hill neighborhood), and fulfilling a life-long (or at least adult-long) dream of living within a couple of blocks of the water! And even though time seems pretty tight (I don’t know how but I got myself booked to do three talks this week!) I want to share with you the many mini-miracles that are happening during this process. Staring with my house going to contract in two days, and to closing in five weeks!
This weekend’s mini miracles:
1) Even though four of the six people who promised to come help me during my “packing party” this Saturday had serious emergency reasons why they couldn’t come (funeral, broken down car, bathtub leaking into the condo below, and heating gone out, and I”m sorry for them, really!)we got it all done! Another angel showed up to join my sister, my friend A, and me, and we worked through the day, breaking for a scrumptious lunch from Taylor Gourmet. The kitchen, good china and “chatkes,” small art work, and books (I had already given away 8 boxes, but when I saw the remaining ones passing five boxes, I managed to give away two more!) are all packed!
2) My sister Clare is two years younger than I, and we used to fight all the time. Over the years, we’ve come to make peace with most of our differences, and now we really like each other. This angel came last Wednesday and stayed till Sunday to help me with this massive move – and we only had two little fights the whole time! And we had three very fun visits with mother, daughter, granddaughters and great grand babies who live here, and whom she does not get to see very often.
3) I kept going yesterday and last night (ok 2 this morning!) going through 17 boxes of “mementos, taxes, files from previous business efforts, and got it down to five. The rest occupied 2 large black bags of trash, and 7 tall kitchen bags of recycling. I had already filled my blue DC bin, and another empty one, and I wasn’t sure if they would pick up recycle from bags. When I got to the end of the alley, all the other recycle bins had been put out, and there was just enough room in all of them for me to add mine. I felt very blessed!!
Ok back to work – expecting more miracles for sure!
