Our first mistakes: screwing up before we even get started.

Lesson one: do not underestimate the level of effort required to vacate your home of 22 years.

Lesson two: do not overestimate your capacity to vacate your home of 22 years.

Being very much a do-it-yourselfer, I, Yak, spent the three months prior to listing our home on the market dealing with deferred maintenance (did I mention that I like to Kayak?) and updates to our home.  I was tired of all the work, but I figured the house would be on the market for 4 – 6 weeks, giving us time to recover and get ready to move.  Our incredible realtor, Rista Taslim, had a contract for us in 6 days.  Now the work really began.   Our collective hobbies, plus the accumulated detritus of 22 years left a house full of stuff, all requiring careful dispositioning.  Some stuff had to go to storage near our soon to be former home, while we traveled about the country.  Some stuff had to go to Colorado, where we anticipate regularly returning during our walk-about years.  Some stuff would outfit our RV.  Some stuff just needed to go to Goodwill, or the Landfill.  My retirement came only two weeks before house closing.  Linda’s work continued.  The days were a blur.  Exhaustion and sleep deprivation during that last week led to a loss of higher brain function.  It was “fight or flight” mode, which did not always lead to the best decisions.  We were 21 hours late in vacating the house (at a penalty of $600) and we actually pushed some items up the driveway and into the street in front of the neighbor’s house in order to meet a deadline and avoid further penalties.  This was not my proudest moment.  However, the lasting memory will be of my dear friends, Stan and Karen Wallace and William Casaverde, with his helper Pepe, who came and helped us in our time of need.  William and Pepe were whirling dervishes (another good one to look up) in hauling and moving and clearing out.  Stan and Karen stayed long and late, with Stan staying until mid-night and showing up early the next morning, twice.  It is said that if you want to know who your friends are, ask for help moving.  What do you call someone who puts his life on hold for three days to help you out of a moving disaster that you created?  I don’t think we have that word in the English language.

Although we were out of the house by mid-night on closing day, it took 7 pick-up loads to clear the trash from the driveway the next morning.  I felt like I should get frequent flyer miles from the landfill.  It was a huge relief to be finished, done, and homeless.  That night was my first decent night of sleep in a week.  My Garmin fitness watch tells me that I averaged 3 ½ hrs of sleep each night that week.  I think it over-estimated.

I could list the many little things that happened along the way that turned our “retreat” into a rout.  Bottom line: things always go wrong.  As we said in the military, “the plan only survives until first contact with the enemy”.  We should have brought in more resources to keep things on schedule.  Linda encouraged this early on, but I only gave-in when the situation got dire.  We had the funds to do so, and many friends who would have gladly assisted if asked.  Conclusion: admit when things aren’t going to plan, and adjust early.  Pride often keeps us separated from smart.